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What a 30-second AI launch video actually costs in 2026

OCT 08 2026 · 4 MIN READ · THE CODE IN MOTION JOURNAL

Ask three agencies to quote a 30-second launch film and you’ll get three very different numbers, plus a discovery call, a creative fee and a timeline measured in weeks. That spread exists because traditional video is priced by the day: crew days, edit days, revision days. You’re paying for time, and nobody can tell you upfront how much of it your film will need.

Where the money goes in a traditional production

Before a single frame is shot, there’s concepting, scripting and storyboarding. Then come the location, talent, crew and kit for the shoot, followed by editing, colour, sound design, voiceover and licensed music. Each round of revisions reopens part of that chain. Most of the cost is coordination, getting the right people and equipment in the same place at the same time, rather than the footage itself.

What changes when the crew is a set of models

An AI-directed pipeline collapses that coordination into software. At Code In Motion, the Director writes the script and storyboard, casts a specialist model for each role (video, voice, music) and checks every output before it’s assembled. There’s no shoot to schedule and no edit suite to book, so the cost tracks the one thing you actually care about: how much finished video you get.

The per-second maths

That’s why we price by the second, like tokens on an AI platform. A 30-second launch film costs:

$60, in Full HD, vertical or horizontal. New customers get 50% off their first 3 videos, so their first one is $30.

The script, storyboard, voiceover, original music, verification and one repair loop are all included. You buy seconds upfront via PayPal, the minimum order is 15 seconds, and the finished MP4 typically lands 3–5 hours after payment clears.

What you should still budget for

Time to write a good brief. That’s the one input no pipeline can replace: knowing who the video is for, what it should make them feel and what they should do next. Spend twenty minutes on that paragraph and the rest of the cost becomes predictable to the cent.