Veo 3.1 vs Kling 3.0 vs Seedance 2.0: features, limits and price

Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0 and Seedance 2.0 all make vertical video with sound from a text prompt or a still image. They differ in how long one clip can be, what you can feed in as a reference, and what a second costs. This article lines those up from documentation and a price list. It does not rank quality, because we have not run a benchmark and we will not invent one.

Features and limits side by side

Veo figures come from Google's Veo 3.1 documentation. Kling and Seedance figures come from the endpoint documentation on fal (Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.0) and from ByteDance Seed. Limits can differ by provider, so confirm them on the host you plan to use.

What the differences mean for a Reel

Clip length sets your shot count

A 30 second Reel needs four Veo 3.1 clips, or two from Kling 3.0 or Seedance 2.0. Reels cut often anyway, so 8 seconds is workable. The cost is in keeping a character and a setting consistent across clips you stitch together.

Reference inputs decide how much control you get

Seedance 2.0 accepts the widest set of references in the documentation: up to 9 images, 3 videos and 3 audio files. Kling 3.0 lets you define characters or objects as elements and refer to them in the prompt. Veo 3.1 takes reference images too, but only for 8 second clips. If you need the same person in every shot, check this row before you look at anything else.

Audio is built in on all three

You can get dialogue, effects and ambience without a separate audio tool. Kling documents Chinese and English speech and says other languages are translated to English, which matters if your voiceover is in Turkish, Spanish or Japanese. Plan on adding that voice in your editor.

Availability needs a check

Google says the Veo 3.1 preview models in the Gemini API shut down on October 22, 2026, and points to Gemini Omni Flash or the generally available Veo 3.1 models on its enterprise platform. The generally available Veo 3.1 page lists a retirement date of November 17, 2026 or later, and fal lists its Veo 3.1 endpoints as deprecated on November 17, 2026. If you build a workflow around Veo 3.1, confirm it will still be offered when you ship. Kling now also lists Kling 4.0 on its site, so 3.0 may not stay the newest option either.

Price per second and per Reel

Resolution is not equal across rows, so compare like with like. Standard tier Kling at 720p and Seedance at 720p sit near each other per second, and a 1080p Veo 3.1 clip costs more than either. The pricing tool lets you switch resolution, audio and provider, and shows the cost of any length.

Three briefs, three different answers

A single product on a clean background. You need one strong shot of a few seconds, so clip length hardly matters. Start from price and resolution, and judge the cheapest tier of each model on your own product.

A founder or creator who appears in every shot. Consistency is the problem. Look first at which model lets you pass in the same reference images or an element for that person, and keep every clip short enough to stay within that model's limit.

A scene with dialogue and ambience. All three produce audio, so test how each handles the language of your script. Kling documents Chinese and English speech only, so for other languages plan to record the voice separately.

Image to video is the cheap lever

Each model can start from a still image, and Veo and Kling can also take an end frame. Generating a still first, approving it, and then animating it gives you control over composition before you pay for motion. It is also the simplest way to keep a look consistent between clips: use the last frame of one clip as the start of the next.

How to choose without a benchmark

1. Write down the shot you need. If it needs one person across ten shots, start from the reference inputs. If it is a single product close up, clip length and price matter more.
2. Run the same prompt on two models at the cheapest resolution. Judge the results with your own eyes against your own brief.
3. Check the price before each run. A 15 second clip at 1080p costs more than twice what the same clip costs at 720p.
4. Render only the winner again at full quality.

Where Raytake fits

Raytake is a Mac app that makes short videos through a chat with an AI assistant. It shows each model's price before it runs, and it asks you to approve still frames before paying for video, so the trial and error in the list above happens at the cheap end.