GateTrue

What each generator documents about marking its output

A permanent trial mark and a spendable credit grant

Both entries produce free output that behaves like a trial rather than a standing tier. On one the mark on that material is stated to be permanent; on the other the free allowance simply runs out. As of 2026-09-22.

Two trial-shaped free tiers, and what payment fixesOne free offering is a one-time allocation of credits that runs out, with nothing published about the files it produced. The other is a plan whose watermark is stated to survive a later upgrade, so the material it produced cannot be cleaned up at any price.A credit allocationSpent once, then it stopsMarked, read from an omissionA payment fixes the next exportA plan with a ruleMarked, and stated to stay markedA sentence in licensing termsNothing fixes the files already madeBoth produce evaluation material that outlives the evaluationWhat happens when somebody notices later
Fig. 1 The sturdier statement is the worse news, which is the pattern in this column.
The two entries on one question at a time, in each vendor's own terms. Recorded 2026-09-22.
On this questionLuma AIRunway
Shape of the free offeringA plan, with a permanence ruleA one-time credit allocation
Earlier files after payingStated to keep the watermarkNot addressed
How the free value was readA sentence in a licensing guideAn omission from a plan grid
RecoveryGenerate the shot againPay, then export
Second route to the modelsNone documentedAPI pricing, which omits the line

Inclusion rule. One row per question on which these two entries can be compared from their own published pages. Questions neither vendor addresses are left out rather than filled with a dash. Order. Fixed order: the mechanism first, then who holds it, then what it leaves behind.

Where each value above was read, and what the register records in the free tier column. Recorded 2026-09-22.
GeneratorFree tierDocument read
Luma AIWatermark, not lifted by a later upgradelicensing guide
RunwayNo watermark-free output listedpricing page

Inclusion rule. The two entries on this page, with the value each one's own pages support in the column they diverge on. Order. Alphabetical by generator name.

1Trial-shaped, for two different reasons

A standing free plan produces files indefinitely. Both of these produce a burst and then stop, but by different means: one is a one-time credit allocation rather than a recurring monthly amount, and the other is a plan whose output is permanently marked, which makes using it for production pointless.

Either way the material this column describes is mostly evaluation work, and evaluation work has a habit of surviving into finished projects. The difference is what happens when somebody notices: on one entry a payment fixes the next export, on the other nothing fixes the file.

2A sentence against an omission

These two free cells also differ in evidence class. One is a sentence in a licensing guide, which survives a redesign of any pricing page and stays quotable. The other is read from the absence of a paid feature line in the free column of a grid, which has to be re-established every time the grid moves.

The sturdier reading happens to be the worse news, which is the pattern across this column: vendors who state their free-tier behaviour outright tend to be stating something restrictive, because a permissive free tier is advertised rather than disclosed.

3What a reader should carry away from each

From the permanence entry: decide the plan before generating anything worth keeping, because regenerating returns a different file and re-approval costs more than the subscription did. From the credit-grant entry: the free output exists in small quantity and the vendor has not said what happens to it.

Neither vendor names a provenance standard or a metadata field, so neither file carries anything a later recipient could inspect. On material that leaks out of an evaluation into a finished cut, the visible mark is the only published trace on either row.

4Sources

  • Control
    After a cancellation or downgrade, new generations fall under the Free plan terms and may include a watermark, while earlier Free and Lite output keeps its watermarktied to the state of the subscriptionLuma, Dream Machine licensing guide / recorded 2026-09-22
  • Free tier
    The free plan's feature list does not include watermark-free outputby omission from the feature listRunway, pricing / recorded 2026-09-12

Both values above are read from the vendor pages linked in the rows: lumalabs.ai and runway.com, on 2026-09-22. Each entry has its own page, Luma AI and Runway, and the rule for the column they diverge on is on the free tier column page. Other pairs: a reason, or no route, ten dollars, or twenty-eight.