Grok Imagine Video 1.5 vs Seedance 2.0

What each one accepts

Rates and clip costs

Charged from a prepaid USD balance, no taxes added. A failed generation is $0.

Grok Imagine Video 1.5 is a specialist. Give it a single picture and it returns 6 to 15 seconds of motion with an audio track, in 480p or 720p, and per second it costs about half of Seedance 2.0. Seedance 2.0 covers everything else: prompts with no image, stacks of image, video and audio references, and output in 1080p or 4K. In my own ranking of ten video models, Grok 1.5 took first place.

When to pick Grok Imagine Video 1.5

• Someone in a portrait or a drawing has to say a sentence into the lens.
• You want to turn a single cover image into a short clip with audio.
• You need cheap, fast 720p clips for social media.
• The line is not in English. In my Polish test Grok 1.5 got through a hard tongue twister without mistakes.

When to pick Seedance 2.0

• You describe a shot in words and have no starting photo.
• A product ad uses several photos, or a reference clip that sets the motion.
• The footage must be 1080p or 4K.
• The clip should morph from an opening image into a closing one.

Differences you will notice

• Inputs. Grok Imagine Video 1.5 refuses to run without a single input image. Seedance 2.0 can start from a prompt, from 1-9 pictures, from a pair of start and end frames, or from reference video and sound.
• Cost per second. Grok costs from $0.088 per second (480p), and 720p is exactly twice that. Seedance 2.0 is from $0.157 per second at 720p, about 1.8-1.9 times Grok at the same resolution. The shortest Grok clip is 6 s and is billed as such; Seedance can go down to 4 s, though any reference video you attach is billed on top.
• Resolution and length. Grok 1.5: 480p and 720p, 6-15 s. Seedance 2.0 adds 1080p and 4K to those two and runs 4-15 s.
• Sound. Both create audio with the picture, and switching it off makes neither cheaper.
• Frame and prompt. Grok offers 16:9, 9:16 and 1:1, with prompts up to 10,000 characters. Seedance offers 7 ratios, including 21:9 and 4:3, and up to 20,000 characters (about 500 recommended).

How to decide

In my video ranking on the Polish blog, Grok 1.5 scored 8.5/10 and took 46 s per clip. Seedance 2.0 scored 7/10: it made the best coffee shot of the whole test (8.5) but needed about 2.5 minutes per clip and spoke Polish poorly. One caveat: I tested Grok from text with another provider, while version 1.5 here needs a photo. So: one photo plus a voice line - Grok; text-only, many references or high resolution - Seedance. Read more in Grok Imagine API and Seedance 2.0 vs 2.5.

Questions

I have no photo. Can I still use Grok?

Not with 1.5, since image_url is mandatory there. The older Grok Imagine 1.0 Video generates from a prompt alone.

What will a 10-second 720p clip cost?

Ten seconds at the 720p rate of the model you choose. Studio and estimated_cost show the exact total before you start, and a failed clip costs nothing.

Which one is quicker to render?

In my test Grok 1.5 needed 46 s per clip and Seedance 2.0 143-146 s, about three times longer. I measured that with another provider, so your times may differ.

Samples from the makers

These clips and images come from the vendors, not from my runs.