Kie.ai and APIMODELS solve the same problem: getting Veo, Kling, Seedance, GPT Image and Suno without an enterprise contract with each model maker. The choice comes down to price per model, API ergonomics and what each catalog includes. Kie.ai sells credits at $0.005 each, lists 113 model groups and 524 priced items, and runs every generation as an async task. APIMODELS bills in dollars per image, per second or per million tokens.
On Google and OpenAI media models APIMODELS is lower. An 8-second 1080p Veo 3.1 Fast clip is $0.07 here against $0.325 on kie.ai; standard Veo 3.1 at 1080p is $1.00 against $1.275 for kie’s Quality tier; GPT Image 2 is $0.025 / $0.03 / $0.05 at 1K / 2K / 4K against $0.03 / $0.05 / $0.08. Nano Banana Pro is $0.08 per 1K–2K image against $0.09, and Seedance 2.0 is 3–4% lower here. All kie.ai prices were read from its pricing data on 6 October 2026.
The API shapes differ more than the prices. Kie.ai exposes Claude at /claude/v1/messages, GPT at /codex/v1/responses, and OpenAI chat completions only on per-model paths. Here every LLM answers on one base URL in OpenAI, Anthropic or Gemini format, and image models can return the picture in one synchronous call. Media results stay downloadable for 30 days here, against 14 days on kie.ai. Neither platform charges for failed generations.
The Kie.ai column comes from kie.ai, docs.kie.ai and the pricing data behind kie.ai/pricing, checked on 2026-10-06; sources are at the end of this page.
| APIMODELS | Kie.ai | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Multi-model API gateway, prices in USD per call or per token | Multi-model API platform, prices in credits ($0.005 each) |
| Model coverage | 149 models: 40 video, 37 image, 49 LLM, 21 audio, 2 embedding (October 2026) | 113 model groups and 524 priced items across image, video, music and chat |
| Failed requests | Never charged | Not charged |
| LLM endpoints | One base URL: OpenAI /v1/chat/completions and /v1/responses, Anthropic /v1/messages, native Gemini | Per family: Claude at /claude/v1/messages, GPT at /codex/v1/responses, chat completions on per-model paths |
| Image and video jobs | Async with polling or callback_url; images can also return in one synchronous call | Async only: create a task, then poll or receive callBackUrl |
| Callback signing | Not signed yet (put a secret token in the URL) | Optional HMAC-SHA256 signature |
| Result retention | 30 days | 14 days for generated media |
| Payment | Card (Stripe), PayPal, Alipay, USDT; top-ups from $10 | Card, PayPal, crypto and others; credits do not expire |
| Free credit | $0.10 for consumer-email sign-ups | 80 credits (about $0.40) for new users |
USD, checked on 2026-10-06. Kie.ai lists Veo per video (4, 6 or 8 seconds at one price); Veo clips here are always 8 seconds with audio. Kie.ai marks its Seedance 2.0 prices as beta, and its Seedance Fast and Mini prices were a limited-time discount ending 7 October 2026, so those two are left out. Seedance on APIMODELS is billed by tokens; the per-second figure is the 16:9 equivalent.
| Model and unit | APIMODELS | Kie.ai | Lower price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Veo 3.1 Fast, 1080p with audio, per clip | $0.07 (8 s) | $0.325 | APIMODELS |
| Veo 3.1 standard (kie: Quality), 1080p with audio, per clip | $1.00 (8 s) | $1.275 | APIMODELS |
| GPT Image 2, 1K / 2K / 4K, per image | $0.025 / $0.03 / $0.05 (medium) | $0.03 / $0.05 / $0.08 | APIMODELS |
| Nano Banana Pro, 1K–2K, per image | $0.08 | $0.09 | APIMODELS |
| Seedance 2.0, 480p / 720p / 1080p, per second | $0.092 / $0.197 / $0.492 | $0.095 / $0.205 / $0.51 | APIMODELS (3–4%) |
Choose kie.ai for the wider Suno and Runway toolset. It serves Suno V6 with stems, persona, cover, extend and MIDI, plus Runway Aleph, Topaz upscaling and Veo 3.1 at 4K; we serve Suno v4 and v5 song creation and Veo up to 1080p.
Choose kie.ai if you want signed webhooks and credits that never expire. Its callbacks can carry an HMAC-SHA256 signature, while ours are not signed yet; its FAQ says credits do not expire; and new accounts get 80 free credits to test with.
fal.ai suits teams that also need serverless GPU deployment or LoRA training.
OpenRouter suits LLM-first teams that want provider routing and zero-data-retention controls.
Replicate suits teams that deploy their own models with Cog alongside official ones. Each of the three has its own comparison page, linked at the bottom.
Moving from kie.ai is mostly renaming. A kie task, POST https://api.kie.ai/api/v1/jobs/createTask with a model such as kling-3.0/video and an input object, becomes POST https://api.apimodels.app/v1/video/generations (or /v1/images/generations) with the model id and its settings at the top level of the JSON body: kling-3.0/video becomes kling-v3, and kie’s Veo 3.1 tiers map to veo-3.1 (standard, 1080p), veo-3.1-fast-fhd (Fast, 1080p) and veo-3.1-fast-hd (Fast, 720p).
callBackUrl becomes callback_url, and polling moves to GET /v1/video/generations?task_id=…; finished files are listed in resultUrls for 30 days. Field names inside a model family can differ, so check each model’s docs page before switching traffic.
For Claude, replace https://api.kie.ai/claude with https://api.apimodels.app as the Anthropic base URL. For GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek and the rest, use the OpenAI SDK with base_url https://api.apimodels.app/v1 and either chat completions or responses; one key and one base URL cover all of them.
| Fact | Source |
|---|---|
| Credit value and price list | kie.ai/pricing (and the pricing data it loads) |
| Veo 3.1 | kie.ai/veo-3-1 |
| Seedance 2.0 | kie.ai/seedance-2-0 |
| GPT Image 2 and Nano Banana Pro | kie.ai/gpt-image-2; kie.ai/nano-banana-pro |
| Suno | kie.ai/suno-api |
| Failed tasks, free credits, expiry | kie.ai FAQ |
| Async API, callbacks, retention, LLM endpoints | docs.kie.ai |
| APIMODELS prices | apimodels.app/pricing and each model page |
cURL
# Before (Kie.ai): POST https://api.kie.ai/api/v1/jobs/createTask
# {"model": "...", "callBackUrl": "...", "input": {"prompt": "..."}}
# After (APIMODELS): model and settings at the top level; callback_url instead of callBackUrl
curl -X POST https://api.apimodels.app/v1/video/generations \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $APIMODELS_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "veo-3.1-fast-fhd",
"prompt": "Drone shot over a misty pine forest at sunrise, birdsong",
"aspect_ratio": "16:9",
"callback_url": "https://your-app.example.com/hooks/video?token=RANDOM_SECRET"
}'
# → {"data": {"taskId": "..."}} 8 s, 1080p, with audio, $0.07
# switch "model" to "veo-3.1" for the standard tier ($1.00)Python
import requests
# One-call image: OpenAI-style size and no callback_url, the response carries the image
r = requests.post(
"https://api.apimodels.app/v1/images/generations",
headers={"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIMODELS_KEY"},
json={
"model": "gpt-image-2", # 1K $0.025 / 2K $0.03 / 4K $0.05 (medium)
"prompt": "Flat-lay of a leather notebook, brass pen and espresso on oak",
"size": "1024x1024",
"response_format": "url",
},
timeout=300, # GPT Image 2 can take about two minutes
)
print(r.json()["data"][0]["url"])On the Google and OpenAI media models most people come to kie.ai for, yes. Checked on 6 October 2026: Veo 3.1 Fast at 1080p, $0.07 per 8-second clip against $0.325; standard Veo 3.1 at 1080p, $1.00 against $1.275 for kie’s Quality tier; GPT Image 2, $0.025 / $0.03 / $0.05 at 1K / 2K / 4K against $0.03 / $0.05 / $0.08; Nano Banana Pro at 1K–2K, $0.08 against $0.09; Seedance 2.0, 3–4% lower at every resolution. The gap is widest on Veo 3.1 Fast and on GPT Image 2 at 2K and 4K, so those are the workloads where switching pays off first. Kie.ai’s Veo prices are per video, the same for 4, 6 or 8 seconds; ours are fixed 8-second clips with audio.
Both run generations as async jobs and neither charges for failed ones, so the differences are in the details. On APIMODELS, many models fail over automatically between more than one upstream route, callbacks are retried three times and then for up to 30 minutes, results stay downloadable for 30 days, and GET /v1/records/{id} shows the exact charge for any call. Kie.ai can sign its callbacks with HMAC-SHA256 (ours are not signed yet), reports the credits consumed on each task, keeps generated media for 14 days, and documents a limit of 20 new generation requests per 10 seconds per account. We do not publish an uptime percentage; the reliable test is to run a slice of your own traffic on both before moving volume.
Replace createTask with the endpoint for the model’s type: POST /v1/video/generations for video, /v1/images/generations for images, with the model id and settings at the top level of the JSON body instead of inside an input object. Rename the models: kling-3.0/video becomes kling-v3, and kie’s Veo 3.1 tiers become veo-3.1, veo-3.1-fast-fhd or veo-3.1-fast-hd. Rename callBackUrl to callback_url, or poll GET /v1/video/generations?task_id=… and read resultUrls. For LLMs, point the Anthropic SDK at https://api.apimodels.app instead of https://api.kie.ai/claude, and the OpenAI SDK at https://api.apimodels.app/v1 for everything else. GET /v1/models lists every model id, no key needed, so you can map ids before switching.
Kie.ai sells credits at $0.005 each; its FAQ says credits do not expire, a $1,250 top-up adds 10% bonus credits, and new users get 80 free credits, about $0.40. Its billing page takes cards, PayPal and crypto among other methods, and its FAQ says it supports invoices for business users. APIMODELS bills in dollars, so prices need no conversion: top-ups start at $10 by Stripe card, PayPal, Alipay or USDT, packages from $50 add a 2–5% bonus, card payments are invoiced automatically (with your company tax number if you add it), and new accounts on consumer email domains get $0.10 of trial credit.
Not the same set. Kie.ai lists Suno V6 (it marks V5 as discontinued), with stem separation, persona, cover, extend, MIDI and mashup endpoints, and it offers Runway Gen and Runway Aleph. APIMODELS serves Suno v4 and v5: full songs with vocals and lyrics from an idea or your own lyrics, instrumentals, sound effects, continue, cover and voice personas, with two variants per run, and it does not offer Runway. If stems, MIDI or Runway are part of your pipeline, kie.ai covers that today. If you mainly need songs alongside Veo, GPT Image or Claude on one balance, APIMODELS covers it with one key.
If you use several model families, APIMODELS: every LLM answers on one base URL, https://api.apimodels.app/v1, through OpenAI chat completions or responses, and Claude also through the native Anthropic Messages API at https://api.apimodels.app, which is what Claude Code, Cursor and the Anthropic SDK expect. Switching from Claude to GPT or Gemini is a change to the model string. Kie.ai splits the families: Claude on /claude/v1/messages, GPT and several others on Responses-format paths such as /codex/v1/responses, and chat completions only on per-model paths, and its docs note that some chat endpoints are not yet adapted for agent use. If you only ever call one model family and its endpoint fits your code, that split matters less.
