How to use Kling AI: Kling 4.0 setup, pricing and commercial use

Where Kling AI stands now

Kling AI is an AI video generator built by Kuaishou Technology, a Chinese short-video platform company. It turns text or images into short videos. An international beta opened in July 2024, and we published our how-to right after, in August 2024.

The service is still running as of October 2026. On October 15, a new model, Kling 4.0, was released to all users. According to the company's announcement, Kling AI has more than 100 million users worldwide and more than 50,000 business customers.

Here are the main changes since our 2024 article, in order.

You can use it in the US. The website and the iPhone app are in English, and prices are in US dollars. Your contract, though, is with Kling AI Pte. Ltd., a Singapore company, and the terms are governed by Singapore law. Disputes go to binding arbitration in Singapore, not to a US court (Terms of Service, section 13).

HIKARI'S TAKEKling AI is far from finished. In two years it has moved all the way to version 4.0. It works in English and charges in dollars, but keep in mind that you are signing up with a Singapore company.

Getting started with Kling AI

You can use Kling AI in a desktop browser (kling.ai) or in the mobile app. The browser is the easiest place to start. Here is the sign-up flow as we checked it on October 26, 2026.

1. Go to kling.ai.The site is available in English, and you can switch languages from the menu.
2. Sign up from "Sign In."You can choose a Google account, an Apple account or an email address. Continuing means you accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, so read them first. You must be at least 13, and minors need a parent or guardian to register for them (Terms of Service 2.1).
3. Claim your free credits.If you are not on a paid plan, you can claim free credits each month when you log in. Check the expiry on the creation screen.
4. Try it within the free limits.You can make one video per generation, at 720p. 1080p, 4K and watermark removal are for paid plans.

Credits are the points you spend each time you make a video or image. How many you use depends on the model, the video length, the resolution and the number of videos.

HIKARI'S TAKESigning up with Google, Apple or email takes a few minutes. You get free credits every month, so start by trying a few 720p videos.

How to use Kling AI: making a video with Kling 4.0

In 2024, you picked "AI Videos" in the left menu and switched between "Text to Video" and "Image to Video."

The left menu now has four items: Home, Generate, Canvas and Assets. In the input box in the middle, you describe the scene, or upload images, videos, people or voices to use as references. You can work from text alone, images alone, or both.

1. Describe the scene.Who is doing what, and where. Adding camera movement and lighting gets you closer to what you have in mind.
2. Add references (optional).Upload a product photo or a picture of a person, then call it up with "@" to point to it in your text.
3. Choose your settings.Below the input box, choose the model (Kling 4.0 by default), resolution, length, aspect ratio and number of videos. The defaults we saw were 720p, 10 seconds, 16:9, one video.
4. Press "Generate."Check the result in the preview, and download it if you like it.

Kling's official release note lists these main specs for Kling 4.0.

The same release note says 10-bit HDR output at 4K and 1080p is "coming soon." You can also choose Kling 4.0 Flash, which is built for speed and lower cost.

The prompting tips from our 2024 article still help. Be specific: not "a person walking" but "a woman in a red coat walks slowly down a rainy shopping street." Pick scenes with movement. Name a visual style, such as "anime style" or "cinematic color." Those three.

HIKARI'S TAKENow there is one input box for text, images and voices together. Videos can run up to 30 seconds, but the core tip is the same as in 2024: be specific.

Kling AI pricing and plans

There are four paid plans, each with a set number of credits per month. These are the monthly prices we saw on the official website's pricing page on October 26, 2026.

If you subscribe inside the iPhone app, prices are different. On the same day, the US App Store listed these in-app purchases: Standard plan (monthly) $10.00, Pro plan (monthly) $37.00 and Premier plan (monthly) $92.00. The App Store does not say how many credits each app plan includes.

According to the pricing page, Standard and above include 1080p and 4K video, watermark removal and commercial use of what you generate. The free Basic plan includes none of these.

A few rules worth knowing:

1. Monthly credits expire one month after they are issued.Unused credits do not roll over. Credits you buy separately last two years.
2. Payments are not refunded.The Terms of Paid Service say fees are non-refundable once the plan is active.
3. Plans renew automatically.If you only want to try it, sign up with the first-month discount and then turn off auto-renewal.

HIKARI'S TAKEFor work, start at Standard or above, since that's where commercial use begins. There are no refunds and monthly credits vanish after a month, so I'd start with a small plan.

Kling AI commercial use, rights and data

Being able to make a video is one thing. Being allowed to use it for work is another. Here are the parts of Kling AI's terms that matter most.

In the US, the main guidance on AI and copyright comes from the U.S. Copyright Office. Its report "Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2: Copyrightability" (January 2025) says copyright protects only human authorship. Material generated entirely by AI is not protected, and prompts alone generally are not enough. Human contributions, such as your own footage, or how you select, arrange and edit the output, can be. In March 2026, the Supreme Court declined to hear Thaler v. Perlmutter, leaving in place the ruling that a work needs a human author. Separately, if a video you generate looks like an existing work, it can still raise infringement issues, whether or not AI made it.

Before you use Kling AI for work, it helps to settle these four things.

1. Don't imitate real people or well-known characters.Make "even if it can, we don't use it" a team rule.
2. Don't upload confidential material or customers' faces.What you upload is covered by the license you give Kling AI.
3. Make commercial videos on a paid plan.Don't turn a video you made for free into an ad later.
4. Say that it was made with AI.Both because the terms require a label and because your viewers deserve to know.

HIKARI'S TAKEVideos made for free can't be used for work, and even on a paid plan, checking rights is up to you. What you upload is covered by the terms too, so keep confidential files out.

Checking our 2024 article

In August 2024 we published a step-by-step guide to Kling AI, with screenshots. Here is how what we wrote then holds up today.

Our biggest miss was not saying whether you could use the videos for work.

Our 2024 article walked through each screen carefully. But it never mentioned that videos made for free cannot be used commercially, or how your uploads are handled. For readers using it at work, that was the first thing they needed to know.

HIKARI'S TAKEThe numbers for free credits and video length have changed, but the prompting tips still work. What was missing was commercial use and rights, and that's what I most wanted this article to fill in.