Kling 4.0 is Kling AI’s next-generation video model. Kuaishou’s IR release says it launched globally on October 15, 2026; the product blog had early access from late September, with a wider October rollout. Create on kling.ai. Official feature write-ups: Kling blog — Introducing Kling 4.0 and the Kling 4.0 User Guide.
For a related ByteDance video model on this site, see Seedance 2.5.
What shipped in 4.0
Cross-checked IR (Oct 16, 2026), the Kling blog, the user guide, and API update notes (Oct 28, 2026):
| Capability | Official claim |
|---|---|
| Single-pass length | Native generation up to 30 seconds |
| Motion / camera | Steadier large-scale motion; push-ins, pull-outs, pans, tracking, orbit called out as more stable |
| Omni Reference | Up to 15 multimodal assets in one task: up to 10 images, 5 videos (≤30s total including video subjects), 7 subjects (voice can be bound to a subject) |
| Keyframes | Up to 10 keyframe images for poses, transitions, story beats |
| Prompt length | Blog/user-guide: up to 8,000 tokens; API update (Oct 28): prompts up to 26,000 English characters on the API path |
| Audio | High-quality audio, two-channel stereo; improved lip-sync |
| Output formats | 720p / 1080p now; 10-bit HDR at 4K and 1080p coming soon; 21:9 ultrawide supported |
| Extension | Extend uploaded video in multiple passes up to 2 minutes (blog: coming soon; IR: will soon support) |
| Languages | Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Hindi and more; named dialect/accent examples in the blog |
| Fast tier | Kling 4.0 Flash for faster / higher-volume work (Ultra Yearly early access named in the Sep 30 blog) |
Product surface: redesigned creation page, grid/list views, timeline editing, canvas + Agent helpers (blog).
Prompt and control checklist
Practical knobs the docs emphasize (not a creative “style guide”):
- Prefer Omni Reference when character/product continuity matters—bundle stills, short clips, and subject voice instead of relying on text alone.
- Use keyframes (≤10) to pin beats rather than stuffing every cut into one prose prompt.
- Keep camera language explicit (push-in, orbit, tracking) because the model’s upgrade notes target those moves.
- Stay inside the published prompt ceilings (8k tokens on product docs; 26k English characters on API).
- For longer arcs, plan extensions separately; the 2-minute path was still marked forthcoming on the blog/IR language at launch week—confirm the live UI before promising a client delivery.
→ Live usage: See where Kling and peers rank this week in the OpenRouter video model usage ranking on AI Rank.
API paths and published rates
API update 2026-10-28: Kling 4.0 endpoints are fully available — /text-to-video/kling-4.0, /image-to-video/kling-4.0, /omni-video/kling-4.0. Billing is duration-based; input video duration includes reference videos and video character elements (pricing doc).
| Scenario (Kling 4.0) | 720p | 1080p | 4K |
|---|---|---|---|
| No input video (total duration = output) | 1.0 Unit ($0.157)/s | 1.5 Units ($0.235)/s | — |
| With input video, input ≤ output (bill output × 2 at unit price) | 0.6 Units ($0.094)/s | 0.9 Units ($0.141)/s | — |
| With input video, input > output (bill input + output) | 0.6 Units ($0.094)/s | 0.9 Units ($0.141)/s | — |
Consumer-site subscription prices are not restated here; check the logged-in Kling UI. Rates above are the public developer pricing table as fetched on the check date.
Spec contrast with Seedance 2.5
Only published specs—no quality ranking. Seedance numbers come from ByteDance Seed’s launch materials as summarized in our Seedance 2.5 article; Kling numbers from Kling/Kuaishou sources above.
| Spec | Kling 4.0 | Seedance 2.5 (vendor post) |
|---|---|---|
| Native clip length | Up to 30 s | Up to 30 s |
| Multimodal refs | Up to 15 assets (≤10 images, ≤5 videos, ≤7 subjects) | Up to 30 images, 10 video clips, 10 audio clips |
| Keyframe control | Up to 10 keyframes called out | Timestamp-level edits emphasized in launch post |
| Primary consumer surface | kling.ai | Jimeng / Doubao / Dreamina family (per Seed post) |
| Public API pricing cited here | Kling Open Platform video table (USD/unit rates above) | BytePlus ModelArk per-video rates in the Seedance article |
OpenRouter snapshot (usage, not quality)
AI Rank’s OpenRouter video week window 2026-10-10 → 2026-10-16 (fetched 2026-10-17) still lists kwaivgi/kling-v3.0-pro / kling-v3.0-std (ranks 10–11) and bytedance/seedance-2.5 (rank 3). A Kling 4.0 OpenRouter model id was not present in that snapshot—treat ranking as traffic on older Kling ids plus Seedance 2.5, not a 4.0 bake-off.
Compare before you choose: pricing changes and rankings move daily — check the current video model rankings on AI Rank before you commit.
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Cover image: official product imagery; editorial composition by AI Rank.
Prepared with automated editorial assistance and checked against official sources and dated AI Rank data on October 29, 2026. We did not run our own benchmarks for this article.