Checked against Pika's official pages on 28 September 2026. Pika relaunched on 17 September 2026 and some of its help pages still describe the older product; follow the source links for current details.
The short answer
- Choose Poiema for films, series and ads that need one consistent cast and world, planned from a script and directed shot by shot.
- Choose Pika for fast, playful creation with ready-made apps, Pika's own speech, music and sound models, and a low entry price.
At a glance
| Poiema | Pika | |
|---|---|---|
| Describes itself as | The AI film studio | "AI Creative Tools Built for Creatives" (source) |
| Starts from | A script, a story or an idea | An app: Short Film, Product Ad, Motion Transfer and more (source) |
| Script to shots | Pip, the Copilot, plans the cast, locations and shot list | Video Studio creates multi-shot videos (source) |
| Characters | Lorebook references and named looks | Character Studio for reusable characters (source) |
| Visual styles | 200+ film styles that set camera, acting and pacing | Style from prompts, references and apps such as Color Grade |
| Video models | Veo 3.1, Kling 3, Seedance 2, Runway Gen-4.5 and more | Pika 2.5, plus Seedance 2.5, Wan 3.0, MiniMax and others (source) |
| Audio | ElevenLabs and Cartesia voice-over | Pika Speech, Music, SFX and Soundtrack (source) |
| Series and episodes | Projects with episodes sharing one cast | Not stated |
| Teams | Studio plan shares credits between 5 creators | Enterprise, configured around your team (source) |
| Free option | $1 trial with 100 credits | Free plan with credit packs only (source) |
| Paid plans from | $29/month (1,500 credits) | $10/month, or $8/month billed yearly (source) |
Workflow
Pika is organised around creative apps: Create Video, Short Film, Product Ad, Motion Transfer, Extend Video, Character Studio, Relight and more, with a Video Studio for multi-shot videos (source).
Poiema is organised around the production. A project holds your script, cast, locations, props, style and every shot, across as many episodes as the story needs. Pip, the Copilot, plans it all from your script, and you direct each shot. See script to video.
Characters and consistency
Pika's Character Studio creates characters you can reuse (source). Poiema gives each character reference images and named looks in the project's lorebook and uses them in every shot they appear in, with locations and props kept consistent the same way. See consistent AI characters.
Pricing
Pika (monthly billing, from its pricing page on 28 September 2026):
| Plan | Price | Credits | Commercial licence |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Packs only | No |
| Starter | $10/month | 900/month | No |
| Creator | $35/month | 3,150/month | Yes |
| Fancy | From $95/month | From 8,550/month | Yes |
Pika lists Seedance 2.5 at 122 credits for 5 seconds at 720p (source).
Poiema starts with a $1 trial including 100 credits, then plans from $29 a month for 1,500 credits. Every Generate button shows its credit price before anything runs.
Where Pika is stronger
- Its own audio models for speech, music, sound effects and soundtracks
- A wide set of quick creative apps
- A lower entry price and a free plan with credit packs
- Pika's own video model, Pika 2.5
Where Poiema is stronger
- Story-first projects with episodes that share one cast and world
- Script-to-shot planning with Pip, the Copilot
- 200+ film styles that direct camera, acting and pacing
- Named looks for deliberate costume and state changes
- A shared Studio plan for small teams
Bottom line
For quick, playful video with lots of ready-made apps, Pika is easy to love. For a film, a series or an ad campaign that has to hold together from shot to shot, Poiema is built for the job.