veo 3.1 fast vs seedance 2.0 vs grok imagine vs happyhorse 1.1

four video models pulled from the openrouter video leaderboard by request count this week (skipping the duplicate google/bytedance variants to get four distinct labs):

#1 veo 3.1 fast (@GoogleDeepMind) – 45k requests
#3 seedance 2.0 (bytedance) – 22k requests
#5 grok imagine video (@SpaceXAI) – 9k requests
#8 happyhorse 1.1 (@AlibabaGroup) – 4k requests

so we tested them. 3 prompts, text-to-video, 16:9 / 720p / 8s, real-player likeness fed in as reference images where the model allowed it. all run via @aimlapi

in the run-up to the 2026 world cup final – argentina vs spain – we built three broadcast moments from that tie. each one has to be mechanically correct, not just pretty:

• stadium flyover – 80k-seat bowl, argentina vs spain, one continuous descending aerial spiral, tifo + flares, golden-hour / floodlight split

• penalty – lamine yamal (spain #19) vs emiliano martínez (argentina keeper): run-up, single strike, full-stretch dive, ball in the net. real faces via reference

• free kick – messi 25m out, five-man wall, curl up and over the wall into the top corner. the wall has to face the ball with arms pinned down, like a real wall

the takeaway up front: the gap that decides this isn't quality – it's moderation. three of the four refuse to render real footballers' faces (grok was the only one that took every reference), so most of the test had to be reshot "faceless" – camera behind the player. the price spread on top of that is ~4x

overall results:

cost
#1 grok – $1.56
#2 veo 3.1 fast – $3.12
#3 happyhorse – $4.38
#4 seedance 2.0 – $6.00

generation time
#1 grok – 4m 16s
#2 veo 3.1 fast – 4m 26s
#3 happyhorse – 8m 16s
#4 seedance 2.0 – 10m 38s

avg bitrate (picture density)
#1 grok – 12.0 mbps
#2 veo 3.1 fast – 11.1 mbps
#3 happyhorse – 7.4 mbps
#4 seedance 2.0 – 5.3 mbps

real faces allowed
grok – took every reference
happyhorse – yamal ok, messi blocked
veo – blocked
seedance – blocked

observations:

1. moderation is the whole story. three of the four blocked at least one real face – veo and seedance refused every reference outright, happyhorse took yamal but rejected messi. only grok rendered all of them. everything else had to be shot from behind so no face shows

2. grok is the outlier: cheapest, densest picture, fastest, and the only one that renders real faces. it won on every axis that mattered here

3. seedance is the anti-grok – 4x the cost, 2.5x the time, half the bitrate, and no real faces. worst value in the set

4. none of them understand football out of the box