Which Video Upscaler API Should You Use on WaveSpeedAI? Seven Endpoints Compared

Seven video upscaling endpoints are live in the WaveSpeedAI catalog. The short answer: use wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler when cost matters most, wavespeed-ai/ultimate-video-upscaler when quality matters most and you are delivering at 1080p or 2K, and wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler-pro when you are delivering at 4K, where it is a cent per second cheaper than Ultimate.

Every price in this post is computed from the live billing formula of each endpoint as of September 5, 2026. Where a formula rounds, caps, or applies a minimum, that is stated.

The seven endpoints at a glance

Endpoint	Target resolutions accepted	Max clip length	Billing unit
wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler	720p, 1080p, 2k, 4k	10 min	per second, 3 s minimum
wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler-pro	720p, 1080p, 2k, 4k	10 min	per second, 3 s minimum
wavespeed-ai/ultimate-video-upscaler	720p, 1080p, 2k, 4k	10 min	per second, 3 s minimum
wavespeed-ai/ltx-2-19b/video-upscaler	720p, 1080p, 2k, 4k	10 min	per second, 3 s minimum
bytedance/video-upscaler	1080p, 2k, 4k	10 min billed	per second
clarity-ai/crystal-video-upscaler	target_megapixels 1 to 200 (no named tiers)	no schema cap; billing caps at 360 MP-seconds	per megapixel-second, $0.10 minimum
bria/fibo/video-upscaler	2k (2x), 4k (4x)	60 s	per second

The four wavespeed-ai endpoints share one input contract: video (a URL) and target_resolution defaulting to 1080p. Their formulas all take the input duration, round it up to whole seconds, floor it at 3, cap it at 600, and multiply by a per-second rate that depends on the target tier. Nothing else affects the price.

Price per second by target resolution

Endpoint	720p	1080p	2K	4K
wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler	$0.005	$0.005	$0.01	$0.02
wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler-pro	$0.02	$0.04	$0.05	$0.07
wavespeed-ai/ultimate-video-upscaler	$0.02	$0.03	$0.05	$0.08
wavespeed-ai/ltx-2-19b/video-upscaler	$0.02	$0.03	$0.05	$0.08
bytedance/video-upscaler	not offered	$0.0072	$0.0144	$0.0288
clarity-ai/crystal-video-upscaler	about $0.09	about $0.21	about $0.37	about $0.83
bria/fibo/video-upscaler	not offered	not offered	$0.05	$0.05

Notes on the two that do not fit the grid:

• Clarity Crystal bills $0.10 * target_megapixels * seconds, with a $0.10 floor and a cap of 360 megapixel-seconds per job. It has no named resolution tiers; the column values above are what you get by setting target_megapixels to the pixel count of each output (0.92 MP for 1280x720, 2.07 for 1920x1080, 3.69 for 2560x1440, 8.29 for 3840x2160). The cap means a job never costs more than $36, and at a 4K target it is reached after about 43 seconds of footage.
• Bria Fibo bills a flat $0.05 per second regardless of tier. Its 2k and 4k values mean 2x and 4x upscaling factors relative to the input, so the delivered resolution depends on what you feed it. The schema states a 60-second maximum input.

What a 30-second clip costs

A 30-second, 24 fps clip, one job, computed from the formulas:

Endpoint	To 1080p	To 2K	To 4K
wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler	$0.15	$0.30	$0.60
bytedance/video-upscaler	$0.22	$0.43	$0.86
wavespeed-ai/ultimate-video-upscaler	$0.90	$1.50	$2.40
wavespeed-ai/ltx-2-19b/video-upscaler	$0.90	$1.50	$2.40
wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler-pro	$1.20	$1.50	$2.10
bria/fibo/video-upscaler	n/a	$1.50	$1.50
clarity-ai/crystal-video-upscaler	$6.21	$11.07	$24.87

Two observations. The gap between the standard upscaler and the top tiers is 6x to 8x: one you can run on every clip, one you run on the clips that ship. And Pro versus Ultimate is not a strict ladder: Ultimate is cheaper at 1080p, they tie at 2K and 720p, and Pro is cheaper at 4K.

Reading the wavespeed-ai tiers

wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler (standard) is the workhorse. It accepts the same four targets as the premium tiers, runs faster (the model page cites roughly 5 to 10 seconds of wall time per second of video, against 10 to 30 for the premium tiers), and charges the same $0.005 per second whether you ask for 720p or 1080p. If you upscale AI-generated video as a routine post-process, start here and only move up when you can see the difference on your own footage.

wavespeed-ai/ultimate-video-upscaler is the tier the other model pages point to for the best quality. It is the one to use for hero shots, 1080p and 2K deliverables, and footage with fine texture (hair, fabric, foliage) where the standard tier softens detail.

wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler-pro sits alongside Ultimate with an identical contract and a rate card that is higher at 1080p and lower at 4K. If your deliverable is 4K, Pro saves $0.01 per second over Ultimate, which is $6 per 10-minute job.

wavespeed-ai/ltx-2-19b/video-upscaler matches Ultimate’s price at every tier. It is built on the LTX-2 19B video model. Where you have footage generated by LTX-2, or want to compare two premium upscalers on the same source, it is the alternative; there is no cost reason to prefer one over the other.

The third-party options

bytedance/video-upscaler bundles super-resolution with face, color, and text enhancement, denoising, deblurring, and dark-scene correction. It is the cheapest route to 4K in the catalog after the standard upscaler, and its enhancement stack is aimed at compressed real-world footage: user uploads, screen recordings, older archives. It has no 720p target, and bills at most 600 seconds per job.

clarity-ai/crystal-video-upscaler is priced an order of magnitude above everything else, and the megapixel-based control is unusual. It is the endpoint to consider when you want a specific output size that is not one of the four named tiers, or when the job is short enough that the $36 cap makes it moot. For a 5-second clip to 2 MP it costs $1.00. For a 5-minute clip it is the wrong tool.

bria/fibo/video-upscaler is the only one with output container and codec control: output_container_and_codec selects among MP4, MOV, MKV, and WebM with H.264, H.265, VP9, or ProRes, plus GIF. At $0.05 per second flat it is cheaper than Ultimate at 4K and matches it at 2K, but the 60-second input cap and the relative (2x, 4x) targets make it a short-clip, delivery-format tool rather than a general upscaler.

Decision table

If you need…	Use	Why
The lowest cost per second at any tier	wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler	$0.005 to $0.02 per second, all four targets
Cheap 4K on compressed real-world footage	bytedance/video-upscaler	$0.0288 per second with built-in denoise and enhancement
Best quality at 1080p or 2K	wavespeed-ai/ultimate-video-upscaler	Top tier, cheapest premium rate at 1080p
Best quality at 4K, long clips	wavespeed-ai/video-upscaler-pro	$0.07 per second, $0.01 under Ultimate
A second premium pipeline to compare against	wavespeed-ai/ltx-2-19b/video-upscaler	Same price as Ultimate, different model
ProRes, HEVC, VP9, or GIF output from the API	bria/fibo/video-upscaler	Only endpoint with codec selection, clips up to 60 s
A custom output megapixel target	clarity-ai/crystal-video-upscaler	target_megapixels from 1 to 200, short clips only

Practical notes

• All seven are asynchronous. Submit to POST https://api.wavespeed.ai/api/v3/<model_uuid>, then poll GET https://api.wavespeed.ai/api/v3/predictions/<id>/result until data.status is completed.
• Clips shorter than 3 seconds are billed as 3 seconds on the wavespeed-ai endpoints. Batch very short clips together before upscaling if that matters at your volume.
• For clips over 10 minutes, split, upscale in parallel, and concatenate. The premium tiers process at roughly 10 to 30 seconds of wall time per second of video, so a 10-minute job is not a quick job.
• Feed the best source you have. None of these recover detail that heavy compression has removed; denoise first if the source is noisy.

A minimal request that works on any of the four wavespeed-ai endpoints:

{
  "video": "https://example.com/clip.mp4",
  "target_resolution": "4k"
}

For a wider, less price-focused survey, see Best AI video upscalers in 2026. For the launch notes on the two premium tiers, see Introducing Ultimate Video Upscaler and Introducing Video Upscaler Pro.

All seven endpoints run on the same API key. Start from the video upscaler API page.