Atmee avatar billed by the minute vs Sume reserve and refund

Atmee's LiveKit plugin bills by the minute from the moment the avatar sees your agent in the room, and max_duration_seconds defaults to 3600, the most a session can bill if your agent dies without a trace (read 2026-10-05). Sume's lip-sync and avatar jobs work the other way: the price for a clip is known at submit, held as a reservation, captured on completion and refunded on failure.

What the Atmee page says

The plugin README states that billing starts when the avatar sees your agent and runs by the minute. It lists what stops billing: the agent leaving or the room closing, calling aclose(), a rendering worker failure (sessions silent for minutes are closed), or hitting max_duration_seconds.

The default of 3600 is described as a hard ceiling. If you run short sessions, set it lower in code.

Sume's shape

On Sume you ask for a finished clip. For H3 Max lip sync the price is ceil(duration_seconds) times the per-second rate, and the API reserves it at admit. Completion captures it and failure refunds it. There is no open session to leave running, so no ceiling to configure.

The cost is that you give up interactivity. You wait for a job, then play a file. Choose by what the user needs: a conversation, or a prepared answer.

Budget both

For a live session, price the worst case as the ceiling in minutes times the rate you were quoted, and set the ceiling to match your longest legitimate call. For a Sume clip, use admission preview before submitting large banks. The 1,000-reply math is in the cost post.