FLUX Upscale prices video by the megapixel-second, and charges only for what comes out

A clip generated at HD is not finished. Broadcast, campaign and cinema formats want more pixels, and a general-purpose upscaler tends to smear faces and leave a grid over water and grass. Black Forest Labs released FLUX Upscale on August 20 to do that step in the same place the video was made.

Two modes, and the difference is not only speed

Precise runs four steps at $0.07 per megapixel-second. Creative runs eight at $0.10 and pushes repair and detail further, but the lab states plainly that it can change or replace identity, so reference consistency drops. That is an unusually direct warning to put next to your own more expensive option.

• upscale_factor accepts 1.5x, 2x and 3x, which from an HD input lands at roughly 1080p, 2K and 4K.
• Input can start as low as 480p.
• The model reads FLUX 3 output natively, which is where the fixes for smudged faces and gridded textures come from.

What the input may be

A clip may run to at most 20 seconds, weigh at most 50MB and measure at most 2560 by 1440 pixels. Anything longer or larger is rejected before processing: it is not trimmed, it is not downscaled, and nothing is charged for it.

The output frame is capped at about 14.4 megapixels, so a source above that ceiling is upscaled by less than you asked for. The smallest factor, 1.5x, lifts a full 2K source to 4K; the endpoint upscales toward 4K but does not accept 4K on input.

The charge follows the output

The pricing page states that charges are based on output only, and that input resolution, upscale factor and optional prompts are not billed separately. Read that the other way around and it is the whole cost model: the resolution you ask for is the resolution you pay for, and nothing else moves the number.

Work it through on a 10-second clip at 4K. A megapixel in this price list is 1,048,576 pixels, 1024 by 1024, the same definition the image prices use, so a 3840 by 2160 frame carries 7.91 megapixels rather than 8.29. Ten seconds at 4K is therefore 79.10 megapixel-seconds, which comes to $5.54 on Precise and $7.91 on Creative. The documentation quotes $0.55 per second at 4K on Precise and $0.79 on Creative, and that matches. Frame rate does not enter the bill: the same clip at the same length and the same resolution costs the same at 24 and at 60 frames per second.

Where it sits

FLUX Upscale is reachable through the BFL API and the playground, with the terms on the pricing page under video tools. For anyone already generating with FLUX 3, it removes the step where finished footage leaves for a separate upscaler and comes back with different faces.