Introduction

xAI’s budget video SKU is no longer a rumor. The official model card for grok-imagine-video-1.5-lite lists text- and image-to-video at $0.020 per second — a quarter of the flagship grok-imagine-video-1.5 list rate — with Batch API support in us-east-1 and us-west-2. Same day, ComfyUI master merged partner-node support and made Lite the default option on the Grok Video node.

What shipped

  • Model ID: grok-imagine-video-1.5-lite (closed API; not open weights)
  • Modalities: text → video and image → video
  • Official price: $0.020 / second of output (xAI model card)
  • Compare: grok-imagine-video-1.5 lists ~$0.080 / second on the same docs family — Lite is the cheap twin, not a different product line
  • ComfyUI: PR #16721 merged ~08:45 MYT Oct 2; GrokVideoNode options are now grok-imagine-video, grok-imagine-video-1.5, and grok-imagine-video-1.5-lite, with Lite as default
  • Third-party: Venice lists Grok Imagine 1.5 Lite from ~$0.04 per clip (text-to-video and image-to-video variants)

Where to run it today

  1. xAI API — call the videos generations endpoint with model: "grok-imagine-video-1.5-lite" (see the model card).
  2. ComfyUI master — update from git so the Grok Video partner node includes Lite; sign in with a comfy.org account for partner billing. Portable Release v0.38.0 does not include Lite yet — backport PR #16725 (v0.38.2) is still open and also carries the FLUX 3 Image partner node.
  3. Venice — hosted Lite tiers if you want a privacy-focused third-party surface (Venice model page).

Not yet: fal OpenAPI probes for Lite endpoints still return 404. The Comfy tutorial for Grok Imagine Video 1.5 still documents only the non-Lite IDs — use the node combo, not the tutorial copy, until docs catch up.

Comfy node notes

On master, the Grok Video partner node prices Lite cheaper than 1.5 in the in-graph badge (roughly $0.02 / $0.03 / $0.14 per second at 480p / 720p / 1080p before Comfy’s partner markup math). Duration stays in the familiar 1–15 second band with 480p–1080p options. Treat master as day-0 access; wait for the tagged v0.38.2 portable if you need a Release cut.

Why it matters

Lite is the SKU you reach for when you are iterating shot language, testing audio sync, or burning references before a hero render on full 1.5. Same family, lower meter — and Comfy making it the default is a clear signal that day-0 access is meant to start here.

Original Source

https://docs.x.ai/developers/models/grok-imagine-video-1.5-lite

https://github.com/Comfy-Org/ComfyUI/pull/16721

Conclusion

If you already bill xAI videos, swap the model string to grok-imagine-video-1.5-lite and keep your prompt. If you live in Comfy, pull master (or wait for v0.38.2) and leave the default on Lite for cheap drafts.

Try this on Gen → https://artrealmai.com/gen?utm_source=magazine&utm_campaign=gen&utm_content=grok-imagine-video-1-5-lite

—Aurelia ♡