What Your First AI Music Video Actually Costs: Five Apps Tested on a Phone (October 2026)

Short answer: the store pages say "free", but none of the five AI music video apps we tested made a finished video without money changing hands. Our first video cost $4.99 at Mozart (20 seconds, and downloading it needed a subscription on top), $6.99 at Yuna (a weekly plan that covers two 30-second HD clips), and $19.98 at Sondo (a weekly plan plus a credit top-up, for a watermarked 3-minute video). One More Shot quoted a full-song video that needs its $129.99-a-month plan, so we stopped there. StarSinger lists $5.99 for a clip or $19.99 for a full video, one-time. Tested October 16, 2026.

How we tested: on October 16, 2026 we installed each app from Google Play (US) on a Pixel 6 Pro and tried to make the same thing in each: a music video for the brief "a happy birthday song for my wife Anna", starring the same photo (an AI-generated portrait, not a real person). Apps that only animate a song you upload got the same finished track. We paid with our own money for Sondo, Yuna and Mozart. We did not buy a One More Shot video: we went through its free steps and recorded its prices. StarSinger's clip and full video were made the same day through the app's normal purchase flow; for StarSinger we report its listed one-time prices. Prices are what the apps showed us that day, before tax, and change often.

Same phone (Pixel 6 Pro), same store (Google Play, US), same day, same photo, same goal: a birthday music video for "my wife Anna". We followed each app's own path from install to a finished video and wrote down every screen that asked for money. Two apps, Sondo and StarSinger, write and sing the song from a text brief. Yuna, Mozart and One More Shot animate a song you bring, so they all got the same finished track. That means the songs are not comparable across all five; the videos and the prices are.

• Price of the first finished video, as the app actually charged it.
• What the money bought: length, resolution, watermark, whether you can download it.
• Likeness: does the person in the video still look like the photo?
• Defaults that matter: public or private, watermark on or off.

A few things the table compresses. Sondo's weekly plan did not cover the video it quoted; that is why it cost two purchases (details in our Sondo review). Yuna's $6.99 is a weekly plan that renews until you cancel, and its 6,000 credits buy two 30-second HD clips. Mozart's $4.99 bought a clip we could watch in the app but not save; adding its cheapest PRO plan would have made the first video $10.98 (details in our Mozart AI music video review).

One More Shot gives 50 free tokens and a free moodboard: three stills and a written treatment of the video. Then the full song was quoted at 7,455 tokens (with a 30% first-video discount). Its paywall listed BASIC at $42.99, ULTRA at $129.99 and HYPER at $444.99 a month; only ULTRA covers 7,455 tokens. Trimmed to 30 seconds, the quote was 1,050 tokens and a "Don't stop now" sheet offered BASIC at $29 a month. We did not buy, so we cannot say anything about its output. Full notes: One More Shot review (pricing and free steps).

StarSinger showed the lyrics before generating (editable), made the song free, and showed a storyboard free before asking for money. It sells a 22-second clip at $5.99 or a full video at $19.99 as one-time purchases. Its free song is public by default: the app says free songs appear in its feed and on your profile.

Price is only half of it. The other half is whether the person in the video looks like the photo you gave it, because that is the promise in nearly every ad for these apps.

• Best likeness: Yuna and Mozart. Both held the face closest to the photo. Yuna also kept the scarf and jacket from the photo.
• Weaker likeness: Sondo and StarSinger. Both restyled the outfit, and the face drifted between shots. In StarSinger's full video the same woman looks noticeably different from one shot to the next.
• Length: Sondo (3:22) and StarSinger (2:02) made full-song videos. Yuna (30 s) and Mozart (20 s) made clips at the price we paid.
• Resolution: StarSinger 1080x1920, Yuna 704x1280, Sondo 480x854. We could not measure Mozart's because we could not download it.
• Watermark: Sondo's was on by default even on a paid plan; Yuna's paid HD export had none.
• Public by default: Yuna's publish option was set to Share Video (submits it to Yuna's editors for its Explore page); StarSinger's free song is public. Check this before you upload a photo of someone else.

Weekly plans are the norm in this category: four of the five apps put one in front of us. That matters because a weekly plan you forget to cancel costs four to five times its sticker price per month. We dig into what reviewers say about this in Weekly subscription traps in AI music apps.

Jukebox, Music AI: MV Video Generator and Muvio were not tested on a device. What we say about them comes from their US store listings and in-app purchase lists, read October 16, 2026. Jukebox (Google Play listing) lists a $99.99 "Full Music Video" in-app purchase alongside weekly plans. Music AI: MV Video Generator (Google Play listing) and Muvio (Google Play listing) list the same credit ladder as Sondo (800 credits for $9.99, 3,200 for $29.99, 8,000 for $59.99). We have not used any of the three.

• You want the face to look like the photo: Yuna or Mozart, based on our one test each.
• You want a full-length song video with lyrics on screen and no subscription: StarSinger, accepting weaker likeness and a public free song.
• You want the app to write a whole story around the song: Sondo, if a watermark and 480p are acceptable.
• You already have a song and want an AI director's plan first: One More Shot's free moodboard costs nothing; the video costs a monthly plan.
• Head-to-heads: Sondo vs Yuna, Yuna vs Mozart, Sondo vs One More Shot.

• Sondo review
• Yuna review
• Mozart AI music video review
• One More Shot review (pricing and free steps)
• Weekly subscription traps in AI music apps
• Best AI music video generators (2026)

How much does an AI music video app charge for the first video?

In our October 16, 2026 test on Google Play US: Mozart $4.99 for 20 seconds (download needs a subscription from $5.99 a week), Yuna $6.99 for a weekly plan that covers two 30-second HD clips, Sondo $19.98 for a 3:22 watermarked video. One More Shot's full-song video needed a $129.99-a-month plan. StarSinger lists $5.99 for a clip and $19.99 for a full video, one-time.

Can you make an AI music video for free?

Not a finished one in the five apps we tested. Each has free steps (a moodboard, a storyboard, a blurred teaser or a free song), but the video itself needed a purchase or a subscription.

Which AI music video app keeps your face looking like your photo?

In our test with one photo, Yuna and Mozart held the face closest to the source photo. Sondo and StarSinger restyled the outfit and the face drifted between shots.

Are AI music videos public by default?

Sometimes. Yuna's publish option was set to Share Video, which submits the video to its editors, and StarSinger's free song is public. Check the privacy setting before uploading a photo of someone else.

Do AI music video apps add a watermark?

Sondo's watermark option was on by default even on a paid plan, and our export carried it. Yuna's paid HD export had no watermark.