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Kling 4.0 Flash is open to everyone at $0.094 a second, and 720p is the price

Kling opened its fast 4.0 tier to everyone on Wednesday at an API list price of $0.094 a second, exactly 40% under full Kling 4.0. Flash stops at 720p and 20 seconds, drops end frames and voice cloning, and bills edits on twice the output length. Kling 3.0 without audio is still cheaper, and the app credit price is unpublished.

Drafted by The Generated · Filed by The Generated
Gai Kun, chief executive of Kling AI, speaks into a microphone on a dark stage in front of a large green-lit Chinese slogan at the Kling 2.0 launch in Beijing

At 15:00 UTC on Wednesday, Kling's account on X told its 138,000 followers that the fast version of its newest video model was no longer a perk. "Kling 4.0 Flash is now available to everyone on the Kling AI website and via API," the post said, adding access through MCP, a command-line tool and plugins for Photoshop, Premiere Pro and After Effects. The post carried a launch graphic but did not mention a price.

The price was waiting on Kling's developer rate card, and it is the reason this launch matters more than most. Flash costs $0.094 for each second of video at 720p, exactly 40% less than the full Kling 4.0 model at the same resolution. That number holds up against Kling's own pages, and it also comes with three conditions that decide whether Flash is a cheap way to work or just a cheap-looking line on a price list.

What opened on Wednesday

Flash first appeared on Monday 28 September, when Kling announced Kling 4.0 and gave the faster tier only to subscribers on its top Ultra yearly plan. Kuaishou, Kling's parent company, dates the official launch of the full model to Thursday 15 October. Kling AI has also had its own chief executive since the end of September: Zhidx and DoNews reported that an internal Kuaishou announcement moved Gai Kun, the senior vice president who led the model's development, into the job.

Wednesday's change is about access. Kling's API changelog (the log for developers who call the model from their own software) has a matching entry dated 4 November. Flash makes clips of 3 to 20 seconds at 720p, from text, from a single first frame, or from Omni references: up to 10 reference images, five reference videos and 15 inputs in one task. Native audio stays, and the Flash Omni endpoint has an audio setting that defaults to generating sound and can keep the source clip's audio instead. By the end of Wednesday, fal, Runware, each::labs and other resellers had listed it too.

Kling describes Flash as "designed for high-frequency creative experimentation and short video creation." Read as a spec, that means drafts, iterations and short vertical work, with finished shots still rendered on the full model.

What $0.094 buys, and what it gives up

Kling bills Flash and Kling 4.0 per second of video, in units. Its API price list converts them to dollars, and the Flash rows are simple: 0.6 units a second at 720p when no video goes in, which is $0.094. There is no 1080p or 4K row for Flash at all. Kling's usage guide and every Flash endpoint accept 720p and nothing higher.

  • Model, as listed (API list prices, read Thu 5 Nov 2026): Kling 4.0 Flash, 720p, no input video. Per second: $0.094; 20-second clip: $1.88
  • Model, as listed (API list prices, read Thu 5 Nov 2026): Kling 4.0, 720p, no input video. Per second: $0.157; 20-second clip: $3.14
  • Model, as listed (API list prices, read Thu 5 Nov 2026): Kling 4.0, 1080p, no input video. Per second: $0.235; 20-second clip: $4.70
  • Model, as listed (API list prices, read Thu 5 Nov 2026): Kling 3.0, 720p, no native audio. Per second: $0.084; 20-second clip: $1.68
  • Model, as listed (API list prices, read Thu 5 Nov 2026): Kling 3.0, 720p, with native audio. Per second: $0.126; 20-second clip: $2.52
  • Model, as listed (API list prices, read Thu 5 Nov 2026): Kling 2.6 and 2.5 Turbo, 720p, no native audio. Per second: $0.042; 20-second clip: $0.84

Those are list prices for developers, and Kling's own developer store doesn't sell them by the second. Buying Flash directly starts with a $500 prepaid pack of 3,250 units, valid for 180 days with no rollover and 20 jobs running at once. At that pack's unit price Flash works out to about $0.092 a second, and $500 buys roughly 90 minutes of plain Flash output. Creators who don't want a $500 commitment can pay per second through resellers such as Runware and fal, with Runware listing Flash from $0.094.

What the lower price takes away is control. Next to full Kling 4.0, Flash drops first and last frames, multiple keyframes and voice cloning, and its clips stop at 20 seconds instead of 30. If a shot depends on landing on a specific end frame or on a cloned voice, Flash cannot do that job at any price.

The edit rate that looks cheaper and isn't

The rate card has a second Flash line that is easy to misread: 0.4 units, or $0.063, a second when the job includes input video. That covers editing a clip, using a reference video or bringing in a video character. The catch is in how the seconds are counted. If the input is as long as the output or shorter, Kling bills the output length twice. If the input is longer, it bills input plus output.

Run the numbers on a common job and the discount flips. A 10-second Flash clip from a prompt or a first frame costs $0.94. A 10-second Flash edit of a 10-second source clip costs $0.063 times 20 seconds, or $1.26, which is about a third more. A 20-second reference clip driving a 10-second output bills 30 seconds, or $1.89. One small account on X put it more briefly than Kling does: "Compare total units, not just the rate."

Flash is not the cheapest Kling

The 40% saving is measured against the full model, and that is the right comparison for someone already paying for Kling 4.0. It is not the whole menu. On the same price list, Kling 3.0 without native audio costs $0.084 a second at 720p, and the older Kling 2.6 and 2.5 Turbo cost $0.042. Flash does undercut Kling 3.0 with native audio, at $0.126, so the honest pitch is a newer model with sound at a lower price than last generation's sound tier.

Across the market the picture is mixed and hard to compare like for like. Flash at list comes to about $5.64 a minute. On the Artificial Analysis text-to-video leaderboard, read on Thursday, MiniMax H3 at 768p lists at $4.80 a minute and Seedance 2.5 at $34.12, though those figures mix resolutions and providers. The same board has no score for Kling 4.0 or Flash yet, so every claim about Flash's quality today comes from Kling or from creators Kling has promoted.

The price most creators pay is the missing number

The weakest link in the cheap-Flash story is that $0.094 is a developer price. Most creators use Kling through its website and app on monthly credit plans, and Kling doesn't publish how many credits a second of Flash costs on any page we could read without logging in. One secondary blog put it at about six credits a second, which on Kling's Standard plan would be cheaper than the API. We could not confirm that figure, so it isn't the basis of anything in this piece.

Kling hasn't published speed figures either. It says Flash generates fast but gives no timings, and the only number we found was one Japanese user on X who timed a 5-second clip on fal at about 78 seconds. That is a single anecdote, not a benchmark. We also have not tested the Premiere and After Effects round trip, which at least one creator on X called the real headline of the launch.

Our take

Flash is a good deal for one workflow: drafting a shot many times at 720p, with sound, before paying full price for the take that works. A 20-second Flash draft costs $1.88 at list, against $4.70 for the same length on full Kling 4.0 at 1080p, so a creator can try a vertical or microdrama shot five times for the price of two finished takes. For editing existing footage, for anything that needs a fixed end frame, or for masters above 720p, check the units before trusting the headline rate.

Timeline

  • Date: Mon 28 Sep 2026. Event: Kling 4.0 announced; Flash opens to Ultra yearly subscribers only; Source: Kling blog
  • Date: Wed 30 Sep 2026. Event: Internal announcement makes Gai Kun chief executive of Kling AI, as reported; Source: Zhidx; DoNews
  • Date: Thu 15 Oct 2026. Event: Official launch of the full Kling 4.0 model, per Kuaishou; Source: Kuaishou release, 16 Oct
  • Date: Wed 28 Oct 2026. Event: Kling 4.0 API fully available, up to 30 seconds at 720p and 1080p; Source: Kling API changelog
  • Date: Wed 4 Nov 2026, 15:00 UTC. Event: Flash "now available to everyone" on web and API, plus MCP, CLI and Adobe plugins; Source: Kling on X; Kling API changelog
  • Date: Wed 4 Nov 2026. Event: fal, Runware, each::labs and others list Flash; Source: Partner posts on X
  • Date: Thu 5 Nov 2026. Event: Rate card and prepaid packs re-read; no Kling 4.0 or Flash score on Artificial Analysis; Source: kling.ai; Artificial Analysis

Sources and what is unconfirmed: Kling's X post of 4 November; Kling's API changelog, API price list, Kling 4.0 and Flash usage guide and Flash endpoint pages; Kling's developer pricing page and membership page, read on 5 November; Kling's 28 September launch blog; Kuaishou's 16 October release; Zhidx and DoNews reports on the Kling AI leadership change; Runware's and fal's listings; the Artificial Analysis text-to-video leaderboard, read on 5 November; X API searches on 4 and 5 November. Unconfirmed: the web-app credit cost of Flash, render times, quality against full Kling 4.0, and the Adobe plugin workflow.

Your Voice

The Premiere plugin is the real headline. Once generation sits on the timeline next to the dialogue and music tracks, it stops being a demo and becomes part of the cut.

@pablogimenezz on X

I animate my CLO3D garments with Kling 4.0 and the fabric movement is the best I've tried so far. Curious how Flash handles cloth and folds compared to the full model.

@Wilhelm_grehl on X

It’s expensive,slow,inefficient (adding shots that weren’t requested, ignoring the provided templates, inserting unrequested audio). Only 1 out of every 5 generations is even remotely usable. You burn through your credits!

@ZeGoodSide on X

Flash first opened to Ultra Yearly subscribers only on Sept 28. Kuaishou dates the full Kling 4.0 launch to Oct 15, with native 30-second clips and up to 15 reference assets.

@thePandaily on X

Quoted from public posts on X and credited by handle. If one of these is yours and you want it removed, message @the__generated on X and it comes down.

Got something to say? Tag @the__generated on X