Pika names 62 Pikaffects effects for image-to-video and 9 for video-to-video, and the two lists share not one name. Those counts are checkable against the operation specs, and that is why this page exists: the lists circulating elsewhere do not agree with each other, and none agrees with Pika.
What Pikaffects are, in Pika’s own words
Two official sentences define them. The FAQ says: “Pika 1.5 is the proud parent of Pikaffects. They will blow your mind. And melt it. And inflate it. And crush it with a hydraulic press. And squish it. And cake-ify it.” The operation spec is blunter: “Playful physics effects applied to a still image.”
Image to video or video to video
| Image to video | Video to video | |
|---|---|---|
| Official summary | “Playful physics effects applied to a still image.” | “Playful physics effects applied to an existing video.” |
| Effect names in the enum | 62 | 9 |
| Request fields | pikaffect, image, seed | pikaffect, video, seed |
| Developer model list | $0.05 per request | $0.05 per request |
| Pika credits matrix | 15 credits, tagged Free | 18 credits, tagged Paid |
| Duration in the matrix | 5s | 5s |
| On the $0 plan | listed on the Basic card | not listed on the Basic card |
What changes between the two modes
The input is the whole difference. Image-to-video takes a still and grows the effect out of it. Video-to-video takes footage you already have and applies the effect to what is already moving. The Pika 2.5 walkthrough covers the settings that produce a still worth feeding into the first mode.
The two menus do not overlap, so a name that works in one mode is rejected in the other. The free plan breakdown explains why the $0 row reaches only the first.
Every Pikaffect name Pika publishes
| Image to video (62) | Video to video (9) |
|---|---|
| 90s Me | Anime Cat |
| Action Me | Cute Shroom |
| Arcade Winner | Duplicate it |
| Baby Me | Happy Asteroid |
| Bald Me | Its Alive |
| Balloonify it | Its Computer |
| CCTV Me | Pink Hair |
| Cake-ify | Swan Head |
| Captain Me | Wizard Cat |
| Choco Me | — |
| Classy Me | — |
| Clown Fit | — |
| Crazy in Love | — |
| Crumble | — |
| Crush | — |
| Cupid Strike | — |
| Decapitate | — |
| Deflate | — |
| Dissolve | — |
| Doom Stroll | — |
| Eat a Rat | — |
| Epic Me | — |
| Everythings Bonsai | — |
| Explode | — |
| Eye-pop | — |
| Eyes Zoom in | — |
| Fairytale Me | — |
| Goth Dream | — |
| Hazmat Fit | — |
| Hearts Bouquet | — |
| Hero Me | — |
| Human Pet | — |
| Inflate | — |
| Jungle Me | — |
| Labubu Style | — |
| Leprechaun Me | — |
| Levitate | — |
| Lo-Fi Me | — |
| Looong Hair | — |
| Love Bomb | — |
| Magic Polaroid | — |
| Make it Real | — |
| Melt | — |
| Mona Me | — |
| Mrs Me | — |
| Museum Me | — |
| Peel | — |
| Pick Me | — |
| Poke | — |
| Princess Me | — |
| Proposal | — |
| Puppy Me | — |
| Rose | — |
| Royal Me | — |
| Squish | — |
| Ta-da | — |
| Tarot Transform | — |
| Tear | — |
| VIP Me | — |
| Warrior Me | — |
| Yarn Charm | — |
| Zen Me | — |
Why the third-party lists disagree
Pages that rank for this term print numbers that do not line up: 9, 10, 14, 27, 27-plus. One invents a series called Pikapocalypse, another sorts the effects into categories Pika never published. Neither word appears in any official source.
The reason is where the list lives. pika.art is a client-rendered app that returned the same hero line on every path we tried, so the names sit in the developer catalog. Pika’s own index warns against guessing them from anywhere else: “The catalog and per-operation specifications are the runtime source of truth. Do not infer endpoint paths, request fields, enum values, pricing, or model support from a model name or from prior knowledge.”
How to apply a Pikaffect
The FAQ gives the consumer route: “Click on the “Pikaffects” button below the prompt bar. From there, select the effect you want to use and upload an image. Get crazy!”
That is the whole workflow. An effect is a menu entry rather than a prompt, and the FAQ describes no intensity or blending control.
The API path in one request
{
"pikaffect": "Cake-ify",
"image": "https://cdn.pika.art/v2/files/…/source.png",
"seed": 42
}Three fields, and none of them is a prompt. The spec describes pikaffect as “Name of the effect to apply to the image”, image as the URL of the source image, and seed as optional.
Worked examples: two Pikaffects runs, parameter by parameter
Both cases name the enum value, the mode, the matrix row and the price.
Case 1: Cake-ify on a product still, the free row
Mode: image to video
pikaffect: "Cake-ify"
Source image brief: one chocolate bar centred on a plain plate, shot from 45 degrees, plain background, nothing else in frame
Frame: square, with headroom above the subject
Pika credits matrix: 15 credits, tagged Free
Developer price: $0.05 per request
seed: fixed at 42 for a repeatable runCake-ify is the effect Pika names in its own FAQ, and it sits on the row the matrix tags as free. The still carries the whole job, so subject isolation and headroom do the work a prompt would do elsewhere. Credits on the consumer side are covered in the credit and cost breakdown.
Case 2: Wizard Cat on an existing clip, the paid row
Mode: video to video
pikaffect: "Wizard Cat"
Source clip brief: a cat sitting on a windowsill, fixed camera, no cuts, five seconds
Clip length: five seconds, matching the matrix duration
Pika credits matrix: 18 credits, tagged Paid
Developer price: $0.05 per request
seed: left unsetWizard Cat exists only in the video-to-video menu, which makes it a clean test of the rule that the two lists do not overlap: the same value in an image-to-video request is rejected as an invalid enum. The clip is the input, so the camera has to be settled before the effect is chosen.
What decides whether an effect works
Three things, going by the fields the spec accepts. The subject has to be identifiable in the source, because there is no prompt to name it. The frame has to leave room for whatever the effect does, since Pika publishes no way to steer it. And the mode has to match the asset, because the menus are separate. Everything else third-party guides list, from intensity sliders to stacked effects, has no field behind it in the official documentation.
What Pika has not published
Pika lists the names without describing the pictures. No official page says what any effect looks like on screen, which subjects it suits, or whether a name means the same thing across versions. The FAQ ties Pikaffects to “Pika 1.5” while the pricing matrix prices them by resolution and duration without naming a model, and Pika does not reconcile the two. There is no published limit on stacking, and no note on when the 62 names were added or what they replaced.
If the output is headed for paid work, that is a separate question covered in the commercial use breakdown.
Frequently asked questions
How many Pikaffects are there? 62 names in the image-to-video enum and 9 in the video-to-video enum, as published in Pika’s operation specs.
Can I describe an effect in a prompt instead of picking one? No. The request takes pikaffect, a source asset and an optional seed, with no prompt field.
Which mode should I use? Image-to-video for stills, video-to-video for clips you already have. The two menus do not overlap.
Is Pikaffects available on the free plan? The Basic card lists “Pikaffects Image-to-Video only”, and the matrix tags the image-to-video row as Free.
Can I stack two effects in one run? Pika publishes no stacking option, and the request accepts a single pikaffect value.
Where do the other lists come from? Not from Pika. The official names are in the developer catalog, and Pika’s index tells you not to infer them from model names or prior knowledge.
Pikaffects is a menu with 71 published entries, and reading it at the source is faster than reconciling the numbers other pages print.