Cost comparison of four models generating the same plane-over-waterfall clip
Gemini 4 Argon, Sonnet 5.5, GPT-6 Astra and Opus 5.5 each generated the same plane-and-waterfall scene, with the priciest run taking over 7x longer.
Gemini 4 Argon vs Sonnet 5.5 vs GPT-6 Astra vs Opus 5.5 Same scene: a small plane flying past a massive waterfall. 💰Gemini 4 Argon $7.84 — 23 minutes 💰Sonnet 5.5 $23.38 — 1h 14m 💰Opus 5.5 $31.85 — 2h 45m 💰6 Astra $17.82 — 51 minutes The cheapest run is also the fastest. The most expensive takes over 7x longer. But spending more doesn’t automatically mean getting a better result. Composition, camera movement, and how consistently the plane stays in the scene matter just as much. For creators producing dozens of clips, that cost difference adds up fast. Would you pay 4x more for a video if the quality improvement wasn’t obvious?