Runway's Unlimited plan ends November 30 for monthly subscribers

Runway is retiring the plan that let subscribers generate video without spending credits one at a time. The company's Unlimited plan is switching to Max article says eligible legacy Unlimited subscriptions stay unchanged through November 30, 2026, and that monthly subscribers move to the Max plan on that date. Max costs $95 a month, carries 9,500 credits, and does not include Explore Mode, the unmetered generation Unlimited was built around. This is a change to the plan that SLOP TV's running Runway guide describes, and the page that names the deadline was updated on August 27, 2026.

Runway says it rolled Max out on June 1, 2026, in the transition article. Its Which plan is right for me page gives a slightly different date for the same move, saying Max was offered to new subscribers starting May 29, 2026. Both pages agree that Unlimited has not been sold to new customers since, so the plan that replaced it has been on sale for five months while the older tier it replaced now has a closure date.

What Runway is changing

Runway says it is phasing out Unlimited and moving to a credit-based structure, and it gives speed as the reason. On the transition page, Runway writes that "In order to offer the fastest possible generation times for all our plans, we're moving to a clearer credit-based structure." The company adds that it designed Max with a monthly credit allowance and a month of rollover so subscribers have more flexibility in how they plan their work.

That is the trade the two plans make. Unlimited traded guaranteed speed for unmetered volume, and Max trades unmetered volume for a fixed monthly allowance. Runway's own framing puts the fastest generation times first and the credit cap second.

Who the change hits, and what happens on November 30

The date that matters is November 30, 2026, and the treatment differs by how a subscriber pays.

Monthly subscribers move on their own. Runway's transition article states that "On November 30th, your Unlimited plan will automatically switch to the Max plan at the same monthly price, or you can choose to cancel your plan." The same price means $95 a month, the figure Runway gives in the same article and lists for Max on its pricing page.

Annual subscribers get a choice, and they make it in November. Runway states that "In November, you can either cancel for a refund of your remaining months of your annual Unlimited plan, or accept a credits bonus to migrate to the max plan." The company has not said how large that credits bonus is. An annual subscriber weighing the two options is comparing a known refund against an unknown bonus, and the value of the second depends on a number Runway has kept to itself.

One limit sits on the refund route. Runway's FAQ states that "The annual plan refund option is only available ahead of the deprecation date," so the choice closes when the plan does. Runway also says it emailed every Unlimited subscriber directly with the full details, and that the account email, rather than the public page, is where the eligibility conditions sit.

What Max includes, and what it drops

Max is a bigger credit allowance and a narrower set of ways to spend it.

Included, per the Max plan details article and the pricing page: 9,500 credits a month, the ability to roll over one month of unused credits, access to all Runway models including third-party models, on-demand generation, 20 parallel video and image generations, early access to new models, and the studio output tools Runway lists as HDR, ProRes and image sequences.

Dropped: Explore Mode. Runway states that Explore Mode is not part of Max and that the 9,500 credits take its place. The company describes those credits as four times Unlimited's 2,250 allowance and says that, unlike Explore Mode, "credits generate on-demand with no wait times or limits on how many videos or images you can create at once."

What Explore Mode was, and why losing it matters

Explore Mode, which Runway's legacy documentation also calls Unlimited Mode, was a generation mode that did not use credits. The Unlimited plan details page describes it as a way to create infinite generative videos and images at a relaxed rate, and it was the default mode on the plan.

The relaxed rate was the catch, and it was a documented one. Runway's help page on Explore Mode speeds says generations might take longer to start during busy periods, that a subscriber may be limited in how many videos or images can be created at the same time, and that wait times depend on site traffic. Explore Mode was also not fully universal: the legacy page says Veo 3 and Veo 3.1 required credits even on Unlimited, which is part of why the plan carried 2,250 credits alongside the unmetered mode.

For a creator who drafts, that balance was the point. Explore Mode let someone push a shot through many variations without watching a counter, and the wait was the price. On Max, every variation spends credits, and the 9,500 figure is the ceiling on how many variations a month can hold.

What to check before November 30

The first question is where a subscriber's output actually came from. Runway's credit guide says Unlimited's 2,250 credits were meant for tools that do not support Explore Mode and for third-party models, with the unmetered mode handling the rest of the work. A creator whose output came mostly through Explore Mode is losing more than a creator whose output ran on credits, and both are leaving the same plan.

The second question is what the same money buys elsewhere in Runway's own lineup. The pricing page lists Pro at $35 a month, or $28 billed annually, with 2,250 credits a month, the same credit count Unlimited carried for $95 a month.

The third is the conversion from credits to output. Runway's pricing page states that 9,500 credits are 791 seconds of Gen-4.5 video. The credit guide lists Gen-4.5 at 12 credits a second, and 9,500 divided by 12 is 791.67 seconds, or about 13 minutes. That number counts generated seconds. Runway does not say how many takes a workflow needs to reach a finished cut, and credits spent on unusable generations are spent.

The fourth is the undeclared bonus. Annual subscribers should treat the credits bonus as an open question until the account offer arrives, because Runway's public pages do not state its size.

Some secondary write-ups have described the switch as set for September 1; Runway extended eligible legacy access to November 30 when it updated the transition article.

What comes next

Runway's pricing page now lists Max as the top individual plan, under the free, Standard and Pro tiers. The legacy Unlimited tier has no place in that public lineup once the deadline passes. Subscribers who want to keep generating on demand can stay on Max without acting, and those who want out have until November 30 to move.

Runway's transition article and Max details are on help.runwayml.com, and plan prices are at runway.com/pricing; affected subscribers can confirm their plan, billing date and any account offer on Runway's Plans & Billing page.