What $20 buys: 1,428 seconds at Vidu's from-rate vs Sume clips

The short answer

Twenty dollars buys 20 / 0.014 = 1,428 seconds (about 23.8 minutes) at Vidu Q4 Preview's "starting at $0.014/sec" launch rate, if every second were billed at that floor. On Sume the same $20.00 buys 21 fifteen-second clips at 480p (315 seconds), 10 at 720p (150 seconds) or 9 at 1080p (135 seconds), using the cheapest listed model at each resolution. Sume does not list Vidu Q4 Preview.

How the counts are worked out

Sume sells whole clips, each rounded up to a cent, so the count is a whole number: floor($20 / clip price). The leftover is what you cannot spend on another full clip.

Reading the Vidu side

The Vidu number is a ceiling on seconds, not a promise. The release (read 2026-10-08) describes launch pricing "starting at" $0.014/sec, lists 540p to 4K output, and says final pricing may vary by plan and region. If the real rate at 1080p is higher, the seconds fall in proportion: at $0.028 per second the same $20 buys 714 seconds, half as many.

The Sume numbers are billable amounts, which already include the 1.25 factor over provider list, so there is no further markup when the job completes.

Why seconds and clips are different units

A per-second rate invites you to divide your budget by it. That works only when billing is exactly per second and exactly proportional. Sume bills per clip: it takes the provider list price for your resolution and duration, multiplies by 1.25, and rounds up to the cent. For 15 s clips that is a small effect (Wan 3.0 at 480p is $0.9375 before rounding and $0.94 after), but it shows why a budget is easier to plan from the clip price than from a rate.

It also means the leftover matters. In the 1080p row, a $20.00 budget at $2.10 a clip buys 9 clips ($18.90) and leaves $1.10, which cannot cover a tenth full clip. If you pick shorter clips, the leftover shrinks: a 10 s Kling 3 clip without audio is $1.40, so $20.00 buys 14 clips for $19.60.

Choosing between counts and quality

Count of clips is a poor goal on its own. Use cheap 480p clips to test prompts and motion, then spend the remainder on a few 1080p finals. A split of 10 drafts at 480p (10 x $0.94 = $9.40) plus 5 finals at 1080p (5 x $2.10 = $10.50) comes to $19.90. See Video generation for the request fields.