Track your costs
See what a video will cost before you build it, what it has cost so far, and what you spent this month.
Most of VidNexus runs on your computer and costs nothing. A few services you connect charge per use: ElevenLabs for the voiceover, Pikzels for thumbnails, Higgsfield for cinematic shots, and Claude if you use it for the AI editor. VidNexus counts every one of those uses, in three places.
About the numbers: VidNexus counts each use at the service's list price (checked October 2026). Your plan may cost less, and the bill from each service is what you really pay. Use these numbers to see where the money goes.
1. Before you build: Cost of the build
On Video settings, the last step before a build, Cost of the build adds up this script's voiceover. It is the only paid part of a build: ElevenLabs charges for each character of narration.
Cost of the build: $0.00, because every scene of this script is already voiced.
Characters that are already voiced are listed but not charged again, so building a video a second time costs nothing unless you changed its words. Thumbnails are listed under Not part of the build: you only pay for them if you make them when publishing.
Our Ice King script has 1,134 characters of narration: about 11 cents of voiceover.
2. While you work: Spent
In the editor (and on the project page), the Spent chip at the top shows what this video has cost so far. Click it for the breakdown: each service, how much was used, and how many times.
Spent: $2.76 for the Ice King video, by service.
Ours: $1.05 of cinematic shots (three takes, 25 seconds of video), $1.00 for 10 thumbnails, $0.60 for 6 thumbnail scores, and $0.11 of voiceover. The chip appears once something has been spent.
3. This month: Account
Click your name at the bottom left to open Account. Usage this month shows the projects you rendered, the minutes of video, what you spent this month and since you started, and Where the money went, per service.
Usage this month: 4 videos, 11.7 minutes, $5.22.
It counts this computer only. If you use VidNexus on two computers, each one shows its own.
What spends money
Service | What uses it | List price |
|---|---|---|
ElevenLabs | The voiceover a build makes, Regen voice, hook previews | $0.10 per 1,000 characters (Multilingual v2, v3); $0.05 with Flash or Turbo |
Pikzels | Thumbnails and thumbnail scores, only when you make them | Counted at $0.10 per thumbnail and per score (an upper bound: Pikzels sells credits by plan) |
Higgsfield | Cinematic shots | $0.042 per second: about $0.21 for 5 seconds, $0.42 for 10 |
Claude | The AI editor, when Settings uses Claude for it | $3 per million tokens in, $15 per million out (Sonnet 4.6) |
If you set your AI model to a paid hosted service instead of Ollama, that service bills you for scripts and other writing directly. VidNexus doesn't count it: check that provider's usage page.
What is free
Free | Why |
|---|---|
Your AI model on Ollama | It runs on your computer: scripts, outlines, titles, graphics and footage searches |
Stock footage | Pexels, Pixabay and Coverr searches and downloads are free |
Captions, motion graphics, Render | Made on your computer |
Full rebuild of unchanged scenes | A scene keeps its voiceover when its words and voice are the same |
Maps | Mapbox map backgrounds stay within Mapbox's free monthly allowance; they are counted at $0 |
YouTube data | Syncs and searches use the free YouTube Data API allowance |
Next: When something goes wrong.
Tips
Edit the script before you build: a voiced scene is charged again only when its words or voice change.
Make thumbnails in small batches, and score the ones you like rather than every take.
Use cinematic shots where they matter. Ten 10-second shots cost about $4.20.
Compare Account with each service's own dashboard once a month: if they differ a lot, your plan's price is lower than the list price.
Troubleshooting
The Spent chip isn't there. Nothing has been charged on this video yet.
Spent is higher than I expected. Open the chip: hook previews, Regen voice and thumbnail scores add up. Each line shows how many times a service was used.
My ElevenLabs bill is lower than Spent. Your plan includes credits, so you pay a monthly price rather than per character. Spent uses the per-character list price.