45-second teaser from a 12-minute podcast on Sume: $0.43

A 45-second teaser from a 12-minute podcast on Sume is four steps: transcribe to find the quote ($0.12), split a 45-second range ($0.01), render it over one cover still ($0.10), and burn captions ($0.20). The total is $0.43. If you already know the timestamps, skip the transcript and the cost is $0.31.

The four steps

Sume STT is $0.01 per audio minute, and it reserves for at most 10 minutes per job, so a 12-minute episode is two jobs of 6 minutes: 12 x $0.01 = $0.12. Timeline audio split cuts a range and returns a new media.sume.com file for $0.01. The render takes that file as audio.url with a 45-second audio.duration_seconds and one video[] slot holding the cover still, and reserves ceil(45 / 60) = 1 minute at $0.10. A standalone caption job is $0.20 for a clip up to 60 seconds, and runs speech-to-text on the clip itself.

Details at each step

Four details keep the chain from breaking.

• Import the episode first. Split reads only this workspace's media.sume.com audio and rejects off-host URLs.
• Pick the range from the STT words[] times, with a 0.2-second lead-in, so the clip starts on a breath, not a syllable.
• In the render, a still is a static hold. Set the slot's start to 0 and its duration to 45; coverage may stop at most 0.5 seconds before the spine ends.
• Caption the rendered MP4 last. The caption job needs speech in the clip; a clip with no speech fails with caption_no_speech.

Choosing the style and checking the cost

Captions default to a style chosen from the text: slam for Latin text, black-outline for Korean. For a quote card you may prefer punch or tiktok-green; those two do not take design overrides. Because source_caption_id lets you restyle the same clip without transcribing again, a second look is a second $0.20 render, not a new transcription.

Run the unbilled timeline plan before the render to confirm billable_minutes. A teaser that is 61 seconds long would reserve 2 minutes instead of 1, doubling that step to $0.20.

When to skip a step

If your editor already gives you the in and out times, skip step 1 and pay $0.31. If the audio is already a clip, skip step 2. If the platform burns its own captions, skip step 4. Each skipped step is a job you did not need, and the arithmetic above is the whole bill: there is no per-seat or per-episode fee on these surfaces beyond the rates in the table.