xAI dropped Grok Imagine Video 1.5 Preview over the weekend, and the company says it grabbed the top spot on the Image-to-Video Arena leaderboard. The model is live through the xAI API and partner platforms.
It generates clips up to 15 seconds at 720p. The Arena placement came with a +52 point jump over the previous Grok Imagine version, putting it ahead of ByteDance's Seedance 2.0 by the leaderboard's count. That's a community-voting benchmark, so treat the ranking as a popularity signal more than a definitive quality verdict.
The real-world impressions are more mixed than the leaderboard suggests. Early testers rate it strong on emotional expression and dialogue, but say it falls behind Seedance on motion and physical dynamics. So the "Seedance killer" framing making the rounds on X is overstated.
Pricing isn't cheap. On FAL, 720p runs $0.14 per second, which means a single 15-second clip costs $2.10. The 480p tier drops to $0.08 per second. Audio comes included when generated.
Right now only image-to-video is active. xAI lists the model under the alias grok-imagine-video-1.5-2026-05-30, and it's available in the us-east-1 and eu-west-1 regions.
Bottom Line
A 15-second 720p clip from Grok Imagine Video 1.5 costs $2.10 on FAL, with the model leading the Image-to-Video Arena on a +52 point gain.
Quick Facts
- Model alias: grok-imagine-video-1.5-2026-05-30
- Released around May 30, 2026 (weekend)
- 720p pricing: $0.14 per second; 480p: $0.08 per second
- 15-second 720p clip costs $2.10
- +52 point Arena gain over prior version (company-reported)
