Runway Replaces Unlimited Plan with Max on September 1
Runway is phasing out its Unlimited plan by September 1, 2026. Here's what existing subscribers need to know about the transition to Max.
Runway began phasing out its Unlimited subscription tier on June 1, 2026, replacing it with a new Max plan aimed at high-volume and deadline-driven users. Existing Unlimited subscribers keep their current plan unchanged through August 31, 2026, at which point they move to Max. The company has cited generation queue times under the old plan as the primary driver of the change.
Unlimited Exits, Max Arrives with More Credits at the Same Monthly Price
The Max plan launched to new subscribers on May 29, 2026, and became the official replacement for Unlimited on June 1. At $95/month (billed monthly) or $76/month (billed annually), the price point matches what monthly Unlimited subscribers were already paying. The credit allocation, however, is substantially different: Max includes 9,500 credits per month versus the 2,250 credits Unlimited provided — a 4x increase.
The old Unlimited plan supplemented its 2,250 monthly credits with Explore Mode, a slower processing tier that allowed additional generations without consuming credits. Queue times in Explore Mode ranged from 5 to 20 minutes, with concurrency limits that fluctuated based on platform load. Runway is removing Explore Mode from Max entirely, consolidating all generation activity into the credit system and eliminating the slow queue in exchange for on-demand processing.
Max includes credit rollover for one month of unused credits, access to all Runway models and current third-party models (including Veo 3, Veo 3.1, Seedance 2.0, Kling 3.0 Pro, BFL FLUX.2 [max], and Seedream 5.0), and workspace support for up to 10 editors at an added $95/month or $912/year per editor seat. For reference, 9,500 credits translates to approximately 380 seconds of Gen-4.5 footage per month before accounting for multiple takes.
The transition timeline for existing Unlimited subscribers breaks down as follows: nothing changes through August 31, 2026. Monthly Unlimited subscribers automatically roll to Max on September 1 at the same $95/month rate. Annual Unlimited subscribers will be given a choice during August: migrate to Max with a credits bonus, or cancel and receive a refund for the remaining months of their annual term. Runway states the refund option is available only during August and will not be offered after the September 1 deprecation date.
Competitive Context
Runway's Max plan lands at $76/month (annual) or $95/month (monthly) in a segment where Kling, Pika, and Sora each offer tiered subscription structures, though direct credit-to-credit comparisons are difficult given differences in model output duration and resolution tiers. Kling's top consumer plan sits below Runway's Max price point; Sora's highest non-enterprise tier is similarly priced. What distinguishes the Max positioning is the bundling of third-party model access — Veo 3, Kling 3.0 Pro, Seedance 2.0 — within a single Runway subscription, rather than requiring separate platform accounts for each model.
The removal of Explore Mode narrows Runway's offering for users who valued low-cost or cost-free experimental generation, a feature some competitors still provide through free or low-credit trial queues. Platforms competing on accessibility for lighter users retain an edge in that segment. Runway's credit-per-dollar efficiency improves significantly at Max versus its lower tiers: the effective cost per second of Gen-4 footage is approximately $0.20 on Max, compared to $0.31 on Pro and $0.48 on Standard.
The Signal in the Noise
The core structural change here is not pricing — it is the elimination of Explore Mode. For Unlimited subscribers who used Explore Mode as a low-friction iteration layer, generating rough takes without touching their credit balance, that workflow disappears on September 1. The 4x credit increase partially compensates for this, but the behavior change is real: every generation on Max costs credits, which introduces budget-consciousness into a part of the creative process that was previously cost-free for Unlimited users.
The credit rollover feature is worth noting for production teams with uneven workloads. A month with lighter output banks credits that can be deployed during a crunch period, which is more useful than a use-it-or-lose-it monthly reset. Teams evaluating whether to migrate or take the refund option on annual plans should model their actual monthly credit consumption against 9,500 credits before August, when the decision window opens.
Annual Unlimited subscribers have a concrete deadline to act: the refund option closes when August ends. That is an unusual degree of clarity for a platform pricing change — Runway has communicated a hard cutoff rather than a rolling option. Subscribers who do not engage with the decision before September 1 default to Max at the $95/month rate. For studios already consuming more than 2,250 credits per month on priority processing, the transition is straightforwardly favorable. For those who primarily used Explore Mode for low-volume experimentation, the calculus is less clear.
