Melies Pricing vs Pay Per Use: Plans, Credits, CLI

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Visual Sandbox vs Melies

Both have a CLI. Only one bills by the month.

In short

  • Melies plans run $9 to $99 a month for 500 to 15,000 credits.
  • A Nano Banana 2 image is 15 credits. On Pro that is about $0.15 at full use.
  • Melies ships an agent CLI with a skill file. So do we.
  • Starter is personal use only and stops at 2K.

Our take. Use Melies for film work with a cast of actors. Use Visual Sandbox for per run pricing and the same price from a terminal.

See a model's price
Melies logoMelies

Melies is an AI filmmaking toolkit: 150 actors, 220 styles, 50 models, a desktop app and a real agent CLI, sold as three monthly plans.

Pricing
$9 to $99 a month, in credits
Free plan
None on the pricing page
Also does
150 actors, 220 styles, an agent CLI

Side by side

The same 9 questions, asked of Melies

Visual Sandbox compared with Melies, question by question
What is comparedVisual SandboxMelies logoMelies
What you pay forEach generationA monthly credit plan
What the balance is inMoney. One credit is one centCredits. A Nano Banana 2 image is 15
Free tierNone. A $10 minimum top upNone listed
Cheapest paid tierThere is no planStarter, $9 a month, or $7 billed yearly. Personal use only
A month you make nothing$0The plan price
The price before you runA dollar figure on every model page, before you sign inA credit count per model, on the pricing page
Working as a teamNot offeredNot on the pricing page
From the terminal or an agentA CLI, an MCP server and an API, on the same balanceA CLI with a skill file, on plan credits
The catalogue37 models50+ models, 150 actors, 220 styles

Key takeaways

Is Visual Sandbox a good Melies alternative?

Where we win

No subscription
Nothing to cancel. A quiet month costs $0.
A dollar price before you sign in
Nano Banana 2 reads $0.09 at 1K. GPT Image 2 reads $0.01 at low quality.
A CLI on the same balance
The CLI and the MCP server spend the same cents as the web app, at the same price.
The balance does not expire
No monthly reset.
Commercial use from the first cent
There is no personal use tier to grow out of.

Where Melies wins

150 actors
Named, consistent people you can cast with a flag. Custom actors from Pro.
220 styles
Eighteen style axes, each a flag on the CLI.
A real agent CLI
npm install -g melies, a shipped SKILL.md, listings on the skill directories.
A desktop app that syncs
Vibe Film Cloud on desktop and web, with project history.
Cheap to start
$9 a month, or $7 billed yearly.

Worth checking

Full use is the condition
Pro at $49 is about $0.15 a Nano Banana 2 image if you spend all 5,000 credits. Spend half and it is $0.29.
Starter is personal use only
Basic models, 2K images, one generation at a time.
Two credit counts for one model
Their page lists Nano Banana 2 at 15 credits in one table and 8 to 40 in another.
No team plan
Nothing about seats or shared credits on the pricing page.
We have no actors
No cast library and no style flags. You write the prompt.

Allowance or balance

Move the slider. The plan moves in steps.

Melies sells three plans, priced here by the month. One image more than a plan covers puts you on the next one, for the whole month.

  • Starter covers 33 Nano Banana 2 images. The 34th costs a Pro plan, at **$49**.
  • In a month you make nothing, we cost **$0** and the plan still bills.
  • Pro at full use is about **$0.15** an image, against our **$0.09**.

Melies resets the allowance every month. Our balance carries.

Drag to your images a month200

What a month costs

Visual Sandbox
$18.00
Melies, billed monthly · Pro
$49.00

You save

$31.00

The money

The break even, per Nano Banana 2 image

Melies lists Nano Banana 2 at 15 credits, so the arithmetic is short: divide the plan price by the images it covers.

$0.09

Visual Sandbox

At 1K, in any month, used or not.

$0.15

Melies Pro, billed monthly

$49 for 333 images, at full use.

$0.10

Melies Max, billed monthly

$99 for 1,000 images, at full use.

Melies planA monthBilled yearlyCredits a month
Starter$9$7500
Pro$49$395,000
Max$99$7915,000
  • Starter at full use is about $0.27 an image, and it is personal use only. The same 33 images cost $2.97 here, with commercial use.
  • Billed yearly, Max is $79 for 1,000 images, about $0.08 each. That is the one rung where Melies costs less than our $0.09, and only at full use.
  • GPT Image 2 is 20 credits on Melies, about $0.20 on Pro. It is $0.01 to $0.27 here depending on quality.

Which one fits

Which one fits you?

Four questions. The answer names Melies when Melies is the right call.

01 of 04

Do you cast recurring characters?

Or use both

Melies covers the cast. We cover the odd job and the quiet month.

  1. 01

    Build the actors and the look on Melies.

  2. 02

    Run one-off images, 3D, vector and audio here, per run.

  3. 03

    Point the same agent at both CLIs. Ours spends cents, theirs spends credits.

The call

Which one to pick

Pick Visual Sandbox when

  • Your output is uneven and an allowance would go to waste.
  • You want a per job cost you can put on an invoice.
  • You want the CLI and the MCP server to cost the same as the web app.
  • You want commercial use from the first run.
  • You do not want another subscription.

Melies logoPick Melies when

  • You direct a recurring cast of AI actors.
  • You want 220 styles as flags rather than as prose.
  • You generate most days and will use the credits.
  • You want a desktop app that syncs with the web.
  • You will fill Max every month and bill it yearly.

Read the price, then run it

37 models across image, video, audio, 3D and vector. Each one prints its dollar price before you sign in.

See a model's price

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All comparisons

Starter is $9 a month, or $7 billed yearly, for 500 credits and personal use. Pro is $49, or $39 yearly, for 5,000 credits. Max is $99, or $79 yearly, for 15,000 credits.