Getting Your API Keys
How to get a Runway API key
Create a key in Runway's developer portal for video generation — note it's a different account from the Runway web app.
What a Runway key powers in Landio
Runway handles video generation — short clips from a text prompt or from a still image. It's video only; you'll want a different vendor for captions and stills.
Before you start
Runway's API lives in a developer portal that is separate from the Runway app most people know. This catches nearly everyone.
A Runway subscription on runwayml.com does not include API credits, and its credits cannot be spent through the API. The developer portal has its own balance that you top up separately. If you already pay Runway monthly, you will still need to buy API credits.
Creating the key
Set up the developer account first, then the key.
Go to dev.runwayml.com and sign in or register. This is the developer portal — the address matters.
Screenshot: The Runway developer portal landing page with sign in and register options
Create or select an organisation if prompted. A solo user still gets one; the default is fine.
Open the API Keys section and create a new key, naming it after where it will be used.
Screenshot: The Runway developer portal API keys page with the new API key button
Copy the key. It's shown once — save it before closing the dialog.
Screenshot: The newly created Runway API key shown with a copy button and a one-time warning
Buy credits in the developer portal's billing section. The API will reject calls until the balance is non-zero, even on a key that was created successfully.
Screenshot: The Runway developer portal billing screen showing the credit balance and a top-up option
Adding the key to Landio
Open AI Providers from the sidebar, find Runway in the vendor list, paste the key, and save. Runway then becomes selectable for video generation.
Keys are encrypted at rest and write-only — after saving, the page only tells you that a key exists, never what it is. That also means there's no way to read a key back out of us later, so keep the copy you saved at the vendor.
Adding a key doesn't unlock a feature; it changes who bills you for it. Every plan already includes an AI allowance, so drafting works before you do any of this. With your own key, that usage bills from Runway at their rates instead of counting against the allowance.
You can add more than one key per vendor. Landio will either spread calls across them or treat the extras as failover spares, depending on how you configure that vendor — useful when one key is a paid account and the rest are backups.
Costs worth knowing before you start
Video is the most expensive thing you can generate, by a wide margin over text or images — cost scales with clip length and model quality, and a few seconds of video can cost more than a month of caption writing.
Generate deliberately rather than iterating on video the way you would on a caption. Get the concept right on cheaper still images first where you can, then move to video.
If something goes wrong
A credit or quota error on a valid key means the developer-portal balance is empty — which is the expected state right after creating the account, even if your Runway app subscription is active.
A long-running generation isn't a failure; video takes far longer than text or images to come back.
Frequently asked questions
I already pay for Runway. Why do I need to buy credits again?
Because the Runway app subscription and the API are separate products with separate balances. The subscription covers using Runway's own web editor; the API bills from credits bought in the developer portal at dev.runwayml.com. It's an unusual arrangement, and it's the most common surprise with this vendor.
How much does a video generation cost?
It depends on clip length and which model you pick, and it's the highest per-generation cost of anything in the app. Check Runway's current API pricing before running a batch, and treat video as something you generate once you're confident in the concept.
Can I use Runway for images instead?
We route Runway to video generation. For images, use OpenAI, Google, xAI or Seedream — set whichever you prefer on the AI Providers page.
Is it safe to paste an API key into a third-party app?
Keys are encrypted before storage and never displayed again after you save them. That said, the honest general answer is: give any third party the narrowest key you can, and keep the ability to revoke it. Where a vendor supports scoped or restricted keys, use one limited to the models Landio actually calls, and rotate it from the vendor's console if you ever stop using us.
This walkthrough was last checked against the provider's live console on . Providers redesign their dashboards without notice — if what you see doesn't match, the button names have probably moved rather than the process changing.
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