Anam plans from $12 to $999: cost per live minute vs a rendered one
Anam's plan ladder works out to $0.12 to $0.24 per included live minute. A 60-second Sume avatar clip costs $11.04, so it wins above about 74 viewers.
Anam's four listed paid plans work out to between $0.12 and $0.24 per live minute depending on the plan and how much of the allowance you use. A rendered Sume Avatar 1.0 minute costs $11.04 at standard quality, so one rendered minute is cheaper than live minutes once about 74 people have watched it on the Growth rate, and live is cheaper below that.
The plan ladder
Anam's pricing page lists these plans. Unused minutes do not roll over, and the page shows an Enterprise overage of $0.04 per minute on custom terms.
The effective rate is the monthly price divided by the included minutes, which is what you pay per minute if you use the whole allowance. Overage is the per-minute rate once the allowance runs out.
| Plan | Monthly price | Included minutes | Effective $/min if fully used | Overage $/min | Per-session cap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $12 | 50 | $0.24 (12 / 50) | $0.16 | 5 min |
| Explorer | $49 | 250 | $0.196 (49 / 250) | $0.14 | 10 min |
| Growth | $299 | 2,000 | $0.1495 (299 / 2000) | $0.12 | 2 hours |
| Professional | $999 | 8,000 | $0.1249 (999 / 8000) | $0.11 | Unlimited |
What a Sume minute costs
Avatar 1.0 bills the rendered second. Standard is $0.184 a second without a product image, so 60 seconds is 60 x $0.184 = $11.04. Plus is $14.70 and max is $33.00 for the same minute. Creating the avatar is a one-time $0.95. A rendered minute is also fixed: it does not get more expensive when more people press play.
The break-even viewer count
Divide the cost of one rendered minute by the cost of one live minute. On Growth at $0.1495, $11.04 / $0.1495 = 73.8, so 74 viewers. On Professional at $0.1249, $11.04 / $0.1249 = 88.4, so 89 viewers. On Starter at $0.24, it is 46 viewers.
If the same one-minute message goes to more people than that, render it. If every viewer needs a different answer, the live conversation is the product and the comparison stops applying.
Limits that decide it before price does
- Anam's per-session cap runs from 3 minutes on the free plan to 2 hours on Growth, and none on Professional. A Sume job is 4 to 60 seconds.
- A live session answers questions. A Sume clip says one script.
- Concurrency on Anam is 1 to 10 sessions on the listed plans. Sume admits more jobs than it runs and queues the rest.
What to do
Count how many different people will hear the same minute. Past about 74, a rendered clip is the cheaper unit. For anything that must react to a question, buy live minutes and keep Sume for the explainers that wrap around them.
Sources
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