Runway vs Udio Comparison 2026
Both cover ai video & voice. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
Generative video with an editor around it
Generate a track when licensing one is the bottleneck
At a glance
- Udio starts cheaper, at $10.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Runway | Udio | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $15 | From $10 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Monthly or annual |
| Free trial | None | Not stated |
| API | Yes | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Not stated |
| Their cut | None | None |
| Runs on |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Runway
Generative video with an editor around it
Runway is where the frontier video models arrive with a timeline attached, so a generated shot can be trimmed, upscaled and cut against footage you filmed. Credits are the unit of everything, and they go faster than the plan names suggest. Read the credit cost per second before picking a tier, because the gap between plans is nothing like the gap between prices.
Our note
Work out how many seconds of your chosen model each plan buys before subscribing, because the answer is usually smaller than the credit numbers suggest. Runway is the right pick when the shot cannot be filmed. For talking-head video from a script, Synthesia and HeyGen cost less and do it better.
Only on this side
- Covers video editing
Udio
Generate a track when licensing one is the bottleneck
Udio makes music from a text prompt, which for a creator is less about writing songs than about clearing the last thing standing between a cut and an upload. Credits buy generations, and the free daily quota is enough to hear whether the output suits the format before any money moves. The paid tiers raise the monthly credit allowance and the free trial has its own limits, so read what a plan actually includes before treating it as unlimited.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.