1,800 product photos: background removal and 150 upscales, $70.50

Sume RMBG is $0.0225 per image and image upscale $0.20: 1,800 photos cut out plus 150 hero upscales is $70.50, independent of image size.

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Removing the background from 1,800 product photos on Sume costs $40.50 (1,800 x $0.0225), and upscaling 150 of them as hero images adds $30.00 (150 x $0.20), for $70.50. RMBG's price does not vary by image size, so a 500-pixel thumbnail costs the same as a 6,000-pixel original.

Per-image prices

The catalog says Sume RMBG 1.0 charges $0.0225 per image after margin and that the price does not vary by image size. Image Upscale 1.0 is $0.20 per image and reserves around 16 megapixels of generative output.

1,800 x $0.0225 = $40.50. 150 x $0.20 = $30.00. The two together are $70.50, or 3.9 cents per photo across the 1,800.

Sume RMBG 1.0 and image upscale, 1,800 photos, as of 2026-10-09
StepUnitsPriceTotal
Background removal1,800$0.0225 per image$40.50
Image upscale (heroes)150$0.20 per image$30.00
Total$70.50
Cutouts only, no upscale1,800$0.0225 per image$40.50

Order of operations

Upscale first or remove the background first? The price is the same either way, since both are per image. But the upscale reserves a fixed output size regardless of input, so you should not upscale images that are already large enough. Remove the background on all 1,800, then upscale only the 150 that will be shown large.

If you upscaled all 1,800 instead, the upscale step would cost 1,800 x $0.20 = $360.00. Choosing the 150 saves $330.00.

  • RMBG: price independent of size
  • Upscale: about 16 MP output reserved

Cutouts versus regenerated images

Compare with generating new product images. Seedream 5 Lite is $0.04375 per image; 1,800 generations would be $78.75, and they would be new pictures, not your products. RMBG at $0.0225 is the cheaper step when you already have the photos.

For the catalog work, the useful number is cost per final asset: $0.0225 for a cutout, $0.2225 for a cutout plus upscale.

A second scenario

Scale the library. For 2,400 photos the background removal is 2,400 x $0.0225 = $54.00, with no size surcharge. If 10 percent of them need an upscale, that is 240 x $0.20 = $48.00. The two together are $102.00. Because RMBG is flat per image, the only decision that changes the bill is how many images you choose to upscale.

Running 1,800 jobs

Each image is its own job. Use an Idempotency-Key per source image, keep a manifest of source URL to job id, and poll the results. A failed job is refunded before capture, so retries do not double-bill; the Jobs and results page has the endpoints.

Reproduce the numbers

Open https://api.sume.com/v1/catalog, which needs no key, and find the entry for the product. Each model_pricing row carries price, unit, pricing_basis and the estimated, minimum and maximum cents. Multiply the unit price by your quantity and round only at the end. The catalog also has applied_* fields that include an agent fee of 550 basis points; the figures in this post use the base prices.

Sources

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