Wan 2.1 Pro
Wan 2.1 Pro is Alibaba's open-weight, photorealistic image-to-video model that animates still images with cinematic motion and strong subject coherence.
Overview
What is Wan 2.1 Pro
Wan 2.1 Pro is Alibaba's image-to-video model from the Wan family, released in February 2025. It generates 6-second, 16:9 aspect ratio videos from a single still image and text prompt, emphasizing photorealism and subject consistency. Built on open weights, it supports consumer-grade GPUs and is optimized for cinematic motion.
Running it privately on Venice
On Venice, Wan 2.1 Pro runs with zero retention — your input image and prompt are never stored or profiled. This enables private, uncensored video generation with full sovereignty over sensitive or creative content. As an open-source model, it’s also permissionless: you can inspect, modify, and reuse outputs freely.
Assessment
Strengths and limitations
- Photorealistic output with strong subject coherence across frames, ideal for cinematic animation.
- Open-source under Apache 2.0: fully inspectable, modifiable, and reusable without licensing restrictions.
- Runs on consumer-grade GPUs (as low as 8.19 GB VRAM), lowering barrier to entry.
- Strong performance on complex motion and physical realism, benchmarking favorably against closed models.
- No audio support: output is video-only.
- Fixed 6-second duration and 16:9 aspect ratio limit creative flexibility.
- Asynchronous generation workflow may slow iteration compared to real-time tools.
- No native quantization or optimization in base version, affecting speed on lower-end hardware.
Capabilities
What it supports
- Text to video
- Image to video
- Reference to video
- Native audio generation
Specifications
Datasheet
- Maker
- Alibaba Tongyi Lab
- Released
- February 25, 2025
- Modality
- Image-to-video
- Clip length
- 6 seconds
- Clip lengths
- 6s
- Mode
- image-to-video
- Aspect ratios
- 16:9
- Audio
- No
- Privacy on Venice
- Private — zero retention
- Available on Venice since
- Sep 2025
- License
- Apache License 2.0
API
Call it from your code
Venice exposes this model through the REST API. Queue a generation with the model id.
curl https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/video/queue \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $VENICE_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "wan-2.1-pro-image-to-video",
"prompt": "Aerial drone shot over a misty mountain valley at golden hour"
}'
# Use the returned queue_id with https://api.venice.ai/api/v1/video/retrieve.
# Call /video/complete after downloading if needed.Pricing
What it costs on Venice
Pay per clip on Venice — price scales with resolution and duration (6s–6s), from $0.88.
New Venice accounts include a free daily allowance and 500 welcome credits — no credit card required.
Alternatives
How it compares
| Model | Max resolution | Strongest at | Open weights | Price (Venice) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wan 2.1 Pro | 1080p | Photorealism, subject coherence | Yes | from $0.88 |
| Wan 2.7 | 1080p | Longer duration, higher fidelity | Yes | from $0.55 |
| Kling O3 Pro | 1080p | Text-to-video, long clips | No | from $0.46 |
| Grok Imagine 1.5 | 720p | Fast generation, social content | No | from $0.09 |
Open-source leader in cinematic image-to-video with strong frame consistency.
Use cases
What it is good for
- 01Animating concept art or storyboards into cinematic previews.
- 02Generating realistic product or scene motion for marketing assets.
- 03Creative prototyping where visual fidelity and motion realism are key.
- 04Open research and model modification due to permissive licensing.
Prompting
Getting better results
Start with a high-resolution, well-lit still image for best animation quality.
Use clear, concise motion prompts (e.g., 'slow zoom in', 'pan left') to guide camera movement.
Emphasize physical realism in prompts (e.g., 'natural lighting', 'smooth motion') to align with model strengths.
Test short clips first — refine prompts before scaling to final resolution.
Version history
Initial open release with T2V and I2V capabilities.
Optimized image-to-video variant with enhanced coherence.
Later version with longer clips and higher fidelity.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Wan 2.1 Pro is Alibaba's open-weight image-to-video model, part of the Wan family developed by Tongyi Lab. It generates 6-second, 16:9 videos from a still image and text prompt, emphasizing photorealism and subject coherence across frames.
On Venice, Wan 2.1 Pro starts at $0.88 per clip, with pricing scaling based on resolution and duration. The base tier supports 6-second 1080p outputs.
Yes, Wan 2.1 Pro is open source under the Apache 2.0 license. The model weights are publicly available, allowing free use, modification, and redistribution without licensing fees.
No, Wan 2.1 Pro generates video only. The output is silent, with no audio generation or synchronization capabilities.
Wan 2.1 Pro supports up to 1080p resolution at 30fps, with a fixed 16:9 aspect ratio and 6-second duration per clip.
Yes. Venice runs Wan 2.1 Pro with zero retention — your prompts and input images are never stored, profiled, or reused. This ensures fully private, uncensored video generation.
Wan 2.7 is a newer version with improved duration, resolution, and motion fidelity. Both are open-source, but Wan 2.7 offers enhanced performance and longer clips, while Wan 2.1 Pro remains a strong, GPU-efficient option.
No. Wan 2.1 Pro is a pure image-to-video model without tool integration, web search, or reasoning capabilities. It focuses solely on animating provided images based on text prompts.
Run Wan 2.1 Pro privately
No prompt logging. No data used for training.