Cut a 12-minute Reel from a 25-minute recording with video trim

Instagram's record page says clips in a reel can add up to 20 minutes. It also says Reels over 3 minutes will not be recommended to new audiences, so a 12-minute Reel is allowed but is aimed at people who already follow you. If the 12 minutes you want sit inside a longer recording, Sume's video trim cuts them out for $0.02.

Both statements are from Record a reel on Instagram (read 2026-10-03). The page is about recording inside the app. Whether an uploaded 12-minute file is treated the same is not something it says, so check how the upload is handled in your account.

Trim limits to plan around

Per the video trim docs, a source can run up to 1800 seconds, which is 30 minutes, and the output up to 900 seconds, which is 15 minutes. A 25-minute recording is 1500 seconds, inside the source limit, and a 12-minute cut is 720 seconds, inside the output limit. An end past the source clamps with the warning trim_clamped_to_source, and a range over 900 seconds returns video_trim_range_empty.

Cut it

This takes the 12 minutes that start at 4:00 into the recording. The source has to be on media.sume.com, so import it first with POST /v1/media-imports. Exact precision re-encodes for a frame-accurate cut, and the output object can conform the rate to 30 fps in the same job.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/video-trim \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: long-reel-001" \
  -d '{
    "video_url": "https://media.sume.com/artifacts/artf_demo/session.mp4",
    "start": 240,
    "duration": 720,
    "precision": "exact",
    "output": { "fps": 30 }
  }'

If you need more than 15 minutes

A 15-minute output is the trim ceiling. For a clip close to Instagram's 20 minutes, cut two parts and join them with Timeline, which takes outputs up to 1800 seconds at $0.10 per started minute, so a 20-minute result costs $2.00. Timeline needs an audio spine, so give it the recording's audio as a spine file, or the result will be silent.