Checked against Runway's official pages on 28 September 2026. Prices and features change; follow the source links for the latest.
The short answer
- Choose Poiema if you are making a story: a short film, a series, an animated piece or an ad with recurring characters. Poiema starts from your script and keeps your cast, locations and style consistent across every shot.
- Choose Runway if you want a broad creative suite built on Runway's own models, with editing apps, Adobe plugins and professional export formats such as HDR and ProRes on its top plan.
At a glance
| Poiema | Runway | |
|---|---|---|
| Built around | Your film project: script, cast, world and shots | A creative suite of models, apps and an agent |
| Starts from | A script, a story or a one-line idea | A prompt, an image or a video |
| Script to shots | Pip, the Copilot, plans the cast, locations and shot list | Multi-Shot Video app and Runway Agent (source) |
| Character consistency | Lorebook references and named looks used in every shot | Not documented on current pages for film shots (source) |
| Visual styles | 200+ film styles that set camera, acting and pacing | Style depends on your prompt and references |
| Video models | Veo 3.1, Kling 3, Seedance 2, Runway Gen-4.5, Aleph 2.0 and more | Runway's Gen-4.5, Aleph 2.0 and Act-Two, plus Seedance, Kling, Veo and others (source) |
| Voices | ElevenLabs and Cartesia voices | Eleven v3 and custom voice clones on Pro and above (source) |
| Editing | Creative Studio edit, extend and motion control; CapCut export | Aleph, Edit Studio, relight and remove apps; Premiere Pro and After Effects plugins (source) |
| Pro export | MP4, CapCut draft | HDR, ProRes and image sequences on Max (source) |
| Free option | $1 trial with 100 credits | Free plan with 125 one-time credits (source) |
| Paid plans from | $29/month (1,500 credits) | $15/month, or $12/month billed yearly (source) |
Workflow: project first vs tool first
Runway gives you a large set of tools: video models, an agent that creates videos through conversation, a multi-shot app, node-based workflows and editing apps. You bring the story and combine the tools.
Poiema starts from the story. Paste a script and Pip, the Copilot, builds the cast, locations and props, splits the story into episodes and shots, and plans each shot's camera, lighting and action. Everything stays in one project, so the fiftieth shot knows everything the first one did. Read more on script to video.
Character consistency
Keeping the same face and costume across a film is the hardest part of AI filmmaking. In Poiema, each character has reference images and named looks in the project's lorebook, and those references are passed into every shot they appear in. Runway's "Characters" product is a real-time conversational avatar (source); we could not find current documentation of a cross-shot character system for film work.
See how Poiema handles it on consistent AI characters.
Models
Runway develops its own frontier video models, including Gen-4.5, and also offers third-party models such as Seedance, Kling and Veo (source). Poiema does not build its own video models. It brings leading models together, including Runway Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0, and lets you pick one per shot while your cast and world travel with you.
Pricing
Runway (monthly billing, from its pricing page on 28 September 2026):
| Plan | Price | Credits |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 125, one time |
| Standard | $15/month | 625/month |
| Pro | $35/month | 2,250/month |
| Max | $95/month | 9,500/month |
| Team | $69/seat/month | 6,900/seat/month |
Runway lists Gen-4.5 at 12 credits per second (source, team).
Poiema starts with a $1 trial including 100 credits, then plans from $29 a month for 1,500 credits. The Studio plan ($199 a month) shares 14,000 credits between 5 creators. Every Generate button shows its credit price before anything runs.
Where Runway is stronger
- Its own frontier models, developed in-house
- Adobe integration with Premiere Pro and After Effects plugins
- Professional export: HDR, ProRes and image sequences on Max
- A free plan to try before paying
- Larger teams: team plans for 2 to 9 seats, with Enterprise beyond
Where Poiema is stronger
- Story-first workflow from script to cast to shot list
- Consistent characters, locations and props across a whole film or series
- 200+ film styles that direct camera, acting and pacing
- Model choice per shot, including Runway's own Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0
- Built-in voice-over and CapCut export for the final cut
Bottom line
If your work starts with a script and needs the same characters in every shot, Poiema is built for that. If you want Runway's own models and a professional post-production pipeline, Runway is a strong choice, and you can use its Gen-4.5 and Aleph 2.0 inside Poiema too.