Update: I’ve revised this post from its original version, to reflect changes to Google’s AI Ultra plan, which increased monthly credits from 12,500 to 25,000 for and made Veo 3 Fast generations free in Flow for Ultra subscribers (changes implemented in August 2025).

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If you’re thinking about using Veo 3 to generate videos, or aren’t sure about the economics of credit usage, this post is for you.

Be aware: “Veo 3” the AI video generation model, and “Veo3.ai” the website, are not the same thing. One could cost you a lot more.

“Veo 3” = an AI video creation model made by Google.

“Veo3.ai” = A website NOT affiliated with Google, and may be a scam site based on user reports.

If you’re a business owner or marketer who wants video ads made with Veo without dealing with the confusion around access, pricing, and scam sites, I do this for clients. See examples of what I’ve made or get in touch.

The backstory to this post is that when I started making AI videos for a client, he asked me to use Google’s Veo 3 video creation model. Seems simple, right? But even figuring out how to sign up—and where—was confusing.

The economics were also unclear. There appeared to be ways of generating videos for free, or with credits bought from Google, or through third-party sites running the Veo 3 model, also using credits, but not affiliated with Google.

(Credits = what you can use to pay for a video generation. These aren’t a universal monetary standard, so how much actual money a credit costs, and how much it buys, varies between companies that use credits.)

I was hesitant to sign up for anything without research ahead of time, because in 2024 I subscribed to a bad AI service, and had to change my credit card number to keep them from billing me.

Here’s the long version of what I found when researching these questions.

No Free Access
Free Gemini accounts don’t get Veo 3 video generations.

If you subscribe to Google AI Pro, you get three Veo 3 “Fast” video generations per day through the Gemini app.

With the Ultra plan, you’re bumped up to five generations per day.

In the Gemini app, these generations don’t cost credits, but you’re capped at those daily limits. 

Want more? You’ll need to use Google’s Flow tool, where generations use credits.

Using Your Google AI Ultra Credits
When you subscribe for Ultra, you’re given 25,000 credits per month. As credits aren’t directly used in the Gemini interface, to generate more than five videos a day you need to sign into Google Labs Flow. Here you can generate as many videos as you want until your credits run out, and then you can buy more.

Third Party Sources
As I mentioned, using the Veo 3 model is sometimes available through sites not affiliated with Google. For example, LTX Studio offers this. You pay them their subscription fee (varies by plan), and then they meter your access to Google’s model. As far as I know, LTX Studio is legitimate, and I’m sure there are others.

Before I did all this research, though, I was confused by Veo3.ai. They say they aren’t affiliated with Google, but that’s a pretty spot-on name that comes up easily in the search results. They say they use Google’s model and sell a credit package for $49.99, which seems like a lot less of a risk than signing up for Google AI Ultra at $124.99 per month.

I found too many sources indicating that Veo3.ai is a potential security risk to use to sign up for them. But let’s say they’re legitimate. Are they offering a good deal?

To answer that question, we need to figure out how much money a credit is worth.  

If you sign up for Google AI Ultra, for the first 3 months of your subscription at $124.99, you get 25,000 credits per month.

At this price each credit costs you 0.5 cents.

When you are using your credits in Flow, the usage depends on the model you pick, and number of outputs per prompt generation.

You can choose between four models:

Veo 2 – Fast (10 credits per output)
Veo 3 – Fast (0 credits per output)
Veo 2 – Quality (100 credits per output)
Veo 3 – Quality Beta (100 credits per output)

For the purposes of this post, we don’t need to get into the weeds over all the differences between these options. It’s enough to know that Veo 2 – Fast is the most primitive and doesn’t create audio, while Veo 3 – Quality Beta is the fanciest and creates audio. Videos made with it are probably what most people who are trying to get access want to do.

For each model, when you enter a prompt, you can have the AI generate between one and four outputs. Because each output is a little different even with the same prompt, generating several at once can save time because you’re more likely to get something you like. However, if there’s a problem with the prompt, it can be costly to find that out from four bad outputs at once.

Here is a breakdown of how many credits you can spend, depending on your settings:

Veo 2 – Fast (10 credits per output)
1 output: 10 credits
2 outputs: 20 credits
3 outputs: 30 credits
4 outputs: 40 credits

Veo 3 – Fast (0 credits per output)
This is anecdotal, but in my experience the quality of these outputs noticeably dropped when they were switched from their old cost of 20 credits to being free.

Veo 2 – Quality or Veo 3 – Quality Beta (both 100 credits per output)
1 output: 100 credits
2 outputs: 200 credits
3 outputs: 300 credits
4 outputs: 400 credits

Each output can be as low as 0 credits or as high as 400, depending on your settings. At $0.005 per credit, you’re paying between $0.00 and $2.00 per generation.

When the 3-month promotional period ends for Google AI Ultra and the price doubles from $124.99 to $249.99, the credit usage stays the same—but your cost per credit doubles from $0.005 to $0.01.

Now, each generation will cost between $0.00 and $4.00.

How does Veo3.ai stack up? Their cheapest monthly plan is $49.99 for 7,500 credits. Keep in mind these are credits to use through their website, not interchangeable with Google’s credits. However, that’s a cost of $0.0067 per credit, about 33 percent cheaper than Google’s $0.01 per credit.

According to Veo3.ai, there are two options for a Veo 3 model video generation:

Fast: 200 credits per generation.
Quality: 1,000 credits per generation.

They don’t say how many videos are created per generation. I’m going to proceed as if it is only one, figuring if it were more, they would announce that.

So now the question becomes, never mind how much each credit costs—how much does each generation cost?

Veo3.ai Fast: 200 credits × $0.0067 = $1.34 per output.
Veo3.ai Quality: 1,000 credits × $0.0067 = $6.70 per output.

Using Google’s Veo 3 directly (single output for comparison):
Fast: free.
Quality: 100 credits × $0.005 = $0.50 per single output.

Credit Value Comparison
Even though Veo3.ai credits cost less per credit, they require 10x more credits per generation. The lower per-credit price is misleading.

Unless Veo3.ai is giving you multiple outputs per generation—which they don’t advertise—you’re paying significantly more per video.