Pika releases H3 Flex as a free download but keeps 4K finishing on its own service
Pika's H3 Flex, a retrained version of MiniMax H3, is free to download and makes 480p and 768p clips with sound. Upscaling to 4K and separate sound tracks only run on Pika's own service.
Pika has released H3 Flex, a video model that makes clips of up to 15 seconds with sound, and anyone can now download the files and run it themselves. Read what the download includes before the headline numbers, because the parts filmmakers would finish a film with stay on Pika's own service.
The free download makes clips at 480p or 768p, with the sound mixed into one stereo track. Upscaling a clip to 1080p, 2K or 4K runs only on Pika's service. So does splitting the sound into five separate tracks (dialogue, score, effects, Foley and ambience) and the tool that rewrites your instructions.
Flex is not a model Pika built from scratch. Pika calls it a retrained version of MiniMax H3, a video model MiniMax released for free download in July. What Pika changed is speed and control: Flex makes a clip in six steps instead of 50, and one run can take up to 12 guides, with up to nine pictures, three video clips and three sound files.
The speed claim needs its small print. Pika says a 15-second 768p clip can come back in as little as seven seconds, but its own footnote says that figure counts only the model's core computing time in a controlled test, not the full wait. Pika also says Flex ranks first among downloadable models on DesignArena's text to video leaderboard, a launch-day snapshot.
Running it yourself is not cheap. Pika tested it on an Nvidia H100 with 80 GB of memory, the longest 768p clips did not fit without moving work onto the computer's main memory, and the files take up about 211 GB of disk.
The license allows commercial use with two strings attached. A business making more than $20 million a year needs written permission from MiniMax, and any commercial product built on it must show the name MiniMax H3 on screen.
Our take: free files that anyone can build on are a real gift to developers and research teams. For filmmakers, Flex is a fast sketchpad, and the finishing work still happens on Pika's service. It reaches Pika's own app on Nov 2.
Source: Pika blog, Hugging Face release page and license, Oct 29, 2026.
