Leonardo AI
Image platform with Motion tools that animate stills into video
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Facts checked · Nov 2026 — the pricing, free-plan and watermark facts on this page were checked against Leonardo AI's official pages. See how we verify and the listing changelog.
Price alerts for Leonardo AI
AI video tools change prices and credit rules without warning — Kling has raised prices roughly 3× before. Get emailed when Leonardo AI's price, credits or free plan changes.
Our verdict
Best for image-first creators who design the frame, then move it — video is one strong feature inside a mature image platform, not the whole product.
Leonardo AI at a glance
| Starting price | Paid plans available; free tier with daily tokens |
| Pricing type | Freemium |
| Free plan | Yes |
| Free export allowed | ✓ |
| No watermark on free export | ✓ |
| Commercial use on free plan | ✓ |
| API available | ✓ |
| Category | Image-to-Video Tools |
What Leonardo AI really costs
Leonardo bills everything in tokens — generating images, animating them, upscaling, removing backgrounds — and sets each task's price by the compute it needs. The pricing page is explicit that a token does not correspond to a fixed action: a short, light motion clip and a long, heavy one cost different amounts, and the exact token cost of a video is shown in the app rather than published as a rate card. That is why we print no cost cards for Leonardo: any per-video dollar figure would be invented.
What can be budgeted honestly is the pool. Essential's 8,500 tokens a month at $10/month billed annually costs about $1.18 per thousand tokens; Premium's 25,000 at $24 brings that to about $0.96, and Ultimate's 60,000 at $48 to about $0.80. Two softeners matter: paid plans bank unused tokens up to a generous cap instead of wiping them, and Premium and Ultimate add unlimited relaxed generation on selected models once fast tokens are gone — for patient heavy users, the marginal cost of extra stills (and, on Ultimate, extra selected-model videos) drops to zero.
Token prices are arithmetic from Leonardo's official pricing page, checked Nov 2026 (plan price divided by monthly Fast Tokens). Leonardo does not publish a per-video token rate; costs appear in the app at generation time.
What is Leonardo AI?
Leonardo built its name as an AI image platform — models, presets, a canvas editor and a large creator community — and then taught those images to move. Its Motion tools animate a still into a short video clip, which suits a particular way of working: you first craft the exact character, product or scene as an image, where you have deep control, and only then spend tokens on bringing that frame to life. Creators who think in keyframes tend to prefer this order of operations over prompting video directly.
The platform now also hosts third-party video and image models alongside its own Motion generations, all spending from one token balance. Tokens are the thing to understand: every action — image, video, upscale, background removal — draws from the same pool at rates set by how much compute the task needs, and Leonardo does not publish a fixed token price for a video. Paid tiers add privacy, rollover banking and, at the top, unlimited relaxed generation on selected models, which changes the economics for heavy users more than the raw token counts suggest.
How Leonardo AI works
- 1Create a free account — you get 150 Fast Tokens a day, resetting daily, which is enough to design stills and test short motion clips.
- 2Generate or upload the still image you want to animate; spend time here, because the starting frame decides most of the clip's quality.
- 3Open the Motion tools, choose the model and describe the movement — subtle camera drift and small subject motion succeed far more often than big action.
- 4Generate a short clip and judge the motion, not just the frame: watch for warping faces, sliding objects and loop points.
- 5If the motion is close, vary the prompt or motion settings rather than regenerating the image; if the frame itself is wrong, go back to the still.
- 6Export the finished clip. Free exports carry no visible watermark, and free output may be used commercially under Leonardo's non-exclusive license — paid subscribers own their output outright.
Core features
Image generation bench
A wide set of image models and style presets, fine-tuning for your own models on paid tiers, and a community library of styles — the still-image craft that Leonardo's video tools build on.
Image-to-video Motion
Animate a generated or uploaded still into a short clip, including Leonardo's Motion models and selected third-party video models hosted on the platform, all spending tokens from the same balance.
Canvas and editing tools
An integrated canvas for inpainting, outpainting and cleaning up a frame before you animate it — fixing the still is cheaper than fixing the video.
Style presets and Blueprints
Preset looks and guided Blueprints workflows package repeatable styles, so a series of clips can share one visual identity instead of drifting apart generation by generation.
Token rollover bank and top-ups (paid)
Paid plans bank unused tokens up to a cap (25,500 on Essential, far higher above), and top-up packs never expire while you stay subscribed — a softer landing than plans that wipe unused credits monthly.
Unlimited relaxed generation (Premium and Ultimate)
When fast tokens run out, Premium keeps generating images on selected models at lower priority, and Ultimate extends that to selected video models — slower, but at no extra token cost.
The free plan — the full truth
Leonardo's free plan is one of the fairest in this directory, and the facts are verified. You receive 150 Fast Tokens every day — a daily drip rather than a monthly pool, so unused tokens do not build up, but the plan also never fully runs dry. Free exports carry no visible watermark, and downloads are allowed. For a creator who makes a few images or a short clip most days, the free tier is a genuine working allowance, not just a demo.
The license needs one careful sentence. According to Leonardo's pricing page, Leonardo retains ownership of what free users create, but grants them a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use it commercially — so yes, you may sell free-plan work, but Leonardo (and other users, for public creations) may also use it, and free creations are public by default. Paid subscribers get full ownership of their output and private generations. If a frame is destined for a client brand, that ownership difference — not the watermark — is the real reason to upgrade.
- • 150 Fast Tokens per day, resetting daily — they do not accumulate
- • Free creations are public; private generation needs a paid plan
- • Leonardo retains ownership of free-plan output; you hold a non-exclusive commercial license
- • One token pool covers images, video and edits — video spends it fastest
- • Token cost per video is not published; it depends on model and settings
Leonardo AI pricing plans
| Plan | Price | Credits included | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 150 Fast Tokens per day, public creations | Daily light use — stills, tests and the occasional short motion clip |
| Essential | $10/month billed annually ($12 monthly) | 8,500 Fast Tokens/month, rollover bank up to 25,500, 2 concurrent generations | The first paid step: private creations, a monthly pool and top-ups |
| Premium | $24/month billed annually ($30 monthly) | 25,000 Fast Tokens/month, bank up to 75,000, unlimited relaxed image generation on selected models | Regular creators whose work is image-led with steady video on the side |
| Ultimate | $48/month billed annually ($60 monthly) | 60,000 Fast Tokens/month, bank up to 180,000, unlimited relaxed image and video generation on selected models | Heavy users who animate daily and want relaxed video to soften the token bill |
Plans, token figures and ownership terms are from Leonardo's official pricing page, checked Nov 2026. Prices exclude tax; annual billing is the lower figure shown first. Team plans sit above these individual tiers.
Pros
- + No visible watermark on free exports, and free output can be used commercially
- + Daily token drip means the free plan renews itself every morning
- + Image craft is deep — the starting frame is fully under your control
- + Paid tokens roll over into a bank instead of expiring monthly
- + Relaxed unlimited generation on higher tiers softens heavy-use costs
Cons
- − Video is one feature among many — native video platforms go deeper
- − No published per-video token price, so clip costs are hard to predict
- − Free creations are public and Leonardo retains ownership of free output
- − One shared token pool means image work and video work compete
- − Private generations require a paid plan
Best for
- ✓ Image-first creators animating their own generated artwork
- ✓ Game, story and character artists who design frames before motion
- ✓ Creators who want stills and clips from one subscription
- ✓ Anyone who needs watermark-free, commercially usable output while free
Not ideal for
- ✕ Long or presenter-led video
- ✕ Creators who need a predictable, published price per video clip
- ✕ Fully private or client-confidential work on the free plan
Leonardo AI alternatives
See all alternatives →The alternatives below share Leonardo's image-to-video neighborhood. Runway is the better pick when video is the main event: generation plus a full editing suite, rather than motion as an add-on to an image platform. Kling AI suits creators who prompt video directly and want strong motion per credit without designing a still first. And Pika is the lighter, faster option for playful social clips, with watermark-free exports on its free plan. Pick Leonardo when the still image is where your craft lives; pick a native video tool when it is not.
Runway
Runway is one of the most complete creative AI video platforms, combining text and image-to-video generation with editing tools such as background changes, relighting and object removal. It is aimed at creators and teams who want generation and post-production in one workspace rather than a single-purpose generator.
Kling AI
Kling AI, developed by Kuaishou, produces detailed short clips from text or images and has become a popular budget-friendly alternative to Western generators. Its newer models support longer, higher-resolution output and are widely used for social and cinematic-style short clips.
Pika
Pika focuses on quick, fun short-form generation with effects and templates that make images melt, inflate, transform and move. It is popular with social creators who want eye-catching clips quickly rather than long cinematic sequences.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Leonardo AI free?
Yes — a free plan gives you 150 Fast Tokens every day. Exports carry no visible watermark, and free output may be used commercially under a non-exclusive license, though Leonardo retains ownership of free creations and they are public. Paid plans start at $10/month billed annually.
Does Leonardo watermark free videos?
No visible watermark is applied to free exports — that fact is verified in our data. The free plan's real limits are the daily token drip and public creations, not branding on the file.
How much does one Leonardo video cost?
Leonardo does not publish a per-video token rate — the cost depends on the model, length and settings and is shown in the app when you generate. What you can compare is the pool: Essential's tokens work out at about $1.18 per thousand, Premium's at about $0.96 and Ultimate's at about $0.80, before rollover and relaxed generation are counted.
Can I use Leonardo videos commercially?
Yes. Free users get a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use their creations commercially (Leonardo keeps ownership of free-plan output). Paid subscribers retain full ownership and intellectual property rights in what they generate.
Leonardo or Krea for video?
Both mix image and video. Leonardo centers on its own image models plus Motion and hosted video models, with ownership terms that favor paid users. Krea emphasizes access to many external video models in a designer workflow. If your craft starts with the still, Leonardo; if you shop across flagship video engines, Krea.
Does Leonardo have an API?
Yes — Leonardo offers a production API, billed separately from web app subscriptions, for building generation into your own product or pipeline.