Pinterest video ads start at 4 seconds, Sume trim allows 0.2: gate it

Pinterest's standard video ad spec says a minimum of 4 seconds and a maximum of 15 minutes, and it recommends 6 to 15 seconds. Sume's video trim accepts durations from 0.2 to 900 seconds, which means it will happily make a 3-second file that Pinterest's spec does not allow. Put a length check between the trim and the upload, using duration_seconds from a video inspect probe.

The two ranges side by side

The 900 seconds on the Sume side is exactly 15 minutes, so the upper ends match.

Where the mismatch shows up

A trim is exact to the frame when precision is exact, so a request for 3 seconds returns a file of about 3 seconds. The API does not know your target platform, so it does not reject it. The same applies to a timeline render, which outputs the length of its audio spine. A short render still bills a whole minute, so 3 seconds costs $0.10, the same as 60 seconds (Sume catalog, read 2026-10-08).

Below the minimum is the failure to watch for, but the long end has its own arithmetic. At 2 GB over 900 seconds the average bitrate ceiling is 16,000 megabits / 900 = 17.8 Mbps, so the file-size cap rarely binds on a 15-minute ad.

A gate that works

After each trim or render, call video inspect with frames false and read duration_seconds. Accept the file only if the value is at least 4 and at most 900, and prefer a value from 6 to 15 for ads that are meant to autoplay. The probe is billed by compute, not a fixed price, so run it once per output, not per frame.

If a clip is too short, do not stretch it. Pick a longer source range and trim again at $0.02, or join two scenes in a timeline render. If it is too long, trim to the recommended range and keep the long version for a different placement.

Keep the gate in code or in a spreadsheet column, whichever your team uses, but keep it separate from the trim step. A gate that lives in the trim step gets bypassed when someone cuts a file by hand. A gate on the file that is about to be uploaded catches both.

If you batch many clips, probe each output once and record duration_seconds next to the file name. A column of numbers is easier to review than a folder of files, and the 4-second floor and 900-second ceiling become a simple filter.

• Trim: $0.02 per job.
• Timeline: $0.10 per output minute, rounded up.
• Probe fields: duration_seconds, width, height, fps, video_codec, size_bytes.