Hailuo 3 vs Seedance 2.5: Sharp and Short, or Long and Soft

Seedance 2.5 is the default video model on Treza. Hailuo 3, MiniMax's open-weights H3, is the model that beats it on resolution and on price per second while giving up half the clip length and both keyframes. These two are not competing for the same shot, which is exactly why people pick the wrong one.

This is a comparison of what each model accepts and what each one charges. Every parameter below is read off Treza's live video model catalog as of September 2026, and every price is either published by the provider or measured from our own runs. We have not benchmarked prompt adherence or motion quality, so nothing here ranks them on that.

The short version

• Hailuo 3 is the sharp, cheap, short model. It renders 5 to 15 seconds at up to 4K with native stereo audio, across six aspect ratios, and at 768p it costs six cents per second of output. It takes no keyframes and no reference images on the endpoint we run.
• Seedance 2.5 is the long-take production model. Any exact duration from 4 to 30 seconds, first and last frame keyframes, native audio, six aspect ratios. It stops at 720p and costs noticeably more per second.

If your shot is under 15 seconds and has to look good large, Hailuo 3. If it has to run longer than 15 seconds, or has to start and land on specific frames, Seedance 2.5.

Parameter comparison

Two rows decide almost every case: length and keyframes go to Seedance, resolution and price go to Hailuo.

Resolution is the headline, and it goes the way you would not guess

The newer, longer, more expensive model has the lower ceiling. Seedance 2.5 outputs 480p or 720p and that is the whole list. Hailuo 3 offers 480p, 768p, 2K, and 4K.

For phone-first vertical content this rarely matters: 720p is genuinely enough for a 9:16 Short on a handset. It matters the moment the asset gets shown large, on a site hero, a paid placement, a desktop display. There Seedance 2.5 has nothing above 720p to give you, and the usual move has been to re-render the keeper on Veo 3.1, which reaches 4K but only in 4, 6, or 8 second steps and at sixty cents per second at 4K with audio.

Hailuo 3 is the cheaper route to a sharp frame. At 2K it is thirteen cents per second and at 4K it is sixteen. That is under a third of Veo 3.1's top rate, on a model that will also run to 15 seconds rather than stopping at 8.

We do not default it that high, though. fal defaults this endpoint to 2K and we deliberately default to 768p, because a 720p broadcast has no use for the extra pixels. Resolution is a dropdown on the node, so paying for 4K is a choice you make per shot.

Length is the reason Seedance 2.5 is still the default

Seedance 2.5 renders any exact duration from 4 to 30 seconds in one generation. Hailuo 3 runs 5 to 15.

The gap matters more than doubling usually does, because of how a narrated pipeline is built. A faceless channel pipeline writes a line, sends it to text to speech, and gets back audio of some specific awkward length. If the model renders exact seconds up to 30, the shot matches the line. If it caps at 15, longer segments become two generations and a stitch, and every stitch is a cut somebody has to hide.

That is why Seedance 2.5 is what our own AI video pipelines render on. A Sequence node will stitch up to 12 shots, so the 15 second ceiling is not fatal, but avoiding a seam is always cheaper than concealing one.

Keyframes are the capability Hailuo 3 gives up

Seedance 2.5 supports first and last frame keyframes: pin an image at each end and let the model travel between them. That is what locks an opener onto your logo art and lands a clip on a product shot.

The Hailuo 3 endpoint we run takes neither keyframes nor reference images. Text and settings go in, video comes out. If you need a clip to open or close on an exact frame, or you need a character to stay recognizable across separate generations, Hailuo 3 is not the node for that step. Seedance 2.5 covers the first case, and for the second, Seedance 2.0 and Seedance 1.5 Pro accept the multi-image reference input that keeps a subject consistent shot to shot.

Worth stating plainly, because H3 is widely described as having keyframe control. That describes the model. The endpoint decides what you can actually send, and on ours you send a prompt.

Price, without the marketing arithmetic

fal publishes Hailuo 3's price per second of output directly: five cents at 480p, six at 768p, thirteen at 2K, sixteen at 4K. Those are real numbers you can multiply. A 10 second 768p clip is sixty cents of provider cost.

Seedance is harder. ByteDance bills in opaque video tokens that scale with pixels and seconds, so the SKU rate does not translate into a quotable price. The only honest way to price it is to run it and read the invoice, which we do anyway because the credit gate reserves a hold before a run starts. A real 30 second take settled near $9.75 charged, which is why the estimator reserves twenty-five cents per second instead of the flat floor that would have quoted that clip at $15.96.

So, like for like: Hailuo 3 reserves sixteen cents per second and that covers its most expensive configuration, 4K. Seedance 2.5 reserves twenty-five and its ceiling is 720p. Reserves are holds, not prices. Runs settle at actual provider cost plus markup, and failed runs cost nothing. At the resolutions people actually draft in the gap is wider still, since six cents a second at 768p is the cheapest sharp frame in the catalog. For what a finished video costs once narration, transcription, and captions are in the graph, see the cost breakdown.

Audio behaves differently on each

Both models generate audio with the clip, so drafts arrive watchable rather than silent. The difference is whether you can turn it off. Seedance 2.5 publishes the same token rate either way, so there is no reason to. Hailuo 3 carries native stereo audio as part of the model rather than as a parameter, so the picker offers no switch at all.

On neither model does muting save money, which is not true across the whole catalog. On Seedance 1.5 Pro the with-audio rate is exactly double, so silent drafts halve the bill, as covered in the Seedance 1.5 Pro comparison.

The speed sibling worth knowing about

MiniMax H3 Max is fal's post-trained H3, and it sits in the same picker. It trades resolution for throughput: 480p and 768p only, no 2K or 4K, 5 to 10 seconds, and eight cents per second at 768p. fal claims a 5 second 768p clip in under 3 seconds, roughly thirty five times the throughput of the standard H3 endpoint.

If you want to look at ten framings before committing, that is the node to iterate on. It costs slightly more per second than H3 at the same resolution, and what you buy with the difference is wall clock.

Hailuo 3 used to be reachable through our OpenRouter lane too. Measured on 2026-08-29, that route took 4 minutes 23 seconds and $0.78 for one 6 second clip, because the API exposed no resolution parameter and defaulted to 2K. We hid the duplicate rather than leave a slower, pricier path to the same picture.

How to actually use both

The pattern that holds up in production:

1. Draft on H3 Max at 768p. Cheap, fast, and good enough to judge a framing.
2. For a beat under 15 seconds shown large, render the keeper on Hailuo 3 at 2K or 4K. This is the product and brand work case, where a legible label matters more than clip length.
3. For a narrated segment matched to an audio track, or a shot that has to open and close on specific frames, use Seedance 2.5 at the exact second count the narration needs.
4. For short-form vertical output, the 720p ceiling costs you nothing, so Seedance 2.5's length and keyframes win outright.

Switching is one dropdown on the video node, and the rest of the graph does not change. The AI video generator exposes the same model list as the canvas, so testing the swap takes a minute rather than a migration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Hailuo 3 better than Seedance 2.5?

Not overall. Hailuo 3 goes to 4K against Seedance 2.5's 720p ceiling and costs less per second. Seedance 2.5 renders twice the clip length, 30 exact seconds against 15, and supports first and last frame keyframes that Hailuo 3's endpoint does not accept. Different tools for different shots, not two rungs of a ladder.

Which model is cheaper, Hailuo 3 or Seedance 2.5?

Hailuo 3, at every configuration. Its published rate is five cents per second at 480p, six at 768p, thirteen at 2K, and sixteen at 4K. Seedance 2.5 bills in opaque video tokens, and our credit gate reserves twenty-five cents per second for a model that only reaches 720p. Runs settle at actual cost afterward, and failed runs cost nothing on either.

Can Hailuo 3 use first and last frame keyframes?

Not on the endpoint we run. The fal text to video endpoint for H3 takes a prompt, a duration, an aspect ratio, and a resolution, with no keyframes and no reference images. If a clip has to start or end on an exact frame, use Seedance 2.5, which supports both ends.

How long can each model generate?

Hailuo 3 renders 5 to 15 seconds. Seedance 2.5 renders any exact duration from 4 to 30 seconds, the longest single-clip range in the Treza lineup. Past those ceilings, stitch generations with the Sequence node, which handles up to 12 shots, or assemble them in the timeline editor.

Does Hailuo 3 really output 4K?

Yes, at sixteen cents per second. We default the node to 768p rather than fal's own 2K default, because most output here is phone-first. Resolution is a dropdown, so 2K and 4K are one click away when a shot needs them.

What is MiniMax H3 Max?

A post-trained variant of the same weights, tuned for speed. It runs 480p and 768p only, 5 to 10 seconds, at eight cents per second at 768p, and fal claims a 5 second 768p clip in under 3 seconds. It is the right node for iterating on framings before you commit to a full-resolution render.

Can I switch models without rebuilding my pipeline?

Yes. The model is a dropdown on the video node and every model takes the same prompt input, so swapping one for the other does not touch the nodes around it. Durations, aspect ratios, and resolutions the new model does not support are the only thing to check.