Runway vs Luma AI vs CapCut

These three tools all appear in searches for “turn a photo into a video”, and they do not do the same work. The table above is taken from the same checked facts as the reviews. It is not a leaderboard of who makes the prettiest five seconds. We have not run one photograph through all three for this page. The scores are our judgement of fit. The method is on the about page.

Public pages were checked on 14 November 2026. If a cell says the price was listed, it was listed that day, in the currency the company showed, which was US dollars in each case. UK checkout prices can differ. Where a fact was not on the page, the cell does not invent one. Luma’s watermark policy is the obvious gap.

They are not substitutes

CapCut is an editor that also advertises image-to-video. You can build a three-minute film from thirty photographs, with music and a title, on the free plan’s basic editor. The AI part is metered. CapCut’s own pages disagree about how free and how watermark-free that AI part is, so the pricing page and the export screen outrank the adverts. It runs on the web, on Windows and macOS, and on iOS and Android, according to CapCut’s download help.

Runway is a generator. Gen-4.5 image-to-video is documented as a web feature: upload a still, describe the motion, 2 to 10 seconds, 720p, 12 credits a second, Standard plan or higher. The free plan is 125 credits once, with a watermark, and it does not include every model. There is no multi-photo timeline hiding in that description. A tribute made only of Runway clips would be a stack of short generations, which is the hard way to do a simple job.

Luma AI is also a generator, with more published control (keyframes, reframe, 5 or 10 second Ray clips) and a higher door price. Plus was $30 a month, or $25 billed yearly, and the pricing page has no free plan. The old name Dream Machine is retired on Luma’s own information page. The Ray image-to-video table shows a steep step from a cheap 360p draft to 1080p, and HDR costs more again. That is a tool for a person who will pay and then look at the credit cost before each generate.

How to choose in one sitting

1. Count the photographs. More than one, and you want them in order: start with CapCut, even if you later animate a single frame elsewhere.
2. If there is truly one photograph, decide whether you can pay this month. If you want the published free credit pot, open Runway and check which models it will run before you upload. If you want keyframes and will pay, open Luma and generate at the cheapest resolution first.
3. Watch the take with the question “did the subject change?” A pretty camera move that alters a face, a label or a room has failed.
4. Finish in an editor. Put names, prices and dates on in type. Do not ask the generator to spell them.

What we are not claiming

We are not claiming a winner on visual quality. Runway’s help page calls Gen-4.5 state of the art. Luma’s information page talks about cinematic control. CapCut’s marketing talks about everything being easy. Those are their words. Your photograph is the test that matters, and you should use a photograph you are allowed to upload.

We are also not claiming the dollar figures will still be there next month. Each review has the source links. The comparison is only as fresh as those pages.

Read next: best tools to turn photos into videos, or the full reviews of Runway, Luma AI and CapCut.