Is Hailuo AI Free? Free Credits, Plans and What a MiniMax H3 Clip Costs

In short: Hailuo AI is free to sign up for, but its Free plan comes with 0 credits a month. What you get is one-time free trial credits, plus a new-user bonus (on 2026-11-06 the international banner offered 3,000 credits for downloading MiniMax Design). After that, every clip is paid: the cheapest plan is Standard at $10.50 a month billed monthly for 1,000 credits, which Hailuo prices at $0.042 a second for MiniMax H3 Max at 480P. Failed generations are not charged. Free downloads should be expected to carry a watermark.

We make Cicadas, an independent site that runs MiniMax H3 Max through fal.ai on its Hailuo AI page and MiniMax H3 page. We are not affiliated with MiniMax or Hailuo. Every Hailuo figure below was read on hailuoai.video and hailuoai.com on 2026-11-06; where Hailuo does not state a number, we say so instead of guessing.

1. What "free" means on Hailuo AI

Hailuo's subscribe page lists a Free plan at $0.00 a month. Four lines describe it:

• 0 credits monthly. There is no allowance that refills each month or each day.
• One-time free trial credits. The page does not say how many.
• Hailuo models only. The comparison table lists MiniMax H3 (4–15 s, 768p or 2K) and H3 Max (5–15 s, 480p or 768p) in the Free column, which suggests trial credits can go on H3; we did not test it.
• A short queue. The plan comparison lets a free account queue up to 4 tasks and run 1 at a time; Standard queues 8 and Pro runs 2 at once.

Two extras sit outside the plan:

• A new-user bonus. The international banner offers 3,000 free credits for downloading MiniMax Design, MiniMax's design app; the mainland banner says the same for new users. We did not test it.
• Stacking. Hailuo's FAQ says a membership "stacks with all new user perks", so subscribing later does not cancel the bonus.

So the honest answer to "is Hailuo AI free" is: free to try, not free to keep using.

2. Hailuo AI plans and what MiniMax H3 costs on each

These are the international site's prices (hailuoai.video, USD), read on 2026-11-06. The per-second figures are Hailuo's own.

• Standard: $10.50 billed monthly (listed down from $14.99), or $8.40 a month billed yearly ($100.80). 1,000 credits a month. MiniMax H3 Max at 480P: $0.042 a second monthly, $0.034 yearly. At 768P: $0.074 and $0.059. MiniMax H3 at 2K: $0.126 and $0.101.
• Pro: $38.00 billed monthly, or $30.40 a month billed yearly ($364.80). 4,500 credits. H3 Max at 480P: $0.027 a second billed yearly.
• Master: $89.00 billed monthly, or $71.20 a month billed yearly ($854.40). 10,500 credits.
• Max: $184.00 a month billed yearly ($2,208). 27,000 credits, with Hailuo 2.0 and 2.3 unlimited.

Hailuo also sells credits without a plan: its FAQ describes a pay-as-you-go top-up, with credits valid for one year.

What one clip works out to. Standard gives 1,000 credits for about 250 seconds of H3 Max at 480P, so that model uses about 4 credits a second. A 5-second clip is about $0.21 on Standard monthly. For other models Hailuo lists flat prices per clip: Hailuo 2.3 at 6 seconds and 768p is 25 credits, Hailuo 2.3-Fast is 15, Veo 3.1-Fast is 60 for 8 seconds (on promotion, normally 120).

3. The mainland China site (hailuoai.com)

The mainland site, 海螺 AI, has the same plan shape in yuan. On 2026-11-06 its Free plan also showed 0 credits (贝壳) a month, one-time trial credits and Hailuo models only. The basic membership was ¥52 a month on a yearly plan (¥624 a year) for 1,000 credits, with MiniMax H3 Max at 480P listed at ¥0.21 a second. Its banner offered 3,000 free credits to new users who download MiniMax Design.

4. Failed clips and watermarks

• Failures are free. Hailuo's FAQ: videos that fail to generate do not cost any credit.
• Watermarks. Hailuo's FAQ says subscribers can download their earlier works without watermarks, and that videos you can download without watermarks are yours to use commercially. Read together, expect free downloads to carry a watermark; the FAQ does not say so directly.

5. Hailuo AI or Cicadas: which costs less?

Per second, Hailuo's own plan, if you make video every month. On Cicadas a 5-second MiniMax H3 Max clip at 480P is 63 credits, about $0.62 on the $9.90 first pack of 1,000 credits, or about $0.12 a second. Hailuo's Standard monthly plan lists the same model at $0.042 a second. At 768P it is 100 credits on Cicadas (about $0.99) against $0.074 a second on Hailuo.

Cicadas is the better fit in narrower cases:

• No subscription. You buy a credit pack and pay per clip, with the exact quote shown before you generate on the Hailuo AI page.
• A handful of clips. If you need three clips for one project, a pack can cost less than a month of a plan you then forget to cancel.
• Ready scenes. Some of our pages lock a prompt that we already tested with H3 Max, so you only add a photo.

Every Cicadas H3 clip comes with generated sound, at 5, 10 or 15 seconds (63, 125 or 188 credits at 480P), and a failed generation returns its credits.

6. What we learned from 177 MiniMax H3 clips

Between 2026-09-27 and 2026-11-05 we published 177 MiniMax H3 clips on Cicadas: 87 from reference photos, 55 from text and 35 from a single image, about 1,035 seconds in all. At fal's list price of about $0.05 a second they cost us about $52.83 to make. Most of those costs are estimates from the list price, not reconciled bills. How we record and check each one is in what 255 AI video samples cost us.

Two sets of those H3 clips we made show what the model does with one photo. In our human pigeon tries, H3 kept the face but drew the head far larger than a pigeon's; naming a size made it smaller, but still bigger than a real pigeon's, and the bird hardly moved. In our elf videos from a photo, it put the same person into an elf costume in a new scene.

If you go with H3 on any site, two of our guides help: MiniMax H3 Max settings explains durations, resolutions and the fal variant, and how to prompt MiniMax H3 covers the prompt order that held up in our clips.

7. How to try MiniMax H3 for the least money

1. Use Hailuo's trial and new-user bonus first. Generate at 480P and 5 seconds to stretch the credits.
2. Decide by volume. More than a few clips a month: Hailuo's Standard plan is cheaper per second. A few clips with no plan: a Cicadas pack on the Hailuo AI page, with the quote shown before you pay.
3. Write the prompt once, carefully. Every retry is charged like a new clip on both sites.

Frequently asked questions

Is Hailuo AI free?

Partly. Hailuo's Free plan costs $0.00 but gives 0 credits a month: you get one-time free trial credits and a new-user bonus, not a monthly allowance. Once those are spent, making more video needs a paid plan or a credit top-up. This was read on hailuoai.video and hailuoai.com on 2026-11-06.

How many free credits does Hailuo AI give new users?

On 2026-11-06 the international banner offered 3,000 free credits for downloading MiniMax Design, MiniMax's design app; the mainland banner said the same for new users. The Free plan itself lists one-time free trial credits without saying how many. Hailuo's FAQ says a paid plan stacks with new-user perks rather than replacing them.

Does Hailuo AI charge for failed videos?

No. Hailuo's FAQ says videos that fail to generate do not cost any credit. Cicadas does the same: a failed generation returns its credits.

Do free Hailuo AI videos have a watermark?

Plan on one. Hailuo's FAQ says subscribers can download their earlier works without watermarks, and it ties commercial use to videos you can download without them, so expect a watermark on free downloads.

How much does a MiniMax H3 clip cost on Hailuo AI?

On the Standard plan billed monthly ($10.50 for 1,000 credits), Hailuo lists MiniMax H3 Max at 480P as $0.042 a second, so a 5-second clip is about $0.21, and $0.074 a second at 768P. Billed yearly the same rows are $0.034 and $0.059 a second.

Is Hailuo AI cheaper than Cicadas for MiniMax H3?

Yes, per second, if you use it regularly. A 5-second MiniMax H3 Max clip at 480P is 63 credits on Cicadas, about $0.62 on the $9.90 first pack of 1,000 credits, or about $0.12 a second, against $0.042 a second on Hailuo's Standard monthly plan. Cicadas suits a few clips without a subscription; a Hailuo plan suits steady use.

Is Cicadas the official Hailuo AI website?

No. Cicadas is an independent site that runs MiniMax H3 Max through fal.ai, a model API. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by MiniMax or Hailuo. The official sites are hailuoai.video and, in mainland China, hailuoai.com. To try H3 Max on Cicadas, open the Hailuo AI page.