Midjourney video generation is here — but there's a problem holding it back

Tom's Guide

5 hours ago

Midjourney, one of the oldest and best-known AI image generators, is taking a new direction. Following in the footsteps of its competitors, Midjourney is now also offering AI video generation.
Known as V1 Video, this new model allows users to upload an image or use an image generated by Midjourney's V7 image generator, creating a set of short videos from it.
Announced in a post on X and a blog post, David Holz, Midjourney CEO, stated, 'Introducing our V1 Video Model. It's fun, easy, and beautiful. Available at $10/month, it's the first video model for *everyone* and it's available now.'
Unlike some of the other competitors in the AI video world, Midjourney can't make a video from a prompt alone. While this will likely change in the future, it does put Midjourney a few steps behind the likes of Sora and Kling 2.
Introducing our V1 Video Model. It's fun, easy, and beautiful. Available at 10$/month, it's the first video model for *everyone* and it's available now. pic.twitter.com/iBm0KAN8uyJune 18, 2025
Launching the product, the Midjourney CEO went on to explain, 'Today's Video workflow will be called 'Image-to-Video'. This means that you still make images in Midjourney, as normal, but now you can press 'Animate' to make them move.'
There is an automatic animation setting that will create a random motion prompt for you. For those wanting more control, there is also the option to manually choose an animation move for the video.
When generating a video, you can choose if it is low or high motion (how much movement happens in the video). Once the video is created, you can extend it, adding four seconds at a time. You can do this up to four times.
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While you can add images from outside of Midjourney to animate, Holz added, 'We ask that you please use these technologies responsibly. Properly utilized, it's not just fun, it can also be really useful, or even profound - to make old and new worlds suddenly alive.'
This lines up with Midjourney's recent legal battle with Disney, raising concerns over the use of external copyright in the training model.
As mentioned above, you can currently use Midjourney V1 on the $10 per month plan. However, that could well change pretty soon.
'The actual costs to produce these models and the prices we charge for them are challenging to predict,' Holz added in the announcement post.
'We're going to do our best to give you access right now, and then over the next month, as we watch everyone use the technology (or possibly entirely run out of servers) we'll adjust everything to ensure that we're operating a sustainable business.'
The problem is that the starting cost is already much higher than an image. Midjourney will be charging 8x more for a video creation than for an image. While that is still less than the average competitor, that amount is likely to change.
While you can make videos on the cheapest plan, they will quickly eat up your credits. There will also be a slower but less expensive version of video generation available on the Pro model.