invideo vs Runway: Edit What You Shot or Generate New Shots

The short answer: if your videos are cut from footage you already own, invideo is the more direct tool: Starter, at $20 per seat each month, leaves manual edits off the meter (invideo pricing, credits article). If they need shots that were never filmed, Runway is the generative studio: Standard costs $15 a month, or $12 billed yearly, for 625 credits, which Runway sizes at 52 seconds of its Gen-4.5 model (Runway pricing). Both checked on 26 October 2026.

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Three numbers first:

1. Seconds of generated video. For example, a 30-second spot built from six 5-second Gen-4.5 shots is 6 x 60 = 360 credits; with three takes of each, 1,080, past Standard's 625 and inside Pro's 2,250 (Runway pricing). In invideo, six 5-second Seedance 2.5 shots at 720p cost about 6 x 56 = 336 of Plus's 2,000 credits (invideo pricing), a different model, so read it as a scale, not a match.
2. Hours of footage on the drive. invideo's editor opens raw clips as well as projects from other editors, and its agent works on real clips (editor introduction). Runway starts from prompts, images, product pages and references (Runway MCP).
3. What will judge a variant. If ads will be tested automatically, write down now which number decides a winner and where it comes from, before any tool picks one for you.

These are different businesses that meet at the ad. invideo is an editor that grew agents. Runway is a model company whose creative suite now writes, generates, resizes and, with Runway Ads, publishes paid creative.

Line by line

Sources, as published on 26 October 2026: invideo pricing, the invideo MCP page, Runway pricing, Runway Agent and the Runway MCP page.

Where they part

Footage you own, footage you generate

invideo's agent knows what is in each of your clips and who is talking, and edits, colour-corrects and balances sound on a timeline you can take over (editor introduction). Runway generates video, images and audio from its own models, Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0, and from others such as Kling, Seedance and Nano Banana (Runway pricing). A customer interview needs the first. A product in a place you cannot film needs the second.

Publishing, not only producing

Runway Ads, announced on 30 September 2026, generates video and image ads from a brand kit, publishes approved variants to Meta, Google and TikTok, reads performance back and produces the next round around what earned spend (Runway Ads). invideo stops at the export: the file, or the project for a desktop editor. One tool wants to run the test; the other hands you a finished cut.

How each meters time

Runway charges per second by model, Gen-4.5 at 12 credits a second, and extra credits, bought 1,000 at a time at the least, never expire (Runway pricing FAQ). invideo charges agent work and generation by model and settings and nothing for manual editing (credits article).

A year, priced

For example, a single seat paid yearly costs 12 x $10 = $120 on invideo Starter, under the 50% annual offer it showed on 26 October 2026, or 12 x $12 = $144 for Runway Standard, which Runway says saves $36 against monthly billing (invideo pricing, Runway pricing). Runway Pro billed yearly is $28 a month, and Max $76.

The agent step: an approval queue with a person in it

Runway Ads keeps human approval on by default: every variant passes an automated brand check, then waits in an approval queue before it is published, and the loop keeps to budget limits you set, such as the largest daily change (Runway Ads). The human check: leave approval on, and name the person who reads each variant for claims the product can back and for an AI label on any synthetic face. Teams can switch to automated publishing by campaign or variant type; do that only for formats that have passed review for a month. For lighter work, Runway Agent states that nothing runs without you (Runway Agent).

What the loop is built to do

Runway Ads is designed to produce more variants, and each variant is generated on credits, so the loop that searches for winners also draws down the plan (Runway Ads, pricing). Set a credit ceiling per campaign before the first round.

Choose invideo if

• Your job is shaping recorded material into launches and social cuts.
• Several editors share one project, sometimes handing it to a desktop editor.
• You want an agent's first cut and a person's final say on one timeline.

Choose Runway if

• Your job needs shots nobody filmed: products in new places, scenes, motion.
• You want generation, resizing and ad publishing in one system.
• You can staff the approval queue and run a holdout beside it.

More on invideo in its entry; Runway is outside this glossary, so read runway.com directly.

The free check that comes first

A variant that earns spend is a variant the ad platform chose to spend on, which is not the same as one that sold more. Before automating, run a holdout you can read in your own order data: keep one region or one audience on your current ads for four weeks while the rest get the new variants, then compare new-customer orders in each. Runway's free plan gives 125 one-time credits (pricing) and invideo's free plan resets its credits weekly (free plan article), enough to see each tool's output before the paid test starts.

When the creative team and the media buyers each own half of that loop and nobody owns the result, more variants will not settle it. That is a team design question, and an interim CMO can assign the owner and the measure before another tool is added.

FAQ

Does Runway publish ads without anyone checking?

Not by default. Runway Ads ships with human approval switched on, and teams choose to move to automated publishing by campaign or variant type (Runway Ads).

Which plans include Runway's MCP server?

The pricing page lists Runway MCP on Pro, $35 a month, and Max, $95, and the MCP page shows it working in ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor and other agents (pricing, Runway MCP).

What happens to Runway credits I do not use?

On Standard and Pro they reset within 24 hours of the billing date; Max rolls over up to one month; bought credits never expire, and the Free plan's 125 credits do not expire either (Runway pricing FAQ).