A 480p proof wall for 100 SKUs: when it beats going straight to 720p

A 480p proof wall, where every SKU gets a cheap draft clip and only the approved ones get a final, is worth it only when you expect to drop a good share of the catalog. For 100 SKUs with 5-second 9:16 clips on Sume, proofs cost $43.94 on Seedance 2-mini or $87.89 on Seedance 2, and 720p finals on Seedance 2 cost $1.89 each, $189.00 for all 100 (prices read 2026-10-05, from the pricing code). The break-even approval rate is 76.7% with mini proofs and 53.5% with same-model proofs: below it, proofs save money; above it, they cost more than going straight to finals.

The arithmetic

Total cost with a proof wall is the proof bill plus $1.89 for each approved SKU. Going straight to finals costs $189.00 for 100 clips, with any bad ones simply wasted or re-rolled later. The table shows the total at three approval rates.

What the table leaves out

At 50 approved, the cheaper proof saves $50.56 against going straight to finals; at 90 it costs $25.04 more. Two cautions apply. First, a proof from a different model predicts whether the photo animates well, not what the final will look like, so mini proofs answer "does this photo work?" and same-model proofs answer "will this clip look right?". Second, the comparison ignores the retakes that straight-to-final also needs; if you would re-roll a third of the finals anyway, the proof wall is much closer to break-even than the table shows.

Sume's videos docs list the 480p, 720p and 1080p resolutions for the Seedance family, and 480p 9:16 output is smaller than most ad platforms want, so a proof is for review, never for upload.

• Proof a pilot of 10 SKUs first and measure your own approval rate before proofing the rest.
• Use proofs for SKUs where photos are hard: shiny, transparent or busy backgrounds.
• Skip proofs for SKUs you already know animate well.

For the client-facing version of this loop, see the agency 480p proof then final; for how rejects change totals, see the reject-rate budget. To stage 100 proofs safely, use two bulk queues.