A 180-second Short from six Wan 3.0 clips: cost and Timeline join

YouTube's help page says square or vertical videos up to 3 minutes are Shorts, from October 15, 2024 for standard channels (read 2026-10-04). That makes 180 seconds the new ceiling for a vertical video. Alibaba's Wan3.0 guide lists clips of up to 30 seconds, and Sume's wan-3.0 takes the same range.

Six 30-second clips make 180 seconds. A Timeline join turns them into one 1080 by 1920 MP4, so it is a 9:16 video under or at the limit. Keep the total at or below 180, and check that exactly 3 minutes counts as up to 3 minutes before you ship, since the help page says up to.

The bill

At 720p the video is $22.80 in total.

Join the six clips

Import each finished clip to media.sume.com, then send the six URLs to Timeline 1.0. The audio spine here is silence for the declared 180 seconds; add a voice or music track if the clips are silent.

import os
import requests

urls = os.environ["CLIP_URLS"].split(",")
body = {
    "audio": {"mode": "silence", "duration_seconds": 180},
    "video": [
        {"source_url": u, "start": 0, "duration": 30}
        for u in urls
    ],
}
r = requests.post(
    "https://api.sume.com/v1/timeline-1.0/render",
    headers={
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SUME_API_KEY']}",
        "Idempotency-Key": "short-180-001",
    },
    json=body,
)
print(r.status_code)

Generate the six clips with a shared first-frame image so the subject stays the same. Cuts between independent clips will still show, so add a short transition on slots after the first.