H3 or H3 Max at 480p: same $0.0625 a second. Pick by final tier

At 480p, minimax-h3 and minimax-h3-max have the same fal list price of $0.05 per second, so both bill $0.0625 per second on Sume after the 1.25 multiple. The price gap opens at 768p, where H3 is $0.075 per second and H3 Max is $0.10.

That makes 480p a neutral place to test: draft on whichever row you plan to finish on, because a draft on the other row costs the same.

The three tiers

The Video Router docs list minimax-h3 at 480p and 768p, and minimax-h3-max at 480p, 768p and 1080p. Both run 5 to 15 seconds with native stereo audio and no audio switch. The fal list prices are $0.05 at 480p for both, $0.06 (H3) or $0.08 (Max) at 768p, and $0.16 at 1080p for Max only.

A draft ladder for 20 takes

A ladder is a plan: draft cheap, promote the few that work, finish once. Suppose you test 20 prompts at 10 seconds and promote 4. At 480p the 20 drafts cost 20 x $0.63 = $12.60 on either row. Promoting four to 768p costs 4 x $0.75 = $3.00 on H3 or 4 x $1.00 = $4.00 on H3 Max. If you then finish one at 1080p on Max, that is $2.00 more.

The whole ladder is $12.60 + $4.00 + $2.00 = $18.60 on Max, or $15.60 on H3 if you stop at 768p. Skipping the draft tier and rendering all 20 at 768p would be $15.00 on H3 or $20.00 on H3 Max, before you do any promotion.

What a 480p draft can and cannot tell you

A 480p draft is a good check of composition, motion and whether the audio idea works, since the stereo audio is generated at every tier. It is a weaker check of face detail, text on packaging and edges. Do not judge small text from a draft. If your brief depends on a logo staying readable, move that check to 768p.

Remember that the 768p pass is a new render, not a crop-up of the draft. The docs describe 768p as native on both ids, and the 480p tier as native too, so there is no refinement step between them. A promoted take is a fresh generation, and you should expect it to differ from the draft.

• Draft on the row you will finish on, since 480p costs the same.
• Promote only the takes that survive review.
• Finish on H3 for $0.075 per second at 768p, or on H3 Max for 1080p.

Reference images change the draft price

The one cost that differs between the rows at 480p is the reference surcharge. The docs state that minimax-h3 adds $0.08 list per reference image after the fifth, which is $0.10 billed. If your draft carries eight references, that is $0.30 extra per take on H3 and nothing extra on H3 Max.

Choosing the finishing row

Decide the final tier first. If the deliverable is 768p or smaller and the brief has five or fewer references, H3 is cheaper by $0.025 per second, which is $0.25 on a 10-second clip. If you need 1080p, only H3 Max lists it, and the 1080p tier is a refinement from the 768p result at $0.20 per second.

The docs also describe H3 Max as the faster 768p variant. If your pipeline waits on a human reviewer between steps, that may matter more than a quarter on each clip. The docs do not give a render time in seconds, so measure it on your own prompts.