A 4-minute launch video as a TikTok ad: $0.40 to assemble

A 4-minute product launch video fits a TikTok non-Spark ad, which allows up to 10 minutes, and it costs $0.40 to assemble on Sume: 240 seconds is exactly 4 minutes at $0.10 per ceil(output minute) (read 2026-10-08). Spark Ads accept mp4 and mov files with no duration restriction, so the length is not the constraint; the size and the spec are.

The numbers to hold

TikTok's non-Spark specification (read 2026-10-08) allows files up to 10 minutes and 500 MB, with a minimum of 540x960 for 9:16. Timeline 1.0 accepts an audio spine of 1 to 1,800 seconds and 1 to 200 video slots, so a 4-minute ad is well inside it.

Cost by length

Timeline bills by the minute the output reaches, so the price steps up at each minute boundary. A plan call is unbilled and returns billable_minutes.

Build it from clips

Plan the 4 minutes as 24 slots of 10 seconds each, or fewer longer ones. Past 12 segments the default render.strategy: auto renders in chunks, and single is refused above 12 slots with render_strategy_unsafe. Keep fades short and never chain more than 8 adjacent fades; insert a hard cut. Use output.width 1080 and output.height 1920 for 9:16.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/timeline-1.0/plan \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "audio": { "url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/launch-vo.wav", "duration_seconds": 240 },
    "video": [
      { "source_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/s01.mp4", "start": 0, "duration": 120 },
      { "source_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/s02.mp4", "start": 120, "duration": 120 }
    ],
    "output": { "width": 1080, "height": 1920 }
  }'

Before you upload

Check the exported file size against 500 MB. Sume does not expose a bitrate control, so measure. At 240 seconds, 500 MB allows an average of 4,000 megabits / 240 s = 16.7 Mbps. Captions are a fixed $0.20 only for videos of up to 60 seconds, so for a 4-minute file check the live rate in GET /v1/catalog before assuming a price.