How do I compare cost before moving?

Quote the exact bodies you would send. The response states estimatedCost, maxCharge, quantity and the unit, so you can compare like for like without creating a task or reserving funds.

What if the target endpoint is not available yet?

Availability is published per endpoint. Check it before migrating, and keep the source path behind a flag until the target has carried your real traffic.

Is there a credit currency to buy?

No. Prices are US dollars per stated unit, holds and charges are US dollars, and the balance is money rather than a token you convert at a rate you cannot see.

Migration guide

Migrate one workflow, not a whole catalogue.

Two platforms can offer the same task and still disagree about field names, defaults, terminal states, error meanings and what one unit of billing is. A migration that starts with the base URL finds all of that in production.

Compare models API docs

The challenge

Same task, different contract

The model is the part that ports cleanly. What does not port is everything around it: which fields are required, what the defaults are, how a reference image gets in, when money is reserved, and what your code should do with a state it has never seen.

Field names and defaults rarely line up

Write the mapping down per endpoint instead of inferring it. Input is validated against the published schema with additionalProperties closed, so an unmapped field is a 400 on the first real request rather than a warning in a log.

Money is reserved at admission, not at completion

createTask holds the estimate and returns it as cost with settled: false. If your current provider only charges on success, reconciliation needs to understand holds before you move any traffic.

The error vocabulary is closed and small

Nine values cover every failure, and content_rejected is one of them: a refusal is a terminal task, not an exception. Map your existing error branches onto those nine before cutover, not after.

The approach

Shadow one endpoint, compare the numbers, then move

Take a single workflow, record its current inputs, outputs, failures and unit cost, and run the same conditions here. Compare the estimate from jobs/quote against what you pay today, keep both paths live behind a flag, and raise the share only while the numbers hold.

Quote first: it runs the same validation and admission checks as create, without reserving funds or starting work.

POST /api/v1/jobs/quote

{
  "model": "<publisher>/<model>/text-to-video",
  "input": {
    "prompt": "A slow aerial drift over a misty pine forest at sunrise",
    "duration_seconds": 5,
    "resolution": "1080p"
  }
}

200 OK — nothing reserved, nothing started

{
  "code": 200,
  "msg": "success",
  "request_id": "req_example_quote",
  "data": {
    "quoteId": "qte_01k3m8x9q2z4v7n5p6r8s0t1w3",
    "model": "<publisher>/<model>/text-to-video",
    "estimatedCost": "0.750000",
    "maxCharge": "0.750000",
    "currency": "USD",
    "quantity": "5",
    "unit": "second",
    "expiresAt": "2026-09-12T12:05:00Z"
  }
}

Contract

The parts worth pinning down

fal alternative: migrate image and video calls — The parts worth pinning down
Field or header	Value or limit
POST /api/v1/jobs/quote	no hold · signed quote valid 5 min
quoteId + expectedCost	40901 when the price moved
402	40201 balance · 40202 spend cap
published call name	immutable · renames keep a 308

Swipe horizontally to see all columns.

Integration

From first call to production

01Pick one endpoint and capture ten representative requests, their outputs and their current cost.
02Map every field onto the target endpoint's input_schema and store the mapping with a version.
03Quote each mapped body and compare estimatedCost, quantity and unit against today's bill.
04Shadow, then canary, then raise the share — with the old path callable at every step.

Fit

When this path is the right one

Choose this when

You want one balance, one set of spend caps and one task contract across image, video and text.
Your bottleneck is content policy or per-model availability rather than raw model quality.

Look elsewhere when

You need a same-day cutover for everything. Contract differences surface per endpoint, and they surface late.
Your integration calls the model from the client. Keys belong on the server here.

Evidence

What you can verify yourself

Quote is a real dry run

POST /api/v1/jobs/quote runs the same validation and admission checks as create, returns estimatedCost, maxCharge, quantity and unit, and reserves nothing. The signed quote stays valid for five minutes.

A moved price fails instead of surprising you

Send quoteId and expectedCost with create. If the price changed in between, admission returns business code 40901 before anything is reserved.

Published call names do not move

A released call name stays valid; a rename keeps a 308 and an alias. Your mapping table does not rot silently between releases.

Before launch

Platform behaviour to confirm

Version the field map and keep fixtures for one success and one failure per endpoint.
Confirm every target endpoint is callable and priced before routing a single request.
Rehearse the rollback with traffic on it, not on a staging branch.
Reconcile holds against settlements for a full billing cycle before switching the last share.

FAQ

Questions this page gets asked

Not for media. The task contract, field names, state machine and billing semantics all need mapping. Text clients come closest: the OpenAI-compatible surface usually needs only a base URL and a model value.

Models

Models you can call for this

Each link opens that model family's own page: inputs, limits, content policy and the current price per unit.

AlibabaWan 3.0Text to videoContent policy: Uncensored ByteDanceSeedance 2.5 SpicyImage to videoContent policy: Uncensored ByteDanceSeedream 5.0 ProText to imageContent policy: Uncensored AlibabaQwen Image 2.1Image editingContent policy: Uncensored ByteDanceSeedance 2.5Text to videoContent policy: Uncensored AlibabaWan 3.0 SpicyImage to videoContent policy: Uncensored

Keep going

Map one workflow and quote it

Move one workflow at a time: map fields, normalize states and errors, compare the bill, then shift traffic with a rollback path you have actually tested.

Compare models Pricing Cost calculator

Source: fal model APIs ↗