Introduction
Hailuo AI is an innovative platform that uses artificial intelligence to transform ideas into engaging video content. Whether you provide a written script or even a single image, Hailuo can generate a short video clip complete with animations, transitions, and even synchronized speech movement. Developed by the Chinese AI company MiniMax, Hailuo AI has quickly gained attention for pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in AI video generation.
It stands out by offering text-to-video and image-to-video capabilities in a user-friendly package, making advanced video creation accessible to everyday content creators. In this comprehensive review, we’ll explore Hailuo AI’s features, pricing, performance, and user experience, and see how it stacks up against other popular AI video tools like Synthesia, HeyGen, and Pictory. By the end, you’ll understand why many are calling Hailuo AI a game-changer in the world of video production, and whether it’s the right tool for your needs.
Features: Turning Text and Images into Videos with AI
Hailuo AI’s strength lies in its rich set of features that simplify and accelerate the video creation process. The platform is designed to accommodate both novices and professionals, offering core functionality that works out-of-the-box as well as advanced controls for those who want more creative say. Below, we break down the standout features of Hailuo AI and how they contribute to a seamless video generation experience.
AI-Generated Videos from Text Prompts
At its core, Hailuo AI is a text-to-video generator. You can simply type out a scene description or a script, and the AI will automatically produce a short video clip that matches your prompt. For example, you could type “A black-haired mermaid swimming on the water surface” and Hailuo will create a 6-second clip visualizing that scene.
The system interprets your text and turns it into dynamic visuals, complete with appropriate backgrounds, objects, and movements. It’s like having a mini movie director following your script. This feature is incredibly useful for storytelling, marketing, or social media, where turning ideas into eye-catching visuals quickly can give you a creative edge
Hailuo’s text-to-video engine is versatile in style – it can produce scenes ranging from hyper-realistic cityscapes and cinematic action shots to fantasy landscapes and animated worlds.
The generated videos are short-form (around 5–6 seconds by default) and in HD resolution (1280×720 pixels), making them perfect for attention-grabbing clips on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or video ads.
One impressive aspect is how smart Hailuo is with prompts. The platform includes a “prompt optimization” or auto prompt refine feature that can help improve your results.
If you enable this, Hailuo will automatically enrich your description with additional details to make the scene more vivid. For instance, if you simply wrote “make the girl in the picture move,” the AI might expand on that with more context to produce a better result. This is great for beginners who might not know how to craft the perfect prompt; the AI guides you by adding details behind the scenes.
Advanced users, on the other hand, can turn this off to maintain full control and ensure the AI sticks exactly to the described scenario. Overall, the text-to-video capability is Hailuo’s headline feature, allowing you to go from a written idea to a polished video clip in minutes without any filming or manual editing.
Image-to-Video Animation and AI Avatars
In addition to text, Hailuo AI allows you to use images as a starting point for your videos. This recently introduced image-to-video feature is a game-changer for those who want more control over the visuals
It works like this: you upload a still image – it could be a photo, a digital illustration, or even an AI-generated picture – and then provide a prompt describing how that image should come to life. Hailuo will transform the static image into a moving scene, adding animations, camera motions, and transitions while preserving the look and elements of the original image.
The image-to-video capability opens up exciting possibilities. Filmmakers and designers, for instance, can storyboard an idea with a few reference images and then use Hailuo AI to animate those frames, saving countless hours of manual animation.
For example, you might upload a portrait of a person and ask Hailuo to make them wave or speak, or take a landscape painting and have the AI create a gentle pan through the scenery. This feature essentially gives creators a starting “keyframe” for the AI to build on, resulting in more intentional, cinematic sequences rather than completely random outcomes.
If you’re a marketer with a branded character or mascot, you can provide Hailuo an image of that character and have it appear in motion within different scenes – all while staying on-model. In fact, Hailuo offers a Subject Reference tool explicitly for this purpose, allowing you to maintain a consistent character or object across multiple videos
This means a brand’s mascot or a recurring character can look the same and move similarly in every video, giving a professional consistency that’s usually hard to achieve with AI-generated content. This is particularly useful for maintaining branding in marketing campaigns.
Another fascinating aspect of Hailuo’s image-based video generation is its lip-sync and avatar animation technology. If the image you upload is a person (or even an illustrated character), Hailuo can animate the face to speak in sync with a voiceover or text, similar to a talking avatar.
While Hailuo doesn’t generate the voice audio itself (it does not have built-in text-to-speech as of now), you can provide a recorded voice track or use a separate AI voice, and Hailuo will make the image’s mouth and expressions match the speech. This precise lip-sync capability means you can create a realistic talking-head video from just a photograph and a script.
For example, educators have used this to create virtual lecturers – just by using a still image of a person and a typed narration that’s then spoken by an AI voice, resulting in a video of that person teaching a lesson. The synchronization of the lips and facial expressions is one of Hailuo’s notable strengths.
Animations look natural and convincing in many cases, especially at normal talking speeds. (If the speech is very fast or complex, there can be minor inaccuracies in the mouth movements, but overall it’s impressive technology) This feature puts Hailuo in league with platforms like D-ID and Synthesia that specialize in talking avatars, while Hailuo goes further by also enabling full-scene animations.
Templates, Stock Assets, and Customization
While Hailuo can generate visuals from scratch, it also provides a collection of templates and media assets to help you polish your videos. The platform offers a library of pre-made video templates that you can pick as a starting point. These templates are professionally designed layouts for various purposes – from business presentations and instructional videos to social media posts and advertisements. By using a template, you get a preset style, formatting, or even preset animations where you can just plug in your own content. This saves time and ensures your video looks polished. For instance, if you need a promotional video, you might select a marketing template where the scenes, transitions, and text placeholders are already arranged in a proven engaging format
You can then customize the template by editing the text, swapping the default images with your own or with AI-generated visuals, and adjusting colors or branding elements. Hailuo’s templates are especially useful for users who want a quick, good-looking result without starting from a blank canvas.
In addition to templates, Hailuo AI has integrated stock content to enhance your videos. Users report access to a library of stock photos, video snippets, music tracks, and sound effects that can be inserted into your AI-generated video. For example, if your AI video has a scene of a city street but you want to add a background music or a particular sound (like city ambiance or a voiceover), you can choose from the built-in library.
This is similar to what tools like Pictory offer, where you turn a script into a video illustrated by stock footage and background music. Hailuo essentially combines generative AI with traditional stock media resources – you might generate a unique animated character with AI, then place it over a real photograph background from the stock library, plus add a royalty-free music track from the library to set the mood. All of this can be done within the platform, which streamlines the production workflow. It’s great to see that Hailuo supports multiple aspect ratios as well, including 16:9 for YouTube or widescreen, 1:1 for square posts, and 9:16 for stories/vertical videos.
This ensures your creations are optimized for whatever platform you plan to share on, without awkward cropping. Customization is not only about assets but also about output settings. Hailuo AI allows you to select different video resolutions and quality settings to match your needs. Free users can generate videos at standard HD (720p) quality which is adequate for web and mobile viewing. Paid users unlock higher resolutions – up to full HD (1080p) and even 4K in some cases.
If you’re creating a video for a professional project or large display, the ability to render in 4K ensures the visuals remain crisp. Moreover, videos created on Hailuo can be downloaded or directly embedded elsewhere. The platform provides an embed code to easily share the video on websites or blogs which is useful for business users who might want to host the video on Hailuo’s servers and integrate it into their site. And if you’re collaborating with a team, Hailuo’s interface supports working on projects with others, including features like cloud storage for assets and even integration hooks. According to the official FAQ, Hailuo AI can integrate with popular apps like Zapier, Canva, Google Drive, and Gmail to fit into your broader workflow.
For example, you might automate a task via Zapier to create a Hailuo video whenever you add a new row to a Google Sheet (the integration possibilities are many for those inclined). All these features reflect a mature product that’s not just a tech demo, but a practical tool for content creation.
Multi-Language Support and Voiceovers
Hailuo AI is built to serve a global user base. The platform supports multiple languages for input and output, including English and Chinese as the primary ones, among others. This means you can type your video prompt or script in English and expect the AI to understand it, or you could use other languages to describe the scene. The interface itself was initially only in Chinese (since MiniMax is based in China), but it is now navigable in English as well, especially with built-in translation or the official English version, making it accessible to users worldwide. The support for different languages doesn’t stop at text input; it’s also evident in the voiceover capabilities.
While Hailuo doesn’t synthesize voices internally, it pairs well with external text-to-speech systems that cover dozens of languages. For instance, you could generate a video in Hailuo and then use an AI voice (from services like Azure, Google, or PlayHT) to narrate in Spanish, Hindi, French, or any language you need, and Hailuo will sync the avatar’s lips to that speech accurately. This effectively allows you to create localized videos for different markets, similar to how Synthesia’s multilingual avatar feature works, but with Hailuo you have more creative freedom in visuals.
Additionally, Hailuo’s subtitle support makes your content more accessible. You can easily add subtitles or captions to your AI-generated videos during creation. This is a simple but important feature – any spoken content in the video can be accompanied by on-screen text, which is great for viewers who watch without sound or for emphasizing key points. Many users have noted that making videos with Hailuo is a straightforward process: “Just upload your script, pick a template, and customize elements like avatars and backgrounds. The AI will handle the rest,” as the platform’s guide describes. This ease-of-use extends to language selection; if your script is in English but you want a different narration language, you can swap it out and Hailuo will adjust the mouth movements of characters accordingly, thanks to its advanced lip-sync tech.
Advanced Controls: Director Mode and Fine-Tuning
What really elevates Hailuo AI from a simple “type and get a video” app to a powerful creative tool are its advanced features for fine-tuning. One such feature is Director Mode, a recently launched addition that gives users much more control over the AI video generation process. In Director Mode, instead of providing just one prompt and getting one 6-second clip, you can string together multiple prompts or commands to create a more complex sequence.
Think of it as writing a mini screen-play: you can instruct the AI step-by-step, for example: “Scene 1: close-up of a steaming espresso cup on a table,” then “Scene 2: camera zooms out to show a café setting,” then “Scene 3: text overlay with cafe logo appears.” Each prompt can influence a shot or transition, and Hailuo will combine them into one coherent video with multiple shots.
This is similar to giving the AI storyboard instructions, and it significantly expands what you can do beyond a single 5-second scene. Early users compare Hailuo’s Director Mode to Pika Labs’ ‘Ingredients’ feature or Runway’s shot-by-shot control – essentially, it’s a way to guide the AI more granularly. For creators who want to achieve a specific vision (like a short film or a multi-step demo video), Director Mode offers a level of control that few other AI video generators currently match.
Another advanced capability is the aforementioned Subject Reference or consistent character feature. If you’re making a series of videos and you want the same character or object to appear throughout, Hailuo lets you reference a previous output or upload to maintain consistency. For example, if you generated a cute robot character in one video, you can tell Hailuo to use that same robot in the next video by providing it as a reference image. The AI then tries to keep the appearance and proportions consistent, effectively “remembering” your character across different scenes or even different projects.
Marketers have used this to keep a brand mascot identical in every advertisement video, and content creators enjoy it for episodic content (imagine an animated series where you want the hero to look the same each episode – Hailuo can do that by learning from the reference). This is a complex task for generative models (as slight differences can occur each time), so it’s impressive that Hailuo AI is offering a solution to handle it.
On top of that, Hailuo provides usual editing controls such as background removal (for isolating a subject and placing it on a different backdrop) and basic trimming or merging of clips in the editor. For instance, the Pro plan advertises a background removal feature that could take the subject generated and give you a transparent background video, useful for overlaying that subject onto other videos or slides.
It even allows multiple scenes in one project, meaning you don’t have to download each 6-second clip and stitch them externally – you can generate a few clips and combine them within Hailuo’s interface. All these capabilities show that Hailuo AI is not a one-trick pony; beyond the novelty of AI generation, it’s incorporating the practical editing and directing features that users need to produce truly usable videos.
Hailuo AI’s interface (Chinese version shown) showcases a variety of AI-generated video styles, from realistic live-action scenes to stylized animations. Users can input text or upload images (in English or Chinese) to generate 6-second clips. The gallery above displays example outputs – from a boy playing a video game to fantasy battle scenes – all created by Hailuo’s AI
Pricing: Free Access and Affordable Plans
One of the most compelling aspects of Hailuo AI is its accessible pricing structure, which includes a free tier and affordable paid plans. The platform operates on a credit system, where generating a video consumes a certain number of credits. Below is an overview of Hailuo’s pricing options and what you get with each:
- Free Plan (Trial and Ongoing) – Hailuo AI offers a generous free experience to let users try it out. When you first sign up, you currently get a 3-day unlimited trial period. During these first three days, you can generate as many videos as you want, with full access to features, at no cost – a great way to explore the tool’s capabilities without any commitment. After the trial, the free plan continues to be available with some limitations. Free users receive daily bonus credits for logging in, which can be used to create videos. Specifically, you get a certain number of credits each day (for example, 100 credits per day is a reported amount), and each video generation costs around 30 credits on default settings. In practical terms, that means free users can produce roughly 3 short videos per day without paying, which is quite generous compared to other AI video services. The free plan does limit some aspects: videos will include a small watermark (e.g., a “hailuo AI × MiniMax” logo in the corner), and you might not get the highest resolution outputs. Also, free users are put into a processing queue behind paid users, so at times of high demand there can be a wait for your video to generate. Hailuo allows up to 3 pending tasks in the queue for free accounts, meaning you could stack a few prompts and let them process sequentially. Overall, the free plan is excellent for casual use and experimentation, but if you need faster turnaround or watermark-free videos, you’d consider upgrading.
- Standard Plan ($9.99/month) – The Standard (sometimes called “Pro”) plan is very affordably priced at $9.99 per month, making Hailuo much cheaper than many Western counterparts. For roughly the cost of a few cups of coffee each month, this plan unlocks a lot: you receive 1,000 credits per month, which equates to about 33 video generations (assuming ~30 credits per video). These credits reset monthly, and some users have noted you still continue to get daily login bonuses as a subscriber, which can effectively increase your total generations if you use the platform frequently. The Standard plan removes the watermark, so your outputs look professional, and it enables higher video resolutions (up to 1080p HD). Importantly, paid users get fast-track generation, meaning your jobs skip the long public queue and are processed much more quickly. In fact, Hailuo claims that its AI can render a 6-second 720p clip in under 30 seconds of processing, though free users might wait minutes or longer in a queue during peak times. With Standard, your videos will typically start generating almost immediately or within a short time. You can also run two tasks concurrently in this plan (as opposed to one at a time on free) and have up to 5 tasks queued at once, see: blog.briefy.ai. This is great for productivity – for example, you could generate one video while tweaking prompts for the next. Subscribers also gain priority access to new features meaning when Hailuo rolls out something like a new model or the Director Mode, paid users often get to try it first or with better availability. All told, the $9.99 Standard plan offers exceptional value: you get dozens of videos, higher quality and speed, and advanced features that outshine many competitors’ base plans.
- Unlimited Plan ($94.99/month) – For power users and businesses, Hailuo AI provides an Unlimited plan at $94.99 per month. This plan is all-inclusive: you get unlimited credits, meaning you can generate as many videos as you need without worrying about credit counts. It retains all the benefits of the Standard plan (no watermark, highest resolutions, priority speed, new features first). Essentially, the Unlimited plan is designed for heavy daily users – think creative agencies, social media managers, or AI enthusiasts who might be making dozens of videos a day. Given the credit model, one could roughly equate the $94.99 plan to an “all you can create” scenario; if each short video is ~$0.30 worth of credits on the standard plan, then if you make more than about 330 videos a month, the unlimited plan pays for itself. It also likely provides the maximum queue priority, so your jobs are always at the front of the line. Some users on the official forum mentioned an “unlimited” plan and its cost, noting it as an option for those who need very high output volume. For most individuals, this tier might be overkill, but it’s excellent that Hailuo offers it – it signals the platform is capable of supporting professional workloads (for example, a studio generating hundreds of AI video variations for A/B testing in ads). One could even opt for the unlimited plan just for a short period, say a month, to complete a project with intensive video needs, and then cancel, since it’s a monthly subscription.
In comparison to other AI video services, Hailuo’s pricing is refreshingly low and straightforward. There are no per-download fees or expensive paywalls for higher quality. The free tier’s persistent daily credits system is especially user-friendly – you can continue to use Hailuo indefinitely without paying, albeit at a limited pace. This is in stark contrast to some competitors that only offer a one-time free trial or require a credit card upfront. Hailuo does not require any credit card to start; no-registration use was even possible in early versions (though to benefit from the free credits, you’ll want an account so it can tally your usage). The company also sometimes runs promotions – for instance, the 3-day unlimited trial for new users was a special offerand it may adjust trial length or credit bonuses as it gathers more users, see x.com.
Finally, it’s worth noting that paid plans can be purchased via app stores as well if you’re using the mobile app, making it convenient. The Standard plan’s $9.99 price tag is “on sale” as of writing (perhaps a launch promotion), but even if it were to increase a bit, it would still be a strong value for the capabilities offered. In summary, Hailuo AI’s pricing model encourages everyone to give it a try for free and provides a low barrier to entry for full functionality, which is likely a reason behind its fast-growing user base.
Performance: Speed, Quality, and Limitations
A tool packed with features is only as good as its performance in real-world use. So how does Hailuo AI stack up when it comes to generating videos efficiently and with high quality? Overall, Hailuo delivers impressive results for an AI video generator, though it does have some inherent limitations (as all current AI video models do). Let’s break down performance into a few key aspects: responsiveness (speed), output quality, and known limitations or challenges.
Speed and Responsiveness
Hailuo AI is optimized for quick turnaround, especially for short video clips. In ideal conditions, the system can produce a 6-second HD video in about 20–30 seconds of processing time. This means that if you have priority access (as a paying user), you might get your result almost instantly after submitting a prompt – practically as fast as waiting for a cup of coffee. The rapid generation is a big plus for users who want to iterate on their prompts multiple times to refine the output. You don’t have to wait hours or even many minutes; you can try an idea, see the result, tweak the prompt, and try again all within a few minutes. In our tests and according to user feedback, simple scenes often render very fast, while more complex scenes (with lots of elements or movement) might take a bit longer, but generally still under a minute of processing.
However, one thing to distinguish is processing time vs. wait time. For free users, Hailuo imposes a queue system. Because text-to-video generation is computationally intensive (essentially the AI is drawing multiple frames of video for you), Hailuo’s servers manage load by queuing requests. During periods of high demand, free users might see messages like “X people ahead of you” and experience waits that could stretch to several minutes or more. In fact, at one point when Hailuo’s popularity exploded, some free users reported extremely long waits (even hours) if thousands of people were using the service simultaneously.
The developers addressed this by encouraging upgrades (which get you priority) and expanding capacity. In normal usage now, it’s common for a free user to wait maybe a minute or a few minutes for their video to start processing – still not bad considering the complexity of what’s happening, but it’s noticeable if you’re doing many videos. Standard plan users have a much smoother experience: their jobs jump to the front, so effectively no significant wait. The “fast-track” feature means the AI begins working on your video almost immediately
Furthermore, the ability to process two videos at once in paid plans can effectively double your throughput, handy if you’re on a time crunch. It’s also worth noting that Hailuo’s performance has been improving with updates. The introduction of MiniMax’s Director Mode and other optimizations aim to use resources efficiently even when generating multi-shot sequences.
And since Hailuo is a cloud-based service, the user doesn’t need a powerful computer at home – the heavy lifting is done on Hailuo’s servers (which presumably utilize GPUs and advanced hardware). The platform also implemented a queue limit for free users (3 tasks) so that someone can’t clog the system with too many requests at once, ensuring fairness and faster average turnaround for everyone.
In summary, Hailuo AI is generally very responsive for a modern AI video generator, especially if you’re on a paid tier. It’s designed to deliver quick results (often under a minute). Free users do experience slower responsiveness due to queue times, but the system remains usable – you can set a prompt and come back when it’s done. Compared to older AI video tools that sometimes took hours to render or required local GPU setups, Hailuo feels almost realtime. This speed is crucial because it makes the creative process fun and interactive; you can experiment freely without long delays.
Output Quality and Realism
The big question for any video generator: how good are the videos? Hailuo AI’s outputs are remarkably high-quality given they are 100% AI-generated. The videos are 720p resolution by default, with smooth frame rates around 24–25 frames per second, and can be upscaled to higher resolutions on paid plans. Users consistently praise the vividness and detail in Hailuo’s videos.
If you request a realistic scene – say, “a busy night street in Tokyo with neon signs” – Hailuo can produce something that looks like actual video footage at a glance: you’ll see lights flickering, people-like silhouettes moving, and reflections on wet pavement. It’s quite stunning. In fact, one tech blog listed Hailuo among the top AI video generators for its ability to deliver “incredibly realistic” looking clips, thanks to advances in the underlying AI model (likely a form of generative adversarial network).
Hailuo AI is also adept at stylistic flexibility. The output quality isn’t just about realism – it’s about matching the style you ask for. And Hailuo shines here. It can generate fantasy and sci-fi scenes with dramatic lighting and special effects (explosions, magic particles, etc.), or turn your prompt into an anime-style or cartoon video if you specify that style.
The diversity of visual styles (hyper-real, cinematic, anime, pixel art, etc.) sets it apart from many competitors that might focus only on realistic avatars or only on illustrated styles. One user described how Hailuo could simulate natural human motion more fluidly than many other AI models. For example, a generated human figure walking or dancing with Hailuo tends to have more natural limb movement and weight shift, whereas some older systems produced jerky or awkward animations. This has made Hailuo popular among digital artists and even game developers prototyping character animations.
Despite being limited to a few seconds, the videos pack a lot in: Hailuo can handle fast actions (like a car chase or a person running) and still keep things relatively clear. It can also do close-ups with expressive facial features – you might get a shot of a person’s face looking surprised or happy, and see those emotions clearly, which is impressive for AI (faces are usually hard to get right). One review noted that Hailuo successfully generated detailed facial expressions, only occasionally showing minor imperfections like a slight distortion around eyes or mouth in certain frames.
For static images turned into video, the output often has a cinematic feel: for instance, if you give it a photo of a room, the video might slowly pan across the room as if a cameraman were filming it, with very smooth motion. Colors and lighting are usually on-point, and the AI even adds appropriate shadows and reflections to make the scene cohesive.
That said, the output is not always perfect. While Hailuo’s quality is among the best in AI video generators, you may still encounter the occasional AI quirks – for example, the model (like others in its class) can struggle with intricate details like hands and text. If you prompt a person showing their hands clearly, the fingers might look a bit off or fused (a common issue in generative models). Rapid movements can sometimes cause a slight motion blur or morphing effect. And if you tried to generate a clip of a person talking up close, you might notice the mouth area isn’t entirely natural for very complex phonetics – some users noted the lip-sync, while excellent, can falter on extremely fast speech or unusual mouth shapes.
But these flaws are usually minor and being improved with each model update. In many cases, a casual viewer might not even detect the oddities unless they freeze a frame and look closely. For context, these are challenges all AI image/video generators face, and Hailuo is already performing at or above the level of its peers in minimizing such issues.
Another aspect of output quality is consistency in multi-shot videos. With features like Director Mode, you might string together a few scenes. Hailuo does a pretty good job maintaining consistency (e.g., the same character across shots) especially if you use the Subject Reference feature, but if you push it to do a long sequence, you might notice slight continuity errors. For example, a character’s clothing might change color in a new shot or a prop might disappear. These can often be ironed out by refining prompts or using reference images more thoroughly. When everything goes right, though, the result can feel eerily like a professionally edited video. Some early adopters have even created short films by stitching multiple Hailuo clips, showcasing war scenes, wildlife, and sci-fi cityscapes that look straight out of a movie trailer【34†】.
In terms of audio, Hailuo’s videos by default come muted or with a basic background music if you use certain templates. The quality of any included audio (music or sound effects) is fine, though many users prefer to add custom audio after, since Hailuo’s strength is visual. If you include a voiceover in an avatar video, the clarity depends on the source of that voiceover since Hailuo itself doesn’t generate voices. But it handles syncing with clear audio well; muffled or low-quality voice inputs may reduce the perceived lip-sync accuracy, so users should use good quality audio for best results.
Limitations and What to Expect
While Hailuo AI is highly capable, it’s important to set the right expectations and understand its limitations. First, the video length is currently limited to very short clips (around 6 seconds per generation).
This is not a tool to make a 5-minute video in one go. If you need a longer video, you will be creating multiple segments and editing them together. The short length is a design choice likely due to computational constraints – generating each second of video involves producing many frames of images. However, with Director Mode you can chain multiple 6-second bits, which softens this limitation a little. For many use cases like social media posts, ads, or illustrative snippets, 6 seconds is actually enough to convey a punchy message. But those looking to produce long-form content (like a full YouTube video or a lengthy presentation) may need to use Hailuo for segments or specific scenes and integrate those into larger projects via a video editor.
Another limitation is that free users’ videos carry a watermark and are capped at 720p resolution. The watermark reads “hailuo AI × MiniMax” and usually appears at a corner throughout the video. It’s not huge, but it’s visible. For non-commercial or personal fun use, this is not a big deal. But if you’re making something for a brand or audience, you’d likely want to upgrade to remove that. The resolution of 1280×720 pixels, while technically HD, is on the lower end by today’s standards (when many videos are 1080p or higher). In practice, 720p looks fine on mobile phones and small web embeds. On larger screens or TVs, it will appear less sharp. Paying for the Standard plan to get 1080p output is worth it if video clarity is important for your project
Hailuo promisingly advertises 4K support, but note that generating in 4K might multiply the render time and resource use – expect those to possibly take longer or consume more credits. It’s great for future-proofing though, and rare in this field.
There’s also the matter of content restrictions and moderation. Hailuo, like responsible AI tools, has a built-in content moderation system. If you try to generate disallowed content (violent gore, nudity, or other policy violations), the system may refuse or censor it. The developers have a censorship system to ensure outputs remain within ethical and legal guidelines.
This is actually a benefit (you wouldn’t want the tool to be misused and then face shutdown), but it means not every wild idea will be rendered. For most typical users this won’t be an issue; just be aware that truly outlandish or explicit prompts won’t work. On the flip side, this moderation helps keep the community around Hailuo positive and its gallery safe for all audiences.
One more limitation to mention is that Hailuo currently relies on its cloud service – there is no offline or self-hosted version. You need an internet connection and there could be times the service is down for maintenance or slow due to high load. The team behind Hailuo seems to be actively scaling and updating, as evidenced by their rapid introduction of new features and responsiveness on forums. But as with any cloud software, you’re subject to their uptime.
On the support side, while Hailuo does have an English interface, some advanced documentation or community discussions might be in Chinese, which could limit how easily you troubleshoot complex issues if you’re an English speaker. That said, they provide helpful guides, a Discord community, and even a subreddit where many English-speaking users share tips
In conclusion on performance: Hailuo AI performs admirably in generating high-quality short videos quickly. It has some inherent limits (short duration, watermarks on free, occasional generation quirks) but these are balanced by the platform’s strengths and continual improvements. For the vast majority of users who need quick, creative clips, Hailuo’s performance will feel like a breath of fresh air – it’s fast, the outputs look great, and it’s reliable enough for regular use.
