Auto-rigging API pricing in 2026: what a rig really costs

If you rig models from code (a game's asset pipeline, a text-to-3D app, an AI agent that makes characters), the price per rig decides how much you can automate. We priced every auto-rigging API we could find, turned their credits into dollars, and added the animations, because a rig on its own doesn't move.

We make afk.ai, so weigh that accordingly. Every other price comes from the provider's own pricing page or API docs, checked in October 2026 and linked below. Where we couldn't confirm a dollar figure, we say so instead of guessing.

The short answer

Cheapest per bare rig: Ludo.ai, at 3¢ to 3.5¢ a rig on its annual plans ($420 or $3,600 paid upfront), or 5¢ on its $50-a-month plan.
Cheapest pay-as-you-go: afk.ai, at 5¢ a rig with no subscription and 5 free rigs a month. The next we found, Uthana, is 15¢ (humanoids only), and Tripo is 25¢.
Cheapest with a full set of animations: afk.ai, because every animation for the body type is in the 5¢. A humanoid with ten animations costs about 18¢ or more on Ludo, 44¢ or more on Meshy and $1.25 on Tripo.

Price per rig, side by side

API	Price per rig	Each animation	Humanoid + 10 animations	Body types	Billing
afk.ai	5¢	Included	5¢	Humanoids, four-legged and hoofed animals, birds, dragons, dinosaurs, spiders and insects, snakes, fish and more	Prepaid credits from $10 that don't expire; 5 free rigs a month
Ludo.ai	3¢ to 5¢	1.5¢ to 2.5¢	18¢ to 30¢	Any shape with its general rig; preset animations are made for humanoids, and creatures are animated from text prompts	API needs a Pro or Studio subscription: $50 a month, or $420 or $3,600 a year paid upfront
Meshy	6.25¢ to 10¢	3.75¢ to 6¢	44¢ to 70¢	Textured humanoids only through the API	API needs a paid plan: Pro $20 a month (1,000 credits) up to Ultra $100 (8,000 credits)
Uthana	15¢	Priced separately	n/a	Bipedal humanoids	Pay as you go, no subscription or minimum
fal.ai (Meshy rigging)	20¢	+12¢ for the basic walk and run	n/a	Humanoids	Pay as you go
Tripo	25¢	10¢	$1.25	Bipeds, quadrupeds, six- and eight-legged creatures, birds, snakes and sea creatures	Pay as you go: 1¢ a credit, top up from $1
Anything World	Credit-based, see their pricing	Has a rig-and-animate endpoint	n/a	Humanoids, quadrupeds, birds, fish and more	A free monthly allowance of credits, then more for sale
Mixamo	Free website, no public API found	Large humanoid library	n/a	Bipedal humanoids only	Free with an Adobe ID

Ranges run from each provider's cheapest to its dearest regular plan with API access; new-user offers and enterprise contracts are left out. “Humanoid + 10 animations” is one rig plus ten animation charges at the same rates. Prices checked October 2026; they change, so check the provider's page before you decide.

Why the price per rig isn't the whole price

A rig is a skeleton and skin weights. To get a character that walks, idles or attacks, you need animations on that skeleton, and most rigging APIs bill each one separately: Tripo charges 10¢ per animation retarget, Meshy 3 credits per animation, Ludo.ai 0.5 credits per clip. A rig that looks cheap can cost several times as much once it moves.

What you can animate matters too. Meshy, Uthana and fal.ai rig humanoids only. Tripo rigs creatures, but its newer rigs come with one walk for most non-humanoid body types. Ludo.ai's preset animations are made for humanoids, and creatures are animated from text prompts, a clip at a time.

On afk.ai a rig is one price with every animation for that body type in the same GLB: 250+ across humanoids, four-legged and hoofed animals, birds, dragons, dinosaurs, spiders, snakes, fish and more. The animations are CC0, so they can ship in commercial games.

Every API, in more detail

afk.ai

5¢per rig

5¢ a rig, and the GLB comes back with the skeleton, skin weights and every animation for the body type: 250+ across all body types, 170+ for humanoids. The first 5 rigs each month are free, re-rigging the same model is free up to 3 more times, and there's no subscription. Rigs usually take about 1 to 2 minutes. Use it from the afk-rig CLI, as an MCP server for AI agents, or over REST.

Rigs: Humanoids, four-legged and hoofed animals, birds, dragons, dinosaurs, spiders and insects, snakes, fish and more
Billing: Prepaid credits from $10 that don't expire; 5 free rigs a month
Source: afk.ai developer pricing

Ludo.ai

3¢ to 5¢per rig

A game-asset generator whose API (in beta) can rig and animate. A rig is 1 credit and each animation 0.5 credits (Ludo calls that a promotional price). Credits cost 3¢ on Studio ($3,600 a year, 120,000 credits), 3.5¢ on Pro annual ($420 a year, 12,000 credits) and 5¢ on Pro monthly ($50), and extra credit packs on paid plans go down to 2.94¢. That makes Ludo the cheapest per bare rig if you pay for a year upfront. Its docs also mention 0.2 credits per extra animation in one place; at that rate a humanoid with ten animations is about 9¢ to 15¢.

Rigs: Any shape with its general rig; preset animations are made for humanoids, and creatures are animated from text prompts
Billing: API needs a Pro or Studio subscription: $50 a month, or $420 or $3,600 a year paid upfront
Source: Ludo.ai pricing · Ludo.ai rig and animate docs

Meshy

6.25¢ to 10¢per rig

Best known for generating 3D models. Through the API a rig is 5 credits and each animation 3 credits (up to 10 per request), and the rig comes with a basic walk and run. Credits cost 2¢ on Pro and 1.25¢ on Ultra, so a rig is 10¢ down to 6.25¢. The free plan can't use the API. New-user offers (half off a first month, or 20% off a first annual plan) bring Ultra down to about 3¢ to 5¢ a rig while they last.

Rigs: Textured humanoids only through the API
Billing: API needs a paid plan: Pro $20 a month (1,000 credits) up to Ultra $100 (8,000 credits)
Source: Meshy API pricing · Meshy rigging API · Meshy plans

Uthana

15¢per rig

An animation platform with a GraphQL API. Auto-rigging is 15¢ a rig from a prepaid balance, for bipedal humanoids, with Mixamo, UE5 or Roblox R15 skeletons. The next cheapest pay-as-you-go rig we found after afk.ai.

Rigs: Bipedal humanoids
Billing: Pay as you go, no subscription or minimum
Source: Uthana pricing · Uthana auto-rigging

fal.ai (Meshy rigging)

20¢per rig

fal.ai hosts Meshy's rigging model behind its own API: 20¢ a request, or 32¢ with the basic animations turned on. Handy if you already use fal for other models.

Rigs: Humanoids
Billing: Pay as you go
Source: fal.ai Meshy rigging

Tripo

25¢per rig

A model generator with a full rigging API. An auto-rig is 25 credits and each animation retarget 10 credits, at 1¢ a credit, and the rig check that recommends a rig type is free. The original biped rig has 90+ animation presets; the newer rigs get 11 humanoid presets and one walk for most other body types, with none listed for birds. Output is GLB or FBX, with Mixamo, Unity, Unreal or VRM bone names for humanoids.

Rigs: Bipeds, quadrupeds, six- and eight-legged creatures, birds, snakes and sea creatures
Billing: Pay as you go: 1¢ a credit, top up from $1
Source: Tripo API pricing · Tripo auto rig docs · Tripo retarget docs

Anything World

Credit-based, see their pricing

Now called Everything Universe. Its REST API can rig, or rig and animate, an uploaded model, with a free allowance of processing credits that renews monthly. Its public pricing page lists plans rather than a price per model, so we haven't put a number on it.

Rigs: Humanoids, quadrupeds, birds, fish and more
Billing: A free monthly allowance of credits, then more for sale
Source: Anything World API reference · Everything Universe pricing

Mixamo

Free website, no public API found

Adobe's free humanoid auto-rigger and animation library. It's a website: Adobe's Mixamo FAQ describes the web app and doesn't mention an API, and we found no official one.

Rigs: Bipedal humanoids only
Billing: Free with an Adobe ID
Source: Adobe Mixamo FAQ

Hosted research models. PiAPI hosts SkinTokens at 30¢ a task (source), and a community UniRig model on Replicate is billed by GPU time, which Replicate estimates at about 46¢ a run (source). Both invent a new skeleton for every model and come with no animations.

No rigging API that we could find. 3D AI Studio and Viggle rig in their web apps, but their API docs don't offer rigging your own model. DeepMotion and RADiCAL are motion capture rather than auto-rigging, and AccuRIG, Cascadeur and Auto-Rig Pro are desktop tools. We couldn't read Hyper3D Rodin's docs well enough to say either way.

Looking for a Tripo rigging API alternative?

Tripo's API makes sense if you generate your models with Tripo too. If you only need the rig, or you rig a lot of models, afk.ai costs 5¢ instead of 25¢ a rig, and the animations come with it instead of 10¢ each. Both work the same way: start a task, check on it, download the result. You can keep generating with Tripo and send the GLB to afk.ai for the rig.

	Tripo (API v3)	afk.ai
Upload	Upload the file for a file token (or pass a URL or a generation task id)	Part of the rig request: /v1/rigs
Body type	Optional free rig check recommends a rig type	You pass the body type
Rig	POST /animations/rig: 25¢	POST /v1/rigs: 5¢
Animate	POST /animations/retarget: 10¢ per animation, up to 5 per request	Nothing to do: every animation for the body type is included
Wait	Poll the task	GET /v1/rigs/{id}
Download	The task's result URL	GET /v1/rigs/{id}/model.glb

Tripo rig types, in afk.ai body types

biped: Humanoid
quadruped: Four-legged (paws) or hoofed
hexapod, octopod: Spider or insect
avian: Bird (or dragon, for wings and four legs)
serpentine: Snake
aquatic: Fish

What Tripo has that afk.ai doesn't

FBX output, and Mixamo, Unity, Unreal or VRM bone names for humanoids. afk.ai returns a GLB with its own skeleton for each body type, which Unreal, Godot, Blender and three.js import directly and Unity imports with glTFast.

Rig a model with afk.ai's API

Create a key on your afk.ai account, then run the CLI, or call the REST API yourself. The first 5 rigs each month are free.

Command line

AFK_API_KEY=afk_... npx afk-rig model.glb --type human -o rigged.glb

REST (curl)

# upload: returns { "id": ... }
curl https://burtndylan--afk-cloud-rigger-api.modal.run/v1/rigs -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFK_API_KEY" \
  -F model=@model.glb -F type=human
# check until "status" is "succeeded", then download
curl https://burtndylan--afk-cloud-rigger-api.modal.run/v1/rigs/$ID -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFK_API_KEY"
curl -o rigged.glb https://burtndylan--afk-cloud-rigger-api.modal.run/v1/rigs/$ID/model.glb -H "Authorization: Bearer $AFK_API_KEY"

See the developer API Get an API key

How we worked out the prices

Every price comes from the provider's own pricing page or API documentation, checked on 23 October 2026.
Credits are turned into dollars at the plan's price divided by the credits it includes, over the regular plans that include API access. New-user discounts and enterprise contracts are left out, and noted where they change the picture.
“Humanoid + 10 animations” is one rig plus ten animation charges at the same rates.
Where a provider doesn't publish a price per model, we describe the pricing and link to it rather than print a number.
Spotted a price that has changed? Tell us at market@prismdatafeed.com and we'll fix it.

Questions

›What is the cheapest auto-rigging API?

It depends on how you pay and whether you need animations. Per bare rig, Ludo.ai's annual plans are cheapest at 3¢ to 3.5¢, with $420 or $3,600 paid upfront. Pay as you go, afk.ai is cheapest at 5¢ a rig with no subscription (the next we found, Uthana, is 15¢). With a full set of animations, afk.ai is cheapest, because every animation for the body type is included: a humanoid with ten animations is 5¢ on afk.ai, about 18¢ or more on Ludo, 44¢ or more on Meshy and $1.25 on Tripo.

›How much does Tripo's rigging API cost?

An auto-rig is 25 credits and each animation retarget is 10 credits. Tripo API credits are 1¢ each, so that's 25¢ a rig and 10¢ an animation. The rig check is free, and you can top up from $1.

›How much does Meshy's rigging API cost?

A rig is 5 credits and each animation 3 credits. API credits come with a paid plan, from 2¢ each on Pro ($20 for 1,000) to 1.25¢ on Ultra ($100 for 8,000), so a rig is 6.25¢ to 10¢ before new-user discounts. Meshy's API rigs humanoids only.

›Does Mixamo have an API?

We found no official one. Mixamo is a free website for bipedal humanoids, and Adobe's Mixamo FAQ doesn't mention an API. To rig models from code, use a rigging API like the ones compared here.

›Is there a free auto-rigging API?

afk.ai gives every account 5 free rigs a month through its API, and Anything World has a free monthly allowance of credits. Beyond that, rigging through an API costs money; Mixamo is free but has no public API.

›Can I auto-rig animals through an API?

Yes, with afk.ai (four-legged and hoofed animals, birds, dragons, dinosaurs, spiders, snakes, fish), Tripo (quadrupeds, six- and eight-legged creatures, birds, snakes, sea creatures), Ludo.ai's general rig, or Anything World. Meshy, Uthana and fal.ai's Meshy rigging are for humanoids.

More comparisons: the best auto-riggers for animals and a Mixamo alternative for non-humanoid models. And for developers: afk.ai's rigging API, 5¢ a rig with every animation included.