How to Make Videos in Midjourney: A 2026 Guide
Midjourney added an image-to-video service in 2025, so the tool you have been using to generate stills can now animate them. The workflow is approachable, but there is one thing every new user needs to understand before the first render: video draws from the same pool of fast GPU hours that your images use, and it drains that pool far faster. This guide walks through what you need, how the service fits into the plan you already pay for, and how to keep video from eating a month of hours in an afternoon.
The one rule that matters most: a single HD video batch costs roughly 26 fast GPU minutes. A still image costs about one. Treat every video render as 25 to 30 images worth of your monthly allowance.
Before You Start
Video in Midjourney is not a separate product or a separate purchase. It runs through the same account, the same interface, and the same billing as image generation. Confirm the items below before you try your first render.
How Midjourney Video Works
Midjourney's video offering is an image-to-video service. Rather than describing a clip from scratch, you start with a still image, then ask the model to animate it. That design keeps video consistent with the rest of the Midjourney workflow, where everything begins from an image you can see and judge before committing more resources.
The mechanic that surprises most people is billing. Video does not get its own quota. It pulls from the same fast GPU hours your plan provides for images. There is no separate video tier and no video-only allowance to top up. When you render a clip, the meter that ticks down is the one you already watch for image generation.
There is also a distinction between standard-definition and HD video that shapes which plan you want. SD video in Relax mode is available only on the Pro and Mega plans. Relax mode is the unlimited-but-queued lane that does not draw down fast hours, so for Pro and Mega subscribers, SD video can run without spending the fast pool, at the cost of waiting in a queue. HD video does not have a Relax option and always uses fast GPU time.
A note on depth: Midjourney's official documentation is the authoritative source for exact video parameters, such as resolution options and clip length. This guide stays to the billing and access facts that are clearly documented. For precise settings, confirm them in Midjourney's docs before you plan a project around a specific output.
Make Your First Video
Midjourney publishes an official tutorial called "Create Your First Video" in its help documentation, and it is the best step-by-step reference for the exact buttons and parameters in the current interface. The high-level workflow below maps to what that tutorial covers, framed so you understand the cost of each step.
Step 1: Start from an image
Generate an image with a prompt, or select one you have already made. This still becomes the opening frame the model animates. Because the video inherits the look of this image, it is worth getting the still right before you spend hours on motion. Editing the frame with the web app's Vary Region or inpainting tools first is cheaper than re-rendering video.
Step 2: Animate the image
Run the image-to-video service on your selected still. This is the step that consumes fast GPU time. Treat it deliberately: unlike an image grid, where a miss costs about a minute of GPU time, a video render commits a meaningful slice of your monthly hours in one action.
Step 3: Review before you re-render
Watch the result fully before generating another version. Each re-render is another batch of GPU minutes. If the motion is close but not perfect, decide whether the gap actually matters for your use, because a second HD batch can cost as much as twenty-some still images would have.
Follow the official tutorial for exact controls. The "Create Your First Video" walkthrough in Midjourney's documentation shows the current UI and any parameters available for the version you are on. Interface details change between releases, so the vendor tutorial is the reliable source rather than memory or older third-party screenshots.
The GPU-Cost Reality
This is the section worth reading twice. Midjourney bills by fast GPU time, not by image or clip count. A still image costs roughly one GPU minute. An HD video batch costs roughly 26 GPU minutes, which is the cost of about two dozen images in a single action. Video is not a little more expensive than images; it is a different order of magnitude.
That ratio changes how you should budget. On the entry Basic plan, with about 200 fast GPU minutes per month, an HD video batch can use more than ten percent of the entire month's allowance. A handful of video renders can exhaust a month that would otherwise produce a couple hundred images.
The practical takeaway: lock in your starting image, decide how many clips you truly need, and reserve HD renders for shots that will actually be used. Iterating on stills is cheap. Iterating on HD video is the most expensive thing you can do on the platform.
Choosing a Plan for Video
Any paid plan can technically produce video, because every plan includes fast GPU hours and video draws from that pool. The real question is how many hours you get and whether you can offload SD video to the queued Relax lane. The table below frames each tier through a video lens; figures are vendor-reported and were verified on June 9, 2026.
| Plan | Fast GPU / month | SD video in Relax | Fit for video |
|---|---|---|---|
| Basic | ~200 minutes (3.3 hr) | No | Occasional, light experimentation only |
| Standard | 15 hours | No | Regular images, some HD video |
| Pro | 30 hours | Yes (queued) | Frequent video, SD via Relax |
| Mega | 60 hours | Yes (queued) | Heavy, sustained video work |
If video is a core part of your work, Pro and Mega earn their cost in two ways: more fast hours for HD renders, and the ability to run SD video in Relax mode without touching the fast pool. That second point is the quiet advantage. A Pro subscriber can queue SD clips during off hours and save fast GPU time for the HD shots that genuinely need it.
Verify before you subscribe. Pricing, plan allowances, and version features change. Confirm the current numbers at midjourney.com, and see our pricing breakdown for the full monthly and annual costs of each tier.
Troubleshooting
These are the questions most new video users run into. Where the answer depends on exact interface controls, the official documentation is the source to check.