Runway AI Explained: Models, Plans, Credits, Terms and Provenance Facts

Runway is a video and image generation platform whose credit-based plans, mix of in-house and partner models and broad training licence all need to be understood before a team adopts it. Runway is a generative media company whose web and mobile app and developer API produce video, images and audio from text, images and video, using its own Gen-4.5, Gen-4, Aleph 2.0 and Gen-4 Image models alongside partner models from other providers. Its newest in-house video model, Gen-4.5, was announced on 1 December 2025. This page sets out the models, plans and credit costs, API pricing, provenance and moderation, data handling and terms, and the limits Runway itself states. It is written for creators and content teams, developers evaluating the API, and the security, privacy and procurement teams who approve AI tools.

Last checked: 2026-11-15.

This is an independent reference page from NHI Mgmt Group based on Runway's public documentation as of November 2026; it is not sponsored or endorsed by Runway or any other provider. Product features and prices change, so confirm them against Runway's current documentation.

Key takeaways

• Four consumer plans. Free, Standard ($15 a month), Pro ($35) and Max ($95), with lower per-month prices on annual billing, as listed on Runway's pricing page on 15 November 2026.
• Everything is metered in credits. Gen-4.5 costs 60 credits per 5 seconds in the app, and API credits cost $0.01 each, so Gen-4.5 on the API works out at 12 credits, or $0.12, per second.
• Partner models sit beside Runway's own. The app and API list models from Google, ByteDance, Kuaishou and others, each with its own credit rate.
• Outputs are yours, but inputs may train models. Runway's terms say it claims no ownership of inputs or outputs and does not restrict commercial use, and that inputs and outputs may be used to train and improve its AI models.
• C2PA is implemented. Runway's safety page says it implements C2PA so that AI-generated content can be traced back to its source, and it offers a Verify Content Credentials page.

What is Runway?

Runway is an applied AI research company that builds generative video and image models and sells access to them through a creative app and a developer platform. The app runs in the browser at app.runwayml.com and on iPhone and Android. Runway's research pages describe Gen-4 as a model built for "media generation and world consistency", Aleph as an in-context video model for editing and generating video, and Gen-4.5 as its "most advanced video generation model". Paid plans also include an agentic creative collaborator, App Studio and Runway Ads, according to the pricing page.

Runway's domain moved from runwayml.com to runway.com: research pages at runwayml.com now redirect, while the app and developer documentation still use runwayml.com hostnames. Allow-lists and network controls should cover both.

Key facts

As of 15 November 2026.

Models and versions

Gen-4.5

Announced on 1 December 2025, Gen-4.5 is described as improving motion quality, prompt adherence and temporal consistency while keeping the speed and efficiency of Gen-4. Runway lists physically plausible motion (weight, momentum, liquids, hair), multi-element scenes, expressive characters, and a range from photorealistic to stylised animation. At launch it was available on all paid plans at pricing Runway described as comparable to Gen-4, and Runway said it would bring existing control modes such as Image to Video, Keyframes and Video to Video to Gen-4.5. Enterprises can request a custom Gen-4.5 model through a form.

Gen-4 and Gen-4 Turbo

Gen-4 generates consistent characters, objects and locations across scenes from reference images, can regenerate a scene from several angles, and needs no fine-tuning. Runway's Gen-4 page does not carry a release date. Gen-4 Turbo is listed on the API at 5 credits per second.

Aleph and Aleph 2.0

Aleph, announced on 25 July 2025, edits an input video: adding, removing and transforming objects, generating new camera angles and changing style and lighting. Aleph 2.0 is the version now listed for pricing, at 140 credits per 5 seconds in the app and 28 credits per second on the API (model id aleph2). Runway's site navigation links an Aleph 2.0 page; a release date for Aleph 2.0 is not stated on the pages reviewed for this guide.

Gen-4 Image, Act-Two and other in-house models

Gen-4 Image (8 credits per 1080p image in the app) and Gen-4 Image Turbo (2 credits) are Runway's image models. The API also lists Act-Two (5 credits per second) and muse_image (1 credit per image).

Partner models

Runway also resells models built by other providers. These are plain listing facts from Runway's own pricing pages, not a comparison.

The API pricing page also lists further image models with partner or third-party origins, including gpt_image_2, seedream5_pro and ideogram_4_5. Each partner model carries its own provider's behaviour and limits, so check whether a project's approval covers the specific model, not just "Runway".

Benchmarks

Leaderboard positions move as new models are added; the figure above is a dated snapshot quoted on Runway's Gen-4.5 page, not a current ranking.

Pricing and plans

Consumer plans as listed on runway.com/pricing, 15 November 2026 (USD, before tax).

• Standard: no watermarks, 4K upscaling, up to 3 projects, music, voice and sound effects generation, access to all video and image models.
• Pro: unlimited 4K video upscaling, up to 5 projects, 1 brand kit, 1 custom voice clone, Runway MCP, top-up credits at any time.
• Max: everything in Pro plus up to 10 projects, up to 3 brand kits and voice clones, early model access, HDR, ProRes and image sequence export, and rollover of unused credits for up to 1 month.
• Free: a selection of models and a one-time 125 credits.

How credits work

• Reset: Standard and Pro monthly credits reset within 24 hours of the billing date; Max credits roll over for one month.
• Top-ups: extra credits are bought from Plans and Billing with a 1,000-credit minimum, and purchased credits never expire.
• Plan changes: upgrades take effect immediately and are prorated; on a downgrade the unused balance is credited to the next billing cycle.
• Worked example: at 60 credits per 5 seconds, Standard's 625 monthly credits cover roughly 50 seconds of Gen-4.5 video, and Pro's 2,250 cover roughly 3 minutes, before any retries.

API pricing

Developer credits are bought per project in the developer portal at $0.01 per credit, with sales tax where it applies. Selected per-second rates as of 15 November 2026:

Partner model rates on the API vary with resolution, audio and input video length, and some carry promotional discounts with end dates, so build cost estimates from the live pricing page rather than a snapshot.

Features

• Generation modes: text to video, image to video, keyframes and video to video (control modes named on the Gen-4.5 page), plus reference-driven consistency in Gen-4.
• Editing: Aleph 2.0 for in-context video edits; 4K and Topaz upscaling on paid plans.
• Audio: music, voice and sound effects generation from Standard upwards; custom voice clones on Pro and Max; text to speech at 1 credit per 50 characters.
• Agents and integrations: Runway MCP on Pro and Max lets AI agents call Runway; the API serves applications directly.
• Workspace: projects, brand kits and parallel generation limits scale with the plan.

Runway MCP and API keys are non-human identities with spending power: a leaked key can burn prepaid credits and generate content under the organisation's name. Store them in a secrets manager, scope them per project and rotate them. See the AI Model Provider API Keys Leak Response Guide.

Availability

• Apps: web app plus iPhone and Android apps.
• API: self-serve developer portal with prepaid credits per project.
• Enterprise: sales-led, with a custom Gen-4.5 model on request and a banner offering up to two months of free usage for enterprises that sign by 31 December.
• Regions: a country list is not stated by Runway on the pages reviewed.
• Plan limits: partner model access, voice cloning, MCP and HDR export depend on the plan, as listed above.

Provenance and labelling

Runway's safety page states: "We implement C2PA so that AI-generated content can be traced back to its source." The pricing page footer links a Verify Content Credentials page. Runway's Gen-4.5 page shows a "Generated with Runway Gen-4.5" label on sample output. The safety page does not describe an invisible watermark, and the Standard plan is listed with "no watermarks", which refers to a visible mark on exports.

• Metadata can be stripped: C2PA manifests survive only where the file is not re-encoded or the platform preserves them, so keep the originals.
• Disclosure is still the publisher's job: laws such as EU AI Act Article 50 place labelling duties on deployers of deepfakes. See the EU AI Act Article 50 Transparency Obligations Guide.
• How C2PA works: see the AI Content Provenance and C2PA Guide rather than repeating it here.

Moderation and likeness

Runway says it uses AI-based classifiers to scan user inputs and generated outputs for potentially harmful content, with human reviewers handling user reports and suspension appeals. Accounts that repeatedly trigger moderation or upload unlawful content can be suspended automatically. A separate usage policy sets the rules. Specific likeness or public figure rules are not described on the safety page, so teams generating realistic people should set their own consent rules and read the usage policy. Video that imitates real people is a fraud vector; see the Deepfake and AI Impersonation Guide.

Data and privacy

The terms and the data security page describe training in different ways, and a training opt-out is not described in the terms reviewed. Organisations with confidential inputs, such as unreleased product imagery or staff likenesses, should confirm in an enterprise contract how training use applies to them before upload. Customer SSO and SCIM are not named on the data security page; ask sales, and read the AI Acceptable Use Policy Template for staff rules.

Release history

Runway's Gen-4 page carries no release date, and earlier model generations are not listed on the current pricing pages, so they are left out of this table.

Limits

• Causal reasoning: effects sometimes appear before their causes.
• Object permanence: objects can appear or vanish across frames.
• Success bias: actions succeed more often than they should.
• Credit ceilings: monthly allowances do not roll over on Standard and Pro, and the Free plan offers a one-time allowance only.
• Price drift: partner model prices carry dated promotions, and plan feature lists change.

Practitioner checklist

• Record Runway, and each partner model in use, in the AI system inventory with plan, owner and approved use cases.
• Decide whether section 4.4 training use is acceptable for each data class before staff upload inputs, and settle it in contract for confidential material.
• Keep API keys and MCP credentials in a secrets manager, one per project, with spend alerts on prepaid credit balances.
• Keep original exports with their C2PA Content Credentials, and label AI-generated video where law or policy requires it.
• Write consent rules for generating realistic people, voices and voice clones.
• Request the SOC 2 Type II report and ISO/IEC 27001 certificate from the Trust Center and review the subprocessor list.
• Allow-list both runway.com and runwayml.com hostnames where network controls apply.
• Re-check plan prices and partner model rates before budgeting, as promotions have end dates.

Standards and references

• Runway: Pricing
• Runway API: Pricing
• Runway: Introducing Runway Gen-4.5
• Runway: Introducing Runway Aleph
• Runway: Introducing Runway Gen-4
• Runway: Safety
• Runway: Data Security
• Runway: Terms of Use

Related NHI Mgmt Group resources: AI Image, Video, Voice and Music Models Hub · AI Content Provenance and C2PA Guide · AI Model Provenance and Watermarking Guide · Shadow AI Policy Template