Kling 4.0 vs Seedance 2.5: two influencer photos, eight video models.
The last round was text-to-video. This time every model animates the same two AI influencer photos, Kling 4.0 joins the lineup, and the results don't follow the price tags.
After the text-to-video comparison, viewers asked for image-to-video, which is closer to how AI influencer content gets made: you have a character photo and you want it to move and talk. Kling 4.0 had just come out, so the question was simple: can it take the crown from Seedance 2.5?
01The setup
Two AI influencer images (a white shirt and jeans look, and a blazer and skirt look) went to eight models through Higgsfield's Supercomputer, driven by Opus 5.5. Each clip is 9:16 with a short spoken line.
Opus also built a small web app to review everything side by side, with each clip's cost and a rating panel. Each clip was scored 1–5 on four things: realism, lip-sync, identity (does it still look like the photo) and motion.
| MODEL | COST PER CLIP |
|---|---|
| Veo 3.1 | $3.20 |
| Gemini Omni Flash 1.1 | $2.40 |
| Seedance 2.5 | $2.00 |
| FLUX 3 Video | $2.00 |
| Kling 4.0 | $1.20 (about 15¢ a second) |
| Wan 3.0 Prime | $1.20 |
| MiniMax H3 | a little more than Grok |
| Grok Video 1.5 | $0.80 |
Prices are on Higgsfield at the time of recording. The surprise: Veo 3.1 and Gemini cost more than Seedance 2.5.
02Look 1: white shirt and jeans
| MODEL | REAL | LIP | ID | MOTION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seedance 2.5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| Gemini Omni Flash 1.1 | 3 | 4–5 | 5 | 3 |
| Grok Video 1.5 | 3 | 4 | solid | 3 |
| Kling 4.0 | 3 | weak | 4 | 3 |
| Wan 3.0 Prime | 2 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| FLUX 3 Video | 2 | 2 | 3 | 2 |
| Veo 3.1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| MiniMax H3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
Seedance 2.5 was the clear winner: perfect lip-sync and an identity match good enough to pass next to other photos of the same character. Kling 4.0 was fine but no upgrade. Veo 3.1 added an audio glitch and gibberish, which is hard to excuse at $3.20. MiniMax H3 was the biggest fail.
03Look 2: blazer and skirt
Then the order flipped.
| MODEL | REAL | LIP | ID | MOTION |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wan 3.0 Prime | 4 | 5 | good | good |
| Grok Video 1.5 | 4 | 4 | 5 | very good |
| Kling 4.0 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 5 |
| MiniMax H3 | 3 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| Veo 3.1 | 2 | 4 | 4 | 2 |
| FLUX 3 Video | low | fine | 2 | 5 |
| Gemini Omni Flash 1.1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Seedance 2.5 | 1 | 3 | lost | — |
Seedance 2.5 fell apart and lost the character. Kling 4.0 had the best motion of the round, a natural turn to the side, held back only by an odd pause at the start. Wan 3.0 Prime was the favorite of this round, with a great voice and inflection. And the cheapest model, Grok Video 1.5, was excellent for $0.80. FLUX 3 smoothed the skin and lost the photo's texture, but it was the only model that had her grab the skirt.
The leaderboard
Averaging both looks put Grok Video 1.5 first, which says as much about value as quality. Kling 4.0 didn't dethrone Seedance 2.5 on the first look, but it was steadier across both and costs $0.80 less per clip. Its keyframe feature, which lets you pin specific moments in a clip, wasn't tested here and may be where it shines.
Two images is a tiny sample, so treat this as a starting point. For the stills side, see the image model comparison, and members swap image-to-video settings at smallzero.io.
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