Quick answer: both lanes return 2560x1440, but 1440P bills 4 credits per second and 2K bills 10. The premium does not buy pixels: it buys video-to-video, six aspect ratios and first-plus-last-frame at full resolution. If your shot is 16:9 or 9:16 with reference conditioning, the 1440P lane does the same job for 40% of the price.
If you open the pricing table for MiniMax H3 on Callirra, two rows land on the same number of pixels:
- 1440P — 2560×1440, 4 credits per output second
- 2K — 2560×1440, 10 credits per output second
Same raster, same 24 fps, two and a half times the price. Nothing on the page explains the gap, and it is the question I get asked most often. The answer is that these are two different generation lanes that happen to converge on the same canvas, and which one you want depends on three things that have nothing to do with resolution.
What each lane can actually be asked to do
| 1440P | 2K | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | 4 credits / s | 10 credits / s |
| Duration | 1–15 s | 4–15 s |
| Text to video | yes | yes |
| Image to video | yes | yes |
| Video to video | no | yes, 4–15 s |
| Aspect ratios | 16:9, 9:16 | 21:9, 16:9, 4:3, 1:1, 3:4, 9:16 |
| First + last frame | no | yes (image to video) |
| Reference images | up to 9 | up to 9 |
| Reference audio | up to 3 | up to 3 |
| Style presets | six (drama / action × live action / animation) | none |
| Conditioning mode | reference only | reference, and single first frame |
Read that table again and the pricing stops looking arbitrary. The 2K lane is the only one with 21:9 and 4:3 and 3:4, and the only one that takes a first and last frame at that resolution. Video-to-video also runs at 768P. The 1440P lane uses six style presets, also available through multimode at 480P, 768P and 1080P; text-to-video needs no reference images.
When 2K is worth 2.5×
Three jobs justify it:
- You are restyling footage at 2K. Video to video runs at 768P and 2K (4–15 s, up to 9 reference images alongside the source). The 768P route costs 6 credits per input-plus-output second; choose 2K when you need its output resolution.
- Your deliverable needs a wider aspect choice. 21:9 for a title sequence, 4:3 for a period piece, 3:4 for print-adjacent social. Those three ratios require 2K; square output is also available at 480P and 768P image-to-video.
- The shot has to land on an exact pose at maximum resolution. 2K image to video accepts a first frame and a last frame; 480P and 768P support both at their lower resolutions.
When is 2K not worth it?
If your shot is 16:9 or 9:16, needs reference conditioning, and is under 15 seconds, the 1440P lane renders the same pixel count for 40% of the price. Ten seconds costs 40 credits instead of 100 — $0.40 instead of $1.00 at the published $0.01-per-credit rate.
That is not a rounding difference. On a fifty-shot project it is the difference between 2,000 and 5,000 credits.
The trade you make is the generation lane: 1440P uses multimode with one of six style presets. It supports prompt-only text-to-video as well as image-to-video. An explicit seed is optional; choose text-to-video without reference images, or image-to-video when supplying an image.
A rule of thumb
- Drafting and iterating: 480P (1 credit/s) or 768P (2 credits/s). Never iterate at 2K.
- Publishing at 1440P with references: 1440P lane, 4 credits/s, choose the preset deliberately.
- Restyling, unusual aspect ratios, first+last frame at top resolution: 2K, 10 credits/s, and accept that it is the premium lane.
The mistake I see most is people selecting 2K because it is the top row of the table. The top row is not the best lane; it is the lane for jobs the other tiers cannot do at all.
FAQ
Is the 2K lane a higher resolution than 1440P? No. Both return 2560x1440. The difference is duration, aspect ratios, video-to-video support and first-plus-last-frame.
Why does 2K cost two and a half times more? It runs a different conditioning pipeline, accepts video input and six aspect ratios. You pay for capability, not pixels.
Can the 1440P lane run a prompt-only job? Yes. It uses multimode, which accepts prompt-only text-to-video without reference images. An explicit seed is optional.
Where this runs
The full tier table, with per-second rates and the ten second cost for each tier, is at https://callirra.com/minimax-h3 — the rate card section shows all six tiers side by side, including the two covered here.
I work on Callirra, which is where these numbers come from: they are the published rates that the generator and the API both charge, not a benchmark I ran. If you have measurements that contradict the table above, I want them — reply here and I will re-check against the live quote.