Runway API vs Sume: six video models, price ratio per second

Runway's API is cheaper per second than Sume on five of the six models that exist on both, and Sume is cheaper on one. Runway's pricing page converts credits at $0.01 each, so a model at 10 credits per second is $0.10. Sume bills the provider list price times 1.25, so the ratio between the two depends on what each platform pays upstream, not on a fixed markup. The table below divides Sume's per-second rate by Runway's for the six pairs.

The six pairs, per second and per 10-second clip

Runway's rows come from its pricing page; Sume's rows come from its public catalog. Where Runway names a resolution I used the same resolution on Sume. The Hailuo 3 to H3 pairing assumes both names refer to the same MiniMax family; Runway's page does not say so, so treat that row as an assumption.

Reading the ratios

Three pairs land at exactly 1.25x: wan3, h3_max and gemini_omni_flash. That matches Sume's rule of provider list times 1.25 when Runway passes the provider's list price through. Seedance 2 is 1.05x, so Runway's price there sits above its upstream cost, or Runway discounts it; the pages do not say which.

Seedance 2.5 is the outlier at 1.93x: Runway lists 30 credits ($0.30) per second at 720p, and Sume's 720p row is $0.5778. If you generate long Seedance 2.5 clips, that gap is the number that matters. A 30-second 720p clip is $9.00 on Runway and $17.334 on Sume (30 x 0.5778).

The Hailuo 3 pair runs the other way: $0.10 on Runway against $0.075 on Sume at 768p, so a 10-second clip is $1.00 against $0.75.

• Runway cheaper: wan3, h3_max, gemini_omni_flash, seedance2, seedance2_5.
• Sume cheaper: the minimax-h3 row against hailuo3.

What the price does not cover

Runway lists more models than Sume does, such as gen4.5, gen4_turbo and act_two, and Sume lists models Runway does not. A per-second price also leaves out reference inputs, audio and failed jobs. Sume reserves the full price at submit and shows the billable amount in usage.cost on the job; see the video docs for the reservation rule.

If your decision is purely per-second cost on one of the five models where Runway is lower, Runway wins on that line. If you want one OpenRouter-compatible /v1/videos route across families with a USD balance, that is the reason to look at Sume.

Re-running the check

Prices on both pages change, so recompute rather than reuse these ratios. Pull Runway's credits per second, multiply by $0.01, then call GET /v1/videos/models on Sume and read pricing_skus for the same resolution. Divide Sume by Runway. A ratio near 1.25 means both platforms pass the same provider list through; a ratio far from it is a sign that one side has its own discount or surcharge.

Then price your real monthly volume: if you render 200 clips of 10 seconds on wan-3.0 at 720p, that is $200.00 on Runway and $250.00 on Sume, a difference of $50.00 a month that is either worth the single USD balance and OpenRouter-compatible route or it is not.

What I could not confirm

Runway's page shows credits per second at the standard resolution of each row; some models list more than one resolution or an audio option. Only the rows named in the table are used. All vendor figures were read on 2026-10-09 and are listed in the sources; Sume figures come from its public catalog and docs the same day.