A 60-second Short from two Seedance 2.5 clips at 480p: $16.22

Seedance 2.5 takes up to 30 seconds per job, so a 60-second vertical Short is two jobs. At 480p they cost $16.12 (about $0.2687 a second), and the Timeline join is $0.10: $16.22. At 720p the generation is $34.67 and at 1080p $85.29.

YouTube lists 1080p as the maximum for Shorts (read 2026-10-09), so 480p is a draft tier, not a ceiling. Timeline's default output is 1080x1920, so a 480p source is scaled up to that canvas.

Three tiers for the same minute

Seedance 2.5 is token-priced, so the rate depends on resolution, duration and aspect ratio; these values are for 9:16.

A draft-then-final plan

Because the seconds are the same, a draft at 480p tells you whether the scenes work before you pay the 720p or 1080p rate. Draft and final together at 1080p are:

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/videos \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"seedance-2.5","prompt":"Scene 1 of 3: ...",
   "aspect_ratio":"9:16","resolution":"480p","duration":30}'

Check before you scale

• Seedance 2.5 accepts 4 to 30 seconds and lists 9:16.
• A 480p clip is lower resolution than the 1080p Shorts ceiling; judge by watching it in the Shorts player, not in a desktop preview.
• If you reuse the same prompt and seed at a higher resolution, the picture is not guaranteed identical: seed is not deterministic on every provider.
• Each job needs its own polling; the Timeline render needs both MP4s imported first.