A 61-second Sume timeline render bills 2 minutes: $0.20

A 61-second Timeline 1.0 render costs $0.20, because the price is $0.10 per output minute rounded up: 61 seconds is 2 billable minutes. A 60-second render costs $0.10, and the longest allowed render, 30 minutes (1800 seconds), costs $3.00.

The rule is in the Timeline 1.0 docs and the live rate is in the public catalog. The reserve at submit is ceil(audio.duration_seconds / 60) minutes, so the length of the audio spine you declare sets the hold.

The ladder

The table applies ceil(seconds / 60) x $0.10. The minimum is one minute, so a 12-second sting still bills $0.10.

Trim two seconds, save a dollar tenth

If a cut lands at 61 or 62 seconds, check whether the two extra seconds are worth $0.10. Cutting the tail of the audio spine to 60 seconds moves the job from 2 billable minutes to 1. Across 100 renders that is 100 x $0.10 = $10.00 saved.

Do the check before you pay. POST /v1/timeline-1.0/plan is an unbilled compile preflight: it returns duration_seconds, segment_count, billable_minutes and estimated_cost_usd_micros, and it does not download media or need an Idempotency-Key. Read billable_minutes and adjust the timeline first.

{
  "audio": { "mode": "silence", "duration_seconds": 61 },
  "video": [
    { "url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/shot1.mp4" }
  ]
}
// send to POST /v1/timeline-1.0/plan, then read billable_minutes (expect 2)

Limits that sit next to the price

audio.duration_seconds accepts 1 to 1800, and video[] accepts 1 to 200 slots. A plan cannot predict everything a render will do, so treat billable_minutes as the reserve, not a promise about the worker.

• Chained renders for shows over 30 minutes: split the show, render two timelines, and add the bills.
• A 50-minute show as 30 + 20 minutes costs 30 x $0.10 + 20 x $0.10 = $5.00.
• Short stings and long edits share the same $0.10 floor, so batch tiny shots into one timeline when you can.

A worked comparison

Consider a weekly series of 24 shorts, each 58 to 64 seconds long. If half of them run over 60 seconds, 12 of the renders bill 2 minutes and 12 bill 1. The total is 12 x $0.20 + 12 x $0.10 = $3.60. Trimming the long ones by four seconds each brings the total to 24 x $0.10 = $2.40, a saving of $1.20 a week, or $62.40 over a 52-week year.

Two things this does not do. It does not change what the video looks like, because only the tail moves, and it does not apply to a timeline that really needs the extra seconds. Make the cut a creative decision first and a billing decision second.