Longest clip per platform and how many Sume trim jobs it takes

A 30-minute source needs 2 trim jobs for Truth Social, 2 for the Instagram Reels API, 3 for TikTok's API, 10 for Kick or YouTube Shorts and 30 for ArtStation. Sume's video trim accepts a source of up to 1800 seconds and writes an output of up to 900 seconds, and the longest clip each platform takes decides how many cuts you need. The table shows the platform limits we read on 2026-10-05 and the job counts.

That makes the longest-clip question a cost question as much as a format one. The more a platform shortens what it takes, the more parts you cut, and the count scales in whole numbers because each trim job is a unit. At the public rate the highest figure in the table is still well under a dollar for the whole 30 minutes.

The table

The job count is the source length divided by the smaller of the platform limit and Sume's 900-second output cap, rounded up. The cost uses the $0.02 public rate per trim job, and the live rate is in the catalog.

Each row uses the platform's own figure and the whole 1800-second source, with no overlap between parts. If you want a little overlap, add it to the part length and the counts grow by a little.

Where the cap and the platform agree

Two platforms in the table match Sume's cap exactly. Truth Social's 15 minutes and the Reels API's 15 minutes both equal 900 seconds, so one trim output can reach the platform maximum. TikTok's API allows 10 minutes, so you cut below the Sume cap. Kick, Shorts and ArtStation are shorter, so the platform limit decides.

The Kick figure is the longest a Kick clip can be on the platform, and the page covers clips made there. Count it here as a target length for a short that you make from a Kick clip, not as an upload rule.

Compute the job count

Those counts assume cuts of the maximum length, which is rarely what you want, since a three-minute chunk with no story boundaries is a poor Short. Use the count as a ceiling on cost, and cut at scene boundaries in practice. The function below turns a source length and a platform limit into the number of jobs and the cost.

The table does not say a 3-minute Short is the best length. It says what the platform accepts. A tighter edit usually performs differently from a longer one, and nothing in these pages measures that.

import math

PRICE = 0.02
CAP = 900

def jobs(source_seconds, platform_limit):
    size = min(platform_limit, CAP)
    n = math.ceil(source_seconds / size)
    return n, round(n * PRICE, 2)

for name, limit in [("truth_social", 900), ("tiktok_api", 600),
                    ("shorts", 180), ("artstation", 60)]:
    print(name, jobs(1800, limit))

Running them

Each job needs an Idempotency-Key, and a distinct key for each part keeps a retry from creating a duplicate. The jobs are independent, so they can be submitted together and polled through the job envelope. Each output is a new artifact and the source never changes.

Remember the first constraint: a source longer than 1800 seconds is refused with source_duration_exceeded, so a longer recording has to be split before it reaches Sume.

The counts also assume that each part passes the other checks. If a part is over a size limit, a second trim to lower the resolution would add a job, so the totals here are the minimum.

Limits of this table

Each platform page can change, so check them again before a release. Duration is also only one of several limits, and file size, codec and frame rate are covered in the sibling posts.