The Runway Gen family
The Runway video production line carries two active versions on its API list today: Gen-4.5 at a rate of twelve credits per second and Gen-4 Turbo at five. The second version is named Turbo, but the parameter that actually distinguishes them is not speed.
- two active versions on the API list
- rate $0.12 against $0.05
- Turbo accepts image input only
Last checked: This is a reference page. It is re-checked against the vendor sources and updated when a new version ships. Change log
Which version belongs in deployment
Gen-4.5, unless your input is always a fixed image and budget is constrained. In that case Gen-4 Turbo delivers the same output at a rate under half.
The parameter the model name conceals
On Runway official model list, Gen-4.5 accepts text or image input, while Gen-4 Turbo accepts image input only. So a video cannot be produced from a text prompt with Turbo; the first frame must be supplied directly.
So Turbo does not carry the same meaning in this architecture that it carries elsewhere in the industry. It is not a speed tier; it is a model with one fewer input route, priced accordingly lower. Any deployment selected on rate alone that then sends a text prompt will hit an error.
A parameter not logged on this page, and why
No timeline for this family is logged on this page. Runway publishes no change log for this production line, and no document states exactly what parameter Gen-4.5 added over Gen-4. The available documentation is only a model list and a rate list, and both describe the current state, not the change history. We do not fill this data gap from memory or secondary sources.
The comparison with ByteDance makes this clear: there, the release date is logged inside the model identifier itself, and a five-year timeline can be extracted from the identifier list. Here the identifier is gen4.5, and it carries no date within itself.
Where this family stands in our table
Last place. Gen-4.5 scores lowest in the video ranking table, since its resolution ceiling is 720p, it has no audio parameter, and no reference-input ceiling is published. Yet this same model is the lowest-cost video option on the Runway list, and our ranking methodology does not factor rate into the score. These two statements do not contradict each other, and both are logged on the category page.
Release timeline
Each version with its own release date, and what changed against the one before it.
- Runway Gen-4.5 current On Runway model list, Gen-4.5 is deployed alongside Seedance 2.5 and Veo 3.1: the vendor offers competing models on the same API infrastructure.
Known weaknesses and limits
- Gen-4 Turbo does not produce video from a text prompt and accepts image input only.
- This family resolution ceiling is 720p, the lowest among the four candidates in our table.
- Runway publishes no change log for this production line, so no version timeline is logged on this page.
- No reference-input ceiling is published, and this parameter alone costs this model twenty points in the table.
Technical verdict
If your architecture is deployed on the Runway API and you need low-rate short video, this family is a sound choice, and Turbo is the lowest-cost route on the entire list. If output quality is your primary criterion, the same API offers higher-performing models from other vendors.