Replicate

Our verdict on Replicate

Replicate is the plumbing behind most of our AI video and image experiments. It hosts a long list of models behind one API, and it keeps adding new ones, so when a new video model drops we can have it inside our own tool in minutes. We have used it on two builds, both in 2025, so this is a narrow review: it covers wiring models into apps, not cost tuning or scale.

What we built with Replicate

• Ryz Labs Video Studio (June 2025): our internal app where the team picks a model, such as Veo 3, Seedance, Flux Pro or MiniMax Image 01, enhances the prompt with AI and generates clips into a shared history. Every model in it is called through Replicate. The first version shipped in a few days, and one of our video editors made 20 to 30 clips in about an hour for a capybara commercial.
• Trick-or-treat AI costume builder (October 2025): a webcam app that turns your photo into a costume with Nano Banana, then uses that image to start a Veo 3.1 Fast "Happy Halloween" video. Both APIs were served through Replicate, with the keys stored in Replit. It was heavily used inside the company in its first 48 hours.

So, in the case of this specific application, I used a web tool called Replicate, and Replicate's a very, very interesting tool.

— Jordan Metzner, Episode 1

How we use Replicate

1. Browse by task. Replicate groups models by what you want to do: generate images or video, edit images, transcribe speech, make 3D or music, or clone voices.
2. Test in the playground first. Each model page has a playground where you type a prompt, press run and get a sample. Jordan showed this on air with Seedance.
3. Grab the API token, sample call and schema. The API page gives you your token, a sample API call and the input schema as a table and as JSON. Keep the token private.
4. Paste it into your coding agent. Jordan copies the sample call and the schema into Replit and says, in effect, "please add this model here." It usually works right out of the box (Episode 1, at 24:04).
5. Store keys once, reuse them. For the costume app, Jordan already had his Replicate keys saved in Replit, so wiring up two models was quick.
6. Chain models. The costume builder sends the Nano Banana image straight into Veo 3.1 Fast as the source image for the video.
7. Test every model you add. Some image models in our studio failed and some images vanished from storage, so expect a few rounds of back and forth.

Where Replicate falls short

• Costs add up per call. When Sam asked whether we pay Replicate every time we generate a video, the answer was yes. Jordan said Veo 3 ran about $6 per eight-second clip, and a 30-second commercial with retakes could mean $60 to $100 in a few minutes. Hundreds or thousands of dollars can go quickly if nobody watches.
• Cost is hard to see in the moment. On air, Jordan could see each run on his dashboard but could not immediately find the cost of a given call.
• Failures are yours to debug. A model that works in the playground can still fail inside your app, or results can fail to save, as happened with some images in our studio.
• Thin evidence. We have not compared Replicate against fal or AWS Bedrock, the alternatives Jordan named, or run it at production volume.

I'm serving them up actually through replicate.com, as I have an account there, and I have my API keys, like, stored pretty easily already in Replit.

— Jordan Metzner, Episode 18

Episodes featuring Replicate

• Episode 1: the Ryz Labs Video Studio demo and a walkthrough of adding a model from Replicate's API page.
• Episode 18: the trick-or-treat costume builder, with Nano Banana and Veo 3.1 Fast served through Replicate.

FAQ

How do you use Replicate?

Pick a model, try it in the playground, then open its API page and copy the sample call and the JSON schema. Jordan pastes both into Replit and asks the agent to add the model, and it usually works right away.

What is Replicate used for?

It hosts AI models as an API service: image and video generation, image editing, speech transcription, 3D, music and voice cloning. We use it for the video and image models in our internal video studio.

Do you pay Replicate for every generation?

Yes. Every time someone on our team generates a video or image in our studio, we are paying for that Replicate call. Jordan said Veo 3 cost about $6 per eight-second generation when we built the tool in June 2025.

What are the alternatives to Replicate?

Jordan named fal and AWS Bedrock as services trying to do something similar. We have only built on Replicate on the show.