Two more Chinese video models publish capability, not a price

The figure or the record

Two more Chinese video models compete for the same production pipelines as Kling. Hailuo, published by MiniMax, presents itself on its own site as 'H3', built around what the page calls native multimodal generation and template-driven effects for transformation and music-video style clips. MiniMax's own corporate site names the underlying video model 'Hailuo 2.3' and states it produces native 1080p output for both text-to-video and image-to-video. Vidu, published by Shengshu AI, presents its current models as Vidu Q3, described as having high prompt-understanding audio generation, and Vidu S, which it calls the first real-time interactive video model; Vidu's own page states outputs run up to 1080p and 16 seconds.

What the documents establish

Both companies describe capability in detail and sell access in credits rather than currency. MiniMax's site carries structured pricing data marking Hailuo as 'Free - Custom': a no-cost tier exists, and anything beyond it is negotiated rather than posted. Vidu's site states plainly that all users receive a set amount of free credits to generate videos at no cost, and points to its pricing page for the fuller schedule; an archived capture of that pricing page, dated 30 August 2026, distinguishes three credit types in its published FAQ — subscription credits that expire after 30 days, purchased credits valid two years, and bonus credits earned through events. Neither company's own page, as retrieved, states a currency price per second or per clip of the kind Kling and Runway publish.

Scope and caveats

What a producer actually buys from either platform is a credit balance, not a metered API price, and the exchange rate between credits and cash sits behind a login this record could not open. The 'H3' label on Hailuo's marketing page and the 'Hailuo 2.3' label in MiniMax's own structured data are not obviously the same designation; this record states both as written rather than assuming they describe identical software. Neither page states a launch date for its current model, so no single day anchors this entry; it describes documentation as it stood on 16 September 2026.

What to watch

Editorially, the absence of a published unit price is itself informative: it suggests these two platforms compete more on free-tier reach and template variety than on a transparent cost-per-second a producer could budget against, unlike Kling's archived API card.

• Do Hailuo or Vidu publish an API rate card anywhere comparable to Kling's, once a user is logged in?
• Does 'H3' refer to the same model MiniMax's structured data calls 'Hailuo 2.3', or a distinct successor?
• How many credits does a typical vertical-drama shot actually cost on each platform, and what does that convert to in cash?

A model that publishes capability but not price still has a cost; it is simply one a producer discovers only after signing in, which is a different kind of transparency from a posted rate card.