Appendix B — Tool and Pricing Table
The consolidated tool reference: every vendor, model, and service the book names, grouped by the job it does, with the price the chapter quoted and the substitute to reach for when the vendor disappears. That substitute column is not a convenience — vendor The rate at which subscribers leave; one month less of average lifetime moved LTV from $352 to $585. is the highest-likelihood risk in chapter 12.4's register, and it happened during the research for this book.
Convention: Prices are point-in-time and carry their check date. Where a row names a vendor the chapters price at category level, that vendor is the category's canonical exemplar from the glossary, not an endorsement. [UNVERIFIED] marks a tool with no price in the chapters; [VENDOR CLAIM] marks published vendor pricing, which moves first.
Image generation
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FLUX.1 dev | High-fidelity base for the persona's look | Local weights | Non-commercial base; commercial use needs a vendor license | Your LoRA needs a 24 GB-class base | SDXL, Qwen-Image |
| FLUX.1 schnell, FLUX Klein 4B/9B, Z-Image | Fast, permissive, low-VRAM work | Local weights | Permissive; 12 GB class with Klein or Z-Image | VRAM is the constraint | Each other |
| FLUX Kontext, FLUX 2, Qwen-Image-Edit | Instruction editing that holds a character | Local or API | Vendor terms for FLUX; permissive for Qwen | Identity must survive a scene change | Qwen-Image-Edit |
| SDXL | Mature base, widest adapter ecosystem | Local weights | Permissive | You need IPAdapter FaceID or InstantID | FLUX-class base |
| API-only and subscription generators (Nano Banana Pro, Seedream, GPT Image, Midjourney, Ideogram) | Frontier quality, aesthetic differentiation, typography | Per call or subscription | No unit price in the chapters | The model's look is the point of the post | Any per-image API |
| General-purpose AI subscription vs per-image aggregator | Volume inside a quota, or one billing relationship | Subscription vs per call | ~$10/month ≈ $0.006/image at 1,000; aggregator ~$0.36/image | Retries frequent (subscription) or rare (API) | Each other |
Video generation
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kling 2.6 / 3.0 | Mainstream quality with start and end frame control | Per second | No unit price in the chapters | You need frame control on persona motion | Veo 3.1 |
| Veo 3.1 | Frontier quality in three tiers | Per second | $0.40/s standard, $0.10/s Fast, $0.05/s Lite | Hero shots, or Lite for volume | Kling |
| Wan 2.1–3.0, LTX | Open weights, self-hosted video | Your GPU hours | Electricity plus hardware | You generate hundreds of clips a month | Each other |
| Seedance, Hailuo / MiniMax, Runway, Pika | Per-shot alternatives with different registers | Per second | No unit price in the chapters | A shot type keeps failing elsewhere | Each other |
| Discontinued frontier video product | The churn reference case | Was per second | Shut down during research | Never as your only provider | Two known paths (7.5) |
Voice
[AS OF 2026-10] [VENDOR CLAIM] Published pricing, which changes frequently.
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ElevenLabs-class voice subscription | Cloned or designed speech at a fixed quota | Subscription | ~$6/30k characters; ~$22/~120k; ~$99/~600k; ~$990/~6M | Posting a few times a week starts at $6 | Any voice API |
| Pay-per-use voice | Bursty production without a subscription | Metered | ~$60 per million characters standard; ~$100 per million high definition | Your volume is irregular | Entry subscription |
| Clone creation and voice design | The one-off anchor, or a voice with no source recording | One-off or included | ~$3 per voice clone; design included in tier | Consent and a clean sample exist | Licensed voice actor session |
Lip-sync
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HeyGen-class lip-sync API | Mouth-to-speech sync on a speaking clip | Per minute | ~$4/min at 1080p; ~$5/min at 4K | You post talking heads weekly | Voiceover over B-roll |
| Still plus voiceover | The zero-sync path | Image plus voice cost | Well under $1 per post | Sync minutes are your largest marginal line | The sync tier above |
Face consistency and adapters
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SDXL identity adapters (IPAdapter, IP-Adapter FaceID, InstantID) | Training-free identity on SDXL | Free, local | Free; 1–4 h setup by route | You are on SDXL and want a result today | PuLID |
| PuLID | Identity embedding that spares the base aesthetic | Free, local | Free; 2–3 h setup | You are on a FLUX-class base | IP-Adapter FaceID |
| ControlNet | Structural conditioning by pose, depth, or edges | Free, local | Free | Composition must be locked, not sampled | Prompt-only composition |
| LoRA trained with AI-Toolkit | The portable identity artifact | Local training time | Free software; $2–14 per run in compute | Consistency and portability both matter | Hosted training |
| Trainer GUIs (FluxGym, OneTrainer, Kohya_ss) | The same run with more or less hand-holding | Free, local | Free | FluxGym for a first FLUX run | AI-Toolkit |
| Hosted LoRA training (fal.ai-class) | A first LoRA with no local environment | Per run | ~$2 at the base price, 2–7 hours | You want a working LoRA the same day | Rented GPU with a template |
Editing and post-processing
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mobile editor (CapCut-class) | Phone-first short-form assembly | Subscription or free | No price in the chapters | A few posts a week | Desktop editor |
| Desktop editor (Resolve-class) | Keyboard-driven assembly at daily volume | Free tier | Free tier; no per-export cost | You post daily across accounts | Mobile editor |
| Professional NLE (Resolve, Premiere) | Client work with delivery specs | Subscription or one-off | No price in the chapters | Clients must accept your project files | Desktop editor |
| Upscaler and detail passes (Topaz, SeedVR2, ADetailer-class) [UNVERIFIED] | Resolution lift and skin texture | One-off, subscription, or free local | No price in the chapters | Delivery spec or plastic skin demands it | Regenerate at higher resolution |
Orchestration
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ComfyUI in API mode | The production engine, callable by script | Free, self-hosted | Free; your GPU or a rented one | The graph must run without a person in the editor | Any callable graph engine |
| n8n | Orchestration, asset filing, the approval queue, and the trigger | Self-hosted or cloud | No price in the chapters | The pipeline must survive a bad week | Scripted cron jobs |
| Docker | Reproducible runtime for engine and orchestrator | Free | Free | A rebuild must be repeatable months later | Pinned local environment |
Hosting and compute
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RunPod | Rented 4090-class GPU time | Hourly | ~$0.50–$2.00/h depending on tier | A training run or batch needs a GPU | vast.ai |
| vast.ai | Cheaper GPU rental, more setup friction | Hourly | Commonly cited at about a third of RunPod | Cost matters more than setup time | RunPod |
| Hosted inference (fal.ai, Replicate, Hugging Face-class) | Training and generation with no local environment | Per run or per call | ~$2 at the base training price; per-second video | You want the fastest first run | Rented GPU |
| Own GPU | Removing the hourly rate entirely | Capital | $1,600–$3,500 for the card class discussed | You need thousands of GPU-hours | Rented GPU |
| Electricity, storage, and backup | Marginal self-hosting cost, plus masters | Utility plus subscription | ~$0.30–$0.50 per day at residential rates; storage unpriced here | You self-host, or you keep masters | Cloud GPU; prune raw takes |
Distribution and publishing
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary distribution, mandatory account-level declaration | Free | Free; the declaration is required | Your audience is there and the content is visual | TikTok | |
| TikTok | Realism-tiered labeling, strong short-form reach | Free | Free; label required for realistic synthetic media | Volume matters and the tiers fit your art direction | Instagram Reels |
| YouTube and a secondary surface | Disclosure checkbox, archive, and ban insurance | Free | Free; the checkbox produces a public label | You want searchable reach or a second surface | The other platform |
Monetization and payments
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fanvue, OnlyFans | Subscription and chat revenue | Revenue share | No price in the chapters | You want subscription revenue without building a stack | Each other |
| Own digital product | Templates, prompt packs, memberships at the best margin | Direct sale | No price in the chapters | You have an audience and a payment path | Affiliate offers |
| Merchant of record (Lemon Squeezy, Paddle) | They sell, remit VAT, and invoice in their own name | Commission per sale | No price in the chapters | You do not want to own VAT registrations | Payment link |
| Payment link or checkout (PayPal, Stripe) | You are the merchant of record | Transaction fee | No price in the chapters | You accept the VAT and invoicing duties | Merchant of record |
| Brand deals and AI UGC retainers | Largest check, longest path | Per deliverable | $100 micro posts to reported $10,000-plus campaigns | A media kit with a compliance row exists | Retainer model |
Legal, admin, and provenance
[AS OF 2026-10]
| Tool | Purpose | Pricing model | Price | Choose it when | Substitute if it disappears |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| C2PA Content Credentials, SynthID, TrustMark-class marking | Provider-side provenance and watermarking | Provider-side or free | Not your obligation; open marking unpriced here | Never as your compliance story; inspect it instead | Each other |
| Detection classifier (Hive-class) [UNVERIFIED] | Reports a probability that content is generated | Metered API | No price in the chapters | You need to see what a platform sees | Test on the platform |
| Your own provenance register | Generator, prompt, seed, references, checksum per asset | Free | Free; the only durable evidence | Always, from the first published post | Nothing |
| Accountant and counsel | VAT path, entity form, likeness licenses, LoRA publishing | Hourly | No price in the chapters | Before the first significant revenue | Neither substitutes |
How these figures go stale, and how to re-verify
Every price here is point-in-time, and the date on each section is when the chapter was checked, not a promise. Per-second video pricing, voice quotas, and anything called frontier move fastest; GPU rental and open-weight models move slowest, because they cost nothing.
The vendor's pricing page outranks this appendix, and [VENDOR CLAIM] rows are the vendor's numbers about the vendor's own product. Re-verify in the quarterly audit, checkpoints 22 and 27 of chapter 12.5. If subscription utilization is under roughly a third, step down a tier before re-verifying anything else. And if a price has moved by more than a fifth since the date on the section, re-run the break-even in Appendix D rather than adjusting the number in your head.