Kling 3.0 API (2026): Official Pricing, Turbo & Omni — and the $3B Spin-Off, Explained for Builders

From Sora challenger to spin-off candidate: the timeline

What's on the API, per official docs

• Three video tiers. Kling 3.0 (flagship: text/image-to-video, 3–15s, 720p/1080p/4K, optional native audio, custom start/end frames, multi-shot); Kling 3.0 Turbo (efficiency tier, native audio included, up to 1080p); Kling 3.0 Omni (adds video input on top of text/image — billed as its own variant). The docs overview pitches "Kling 3.0 & 3.0 Omni — synchronized audio-video generation, lower cost."
• Native audio is a billing toggle, not a separate product. Same model, two rates: without native audio vs. with it (plus a voice-control add-on tier on standard 3.0).
• Task-based REST, not chat. Create a generation task, get a task ID, poll or webhook for the video URL. Auth is JWT (HS256) signed with an Access Key / Secret Key pair from the developer console — not an OpenAI-style bearer API key.
• Image side refreshed too. Kling Image 3.0, 3.0-omni, and O1 at $0.028/image (1K/2K; 4K $0.056); Image 2.1 remains at $0.014–$0.028. Avatar (digital human) at $0.056–$0.112/s and Motion Control at $0.126–$0.168/s round out the shelf.

Kling 3.0 API pricing (2026): official list, per second of generated video

Kling 3.0 starts at $0.084 per second (720p, no audio) and tops out at $0.42 per second at native 4K — 1 video Unit = $0.14 list price, read from the official pricing page on 2026-08-21.

Source: official Kling developer pricing page, read 2026-08-21. Units are the platform's internal credit (video 1 Unit = $0.14, image 1 Unit = $0.0035 list); prepaid packages can discount below list. Third-party relays set their own prices — often higher than official list, occasionally promotional below it.

What a clip actually costs: 10-second math vs Seedance

A 10-second 1080p Kling 3.0 clip costs $1.12 without native audio ($1.68 with); Turbo does it with audio for $1.40; 4K runs $4.20. For context, our Seedance API guide carries relay-route estimates of ~$0.30–$0.40 per 10s for Seedance 2.0 — Kling 3.0 at official list runs 3–4× that, which is the price of native 4K, multi-shot control, and a two-year head start in video:

Kling figures are exact multiplication of official per-second list prices; Seedance row is a labeled estimate. Compare quality before price — Artificial Analysis currently ranks both rivals ahead of Kling 3.0 Omni in text-to-video-with-audio (see below).

How to call it: JWT auth + create-task pattern (Python)

Unlike the OpenAI-compatible text APIs most of this site covers, Kling authenticates with a JWT you sign yourself from the Access Key / Secret Key pair issued at kling.ai/dev/api-key (secret shown once — store it immediately). Official docs' token recipe:

import time, jwt

ak = "YOUR_ACCESS_KEY"
sk = "YOUR_SECRET_KEY"

def encode_jwt_token(ak, sk):
    headers = {"alg": "HS256", "typ": "JWT"}
    payload = {
        "iss": ak,
        "exp": int(time.time()) + 1800,  # valid 30 minutes
        "nbf": int(time.time()) - 5,
    }
    return jwt.encode(payload, sk, headers=headers)

token = encode_jwt_token(ak, sk)  # send as: Authorization: Bearer <token>

• Workflow: POST a generation task (text-to-video / image-to-video, model + duration + resolution + audio flags) → receive a task_id → poll the query endpoint or register a webhook until the video URL lands. Generation typically takes tens of seconds to minutes, not milliseconds — design for async.
• Model names: use the exact model identifiers in the official API reference; third-party relay docs sometimes carry stale v1/v2-era names.
• Budget guard: bill per generated second means a retry loop multiplies cost fast — cap duration and retries per task in your own wrapper.

Which Kling model to route: 3.0 vs Turbo vs Omni

The competitive picture: #3 on the audio-video leaderboard

• Kling 3.0 Omni ranks third in Artificial Analysis's text-to-video-with-audio category, behind ByteDance's Seedance 2.0/2.5 line and Alibaba's HappyHorse-1.0 (per iFeng coverage citing the leaderboard, Aug 2026). The same coverage counts nine of the global top ten text-to-video systems as Chinese.
• The founder effect is the storyline. HappyHorse is led by Zhang Di — the former Kuaishou VP who built Kling — after he moved to Alibaba. And on Aug 7, CNMO reported Wang Xintao (Real-ESRGAN/GFPGAN author, described as a 0-to-1 contributor) has left Kling; neither he nor Kuaishou has confirmed.
• Western rivals deprioritized the track. The Sora business wound down and Veo's iteration slowed (CNMO), while Chinese labs now supply global film/ad pipelines — Kling itself earns an estimated 70–75% of revenue overseas (Lan Dong Commerce, Aug 10), heavily North America.

The business story: RMB 850M quarter, $3B raise, IPO clock

• Q2 2026 (official, Aug 19): Kling AI revenue >RMB 850M (+200.0% YoY), dragging Kuaishou's "other services" segment +18.5% YoY. Global users >100M (+67% vs end-2025) across 224 countries/regions; enterprise clients ~50K (+67%).
• The July round is official — the IPO is not. Kuaishou's Q2 release confirms Beijing Kling signed a capital increase of up to ~US$3B at ~US$18B post-money, with Kuaishou keeping control and consolidating the unit. Spin-off-IPO framing comes from May's reported ~$20B Pre-IPO round (36Kr, iFeng) and August's IPO coverage — treat as reports until a filing exists.
• Why builders should care: a separately-capitalized Kling means an increasingly professionalized developer platform (the Q2 release already brags about MCP and CLI for agent batch creation), but also a standalone entity that can reprice Units, restructure plans, or split domestic/international stacks. Pin model IDs and prices; re-verify each quarter.

Get Chinese models through one OpenAI-compatible endpoint

Primary sources

• Kling developer pricing — official per-second Unit pricing for 3.0 / Turbo / Omni / Image (read 2026-08-21)
• Kling API docs — overview: "Kling 3.0 & 3.0 Omni synchronized audio-video generation"
• Kuaishou IR — 2026 Q2 and interim results (2026-08-19): Kling revenue >RMB 850M +200%, 3.0 Turbo, native 4K, MCP/CLI, ~US$3B raise
• 证券时报 — 快手第二季度收入355亿元 可灵AI收入增长超两倍 (2026-08-20)
• 北京日报 — 可灵AI营收同比增长超200%、全球用户破1亿、7月完成近30亿美元融资投后约180亿美元 (2026-08-19)
• 观察者网 — 快手财报"冰与火":可灵收入暴涨200%,3.0系列原生4K、MCP与CLI (2026-08-20)
• 香港經濟日報 — 快手次季業績:可靈AI收入逾8.5億增兩倍;北京可靈7月增資協議 (2026-08)
• 凤凰网 — 1359亿!快手可灵要IPO了:AA榜单 Kling 3.0 Omni 第三、张迪背景、4月原生4K (2026-08)
• 36氪 — 快手断臂求生,可灵出去找钱?分拆与 Pre-IPO 报道 (2026-08)
• CNMO/搜狐 — 可灵AI核心骨干王鑫涛离职报道 (2026-08-07)
• 腾讯新闻/蓝洞商业 — 可灵收入70–75%来自海外、年化冲击10亿美元 (2026-08-10)
• 新浪财经/WSJ — 中国AI视频崛起:AA前十中九个来自中国 (2026-08-20)

FAQ (2026)