fal

fal runs many makers’ image, video and voice models behind one account and one key. FilmOpen uses it for images and video, and, for now, for ElevenLabs’ voices. The technical notes cover fal’s API in more depth.

About these steps

The screenshots of fal were taken on its site on 15 September 2026, while an account was opened with Google. Adding credits follows fal’s pages, without screenshots. The screenshots of FilmOpen show a stand-in value, never a real key.

What FilmOpen uses it for

Model	Made by	What it does in FilmOpen
Nano Banana Pro and Nano Banana 2	Google	Make an image from a prompt, or edit one with reference images
GPT Image 2.5	OpenAI	Makes an image from a prompt, or edits one with reference images
HiDream-O1-Image	HiDream	Makes an image from a prompt
Z-Image-Turbo	Alibaba (Tongyi Lab)	Makes an image from a prompt, quickly and cheaply
Qwen-Image-Edit-2511	Alibaba (Qwen)	Edits an image
FLUX.2 [klein] 4B	Black Forest Labs	Edits an image
Veo 3.1, Kling 3.0, Seedance 2.5 and MiniMax H3	Google, Kuaishou, ByteDance and MiniMax	Make a shot from a prompt, from its first frame, or between its first and last frames
LTX-2.5	Lightricks	Does the same, and makes a shot from its first frame timed to your own audio
Kling Avatar 2.0	Kuaishou	Makes a speaking shot from its first frame and a dialogue take
Eleven v3	ElevenLabs	Speaks a line, or a dialogue between several voices

FilmOpen writes with language models through OpenRouter, and transcribes your voice through OpenAI.

What it costs

fal is prepaid: you buy credits, and each request’s cost comes off them (pricing).

• What is charged. What fal makes successfully; time waiting in the queue is free (pricing). A failure on fal’s side (a 5xx error) is never charged, but a request refused for its input (a 422 error) can be, when fal had already started working on it (FAQ).
• Buying credits. fal’s pages don’t publish the smallest purchase or a fee. You pay by card or by ACH bank transfer, in US dollars (terms).
• Expiry and refunds. Credits expire 365 days after you buy them, and free or promotional credits after 90 days. Credits can’t be refunded (terms).
• Tax. Prices exclude tax, which you pay on top (terms).

Images:

Model	Price
Nano Banana Pro	$0.15 an image, $0.30 at 4K
Nano Banana 2	$0.08 an image at 1K; $0.06 at 0.5K, $0.12 at 2K and $0.16 at 4K; $0.002 more with high thinking
GPT Image 2.5	Per million tokens: $5 text in, $8 image in, $30 image out
HiDream-O1-Image	$0.01 a megapixel
Z-Image-Turbo	$0.005 a megapixel
Qwen-Image-Edit-2511	$0.03 a megapixel
FLUX.2 [klein] 4B	$0.01 a megapixel

Web search on either Nano Banana model adds $0.015 a request.

Video, per second of video; each row names the tier compared:

Model	Compared at	Price
Veo 3.1	Lite, 720p	$0.05 with sound, $0.03 without
Kling 3.0	Standard	$0.084 without sound, $0.126 with
Seedance 2.5	480p	About $0.22, fal’s estimate
MiniMax H3	H3 Max, 480p	$0.05; H3 Max Turbo $0.025
LTX-2.5	Fast, 720p	$0.09
Kling Avatar 2.0	Standard	$0.0562

Voices: Eleven v3 costs $0.10 per 1,000 characters.

Prices were checked on fal’s model pages on 14 and 15 September 2026. See fal’s models for today’s, and the technical notes for more tiers.

Before you start

You need:

• a GitHub, Google or Microsoft account, or your organisation’s single sign-on (SSO). fal has no sign-up with an e-mail address and a password (sign-in page);
• a card, or ACH, to buy credits (terms).

Choose one way to sign in and keep to it. Each way of signing in makes a separate fal account, with its own keys and credits, except that a Google and a GitHub account with the same e-mail address share one; single sign-on always makes its own. fal’s page doesn’t say whether a Microsoft sign-in joins them (accounts and identity).

Two-factor sign-in. fal’s pages don’t mention it, so turn it on for the GitHub, Google or Microsoft account you sign in with.

Checks. fal’s pages don’t mention a phone or an identity check, and signing in with Google on 15 September 2026 asked for neither.

fal publishes no list of countries. Its terms make you responsible for US export controls and embargoes (terms).

Create an account

1. Open fal’s sign-in page and press Continue with GitHub, Continue with Google, Continue with Microsoft or Continue with SSO. The same page signs you up the first time, and continuing accepts fal’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.

   

2. fal opens its dashboard. Its Getting started list takes you through adding a payment method, adding credits and making your first image or video.

Add money

On the dashboard’s Getting started list, press Set up billing to add a payment method, then Add credits. Settings → Billing and Settings → Credits & Tiers lead to the same places.

• Paying: by card or ACH, in US dollars (terms).
• Credits expire 365 days after you buy them, and can’t be refunded (terms).
• What is charged: see What it costs.

Create a key

1. Open fal’s Settings menu and choose API Keys, or go straight to fal’s keys page.

   

2. Press Add key. On a new account, the list below says there is nothing here yet.

   

3. In New Key, choose API as the Scope. The window describes it as for running models and calling inference endpoints, unable to manage keys, billing, usage or compute. It is all FilmOpen needs, so don’t give FilmOpen the ADMIN scope, which can also manage apps (authentication). Type a Description you’ll recognise, such as FilmOpen, and create the key.

4. Your new key appears. Press Copy Key and keep the key somewhere safe, such as a password manager, until you add it to FilmOpen: fal shows it only once. Then press Done.

   

Add the key to FilmOpen

FilmOpen keeps your key on this computer, encrypted by Windows for your Windows user only. It never puts the key in a project or in its log, never shows it again apart from its last four characters, and sends it only to fal. FilmOpen on the web keeps no keys, so use the desktop app.

1. In FilmOpen, open Settings and choose the Provider keys tab.

2. In the fal.ai card, paste your key into API key and press Save. FilmOpen asks fal about the key before it saves anything, and the card says so while it waits. If what you pasted looks like another platform’s key, a line under the box says so and Save asks first.

   

3. A green Key was accepted appears under the box, the box empties, and the card says Verified on the date, with the key’s last four characters. FilmOpen saves no key fal did not accept: a red Key is invalid, or a Could not check line, means nothing was saved, and the box keeps what you pasted so you can put it right or press Save again when the connection is back.

   

If the card says something else:

• Key is invalid: fal refused the key, so nothing was saved and the box keeps it. Check that you copied all of it, or create a new key. If the line says fal knows the key but refused the check, check the key’s permissions on fal.
• Could not check: fal didn’t answer in time, couldn’t be reached, or answered with an error. Nothing was saved, and the box keeps the key: press Save again when the connection is back.
• This device’s credential store can’t be used: FilmOpen couldn’t reach the store where Windows keeps the key encrypted, so nothing changed. The box keeps the key: press Save to try again, and if it keeps happening, restart FilmOpen.

Save checks the key with fal before it stores anything, without running a model, and stores it only where fal accepts it. Remove takes the key out of FilmOpen after asking, and the key keeps working on fal until you delete it there.

After pasting a key anywhere, clear Windows’ clipboard history: press Win+V and choose Clear all.

Keep the key safe

• Anyone with your key can spend your credits. Never put the key in a chat, an e-mail, a shared document or code.
• fal’s pages document no spending limit for a key or an account, so keep only the credit you mean to spend there.
• Give FilmOpen a key with the API scope, never ADMIN.
• If it may have leaked, delete it on the API keys page and create a new one; on a team, only its admins can (teams).
• Protect the account you sign in with by turning on its two-factor sign-in.

If something goes wrong

• You lost the key: fal shows it only once. Create a new one, and delete the old one.
• You signed in and found an empty account: each way of signing in makes an account of its own, so sign in the way you did the first time (accounts and identity).
• Requests are refused when your credits run out: fal locks an account whose balance falls below its threshold, and refuses its API requests until you add credits (FAQ).
• FilmOpen says the key is invalid, or that it could not check it: nothing was saved and the box keeps the key, so you can put it right and press Save again — see Add the key to FilmOpen above for what each line means, and what fal may want you to fix.