Runway Seedance 2.5 80-credit minimum: when it applies

Runway lists an 80-credit minimum for Seedance 2.5, but the shortest clip is 4 seconds and the cheapest tier is 20 credits per second, so a 4-second 480p clip is exactly 80 credits, $0.80, and the minimum never raises the price of an output-only clip. It only matters if a rounding rule or a shorter duration appears later. On Sume, seedance-2.5 also starts at 4 seconds, and the price is reserved at submit.

Numbers are from Runway's API pricing page and its changelog entries for August 7 and August 15, 2026, read on 2026-10-03, and Sume's video generation docs.

What are the Seedance 2.5 rates on Runway?

Output is billed per second by tier, and input or reference seconds are billed separately at a lower rate. Every row carries the 80-credit minimum.

What does a 4-second clip cost on each tier?

Multiply output seconds by the rate. At $0.01 a credit:

• 480p, 4 seconds: 80 credits, $0.80, equal to the minimum.
• 720p, 4 seconds: 120 credits, $1.20.
• 1080p, 4 seconds: 272 credits, $2.72.
• 1080p, 15 seconds: 1,020 credits, $10.20, before any reference seconds.

So when does the minimum change anything?

Not for text-to-video at 4 seconds or longer. The changelog says Seedance 2.5 produces 4 to 30 second videos, which keeps every output-only job at or above 80 credits. If Runway later allows shorter clips, or bills a clip below 4 seconds of output, the floor would start to matter. Plan budgets from the per-second rate and treat the minimum as a guard rail, not a fee.

Reference seconds are where the math changes. A 10-second 720p clip with 5 seconds of reference video is 300 plus 75, or 375 credits, $3.75.

How does Sume's reserve compare?

Sume reserves the provider list price times 1.25 at submit, per its docs, and returns 402 insufficient_credits if the balance cannot cover the reserve. Your exact rate for seedance-2.5 is in pricing_skus from GET /v1/videos/models; the docs show the field but this post does not copy a rate, because the catalog is the source of truth.

Sume does not describe a per-job minimum for Seedance 2.5 in the pages we read. Check the catalog entry for any floor before you budget a batch of short clips.

How do you budget a batch of short clips?

Pick the tier first, then multiply. For a batch of 100 four-second clips, 480p comes to 8,000 credits, $80; 720p to 12,000, $120; and 1080p to 27,200, $272, all before reference seconds. Draft at 480p, pick the winners, and re-run only those at 1080p: ten finals at 15 seconds cost 10,200 credits, $102, so the 100 drafts add $80 to the $102 of finals.

The reference rate is the part teams forget. Input and reference seconds are billed at half the output rate on each tier, so a clip with a 5-second reference video at 1080p adds 170 credits, $1.70, to the output charge.

• 100 clips, 4 seconds, 480p: $80.00
• 100 clips, 4 seconds, 720p: $120.00
• 100 clips, 4 seconds, 1080p: $272.00
• One 5-second reference at 1080p: add $1.70

What should you verify before you rely on these numbers?

Runway's pricing page is the source of truth and it changes. Read it the day you budget, and keep the date next to the figure. On Sume, read pricing_skus and the supported durations from GET /v1/videos/models before you submit a batch, and use an Idempotency-Key per clip so a retry cannot double-charge you.

Also check that the clip length you want is inside the model's range. Sume's docs list seedance-2.5 at 4 to 30 seconds, and every other catalog model other than wan-3.0 and a few special cases tops out at 15.

Where do teams misread the minimum?

The usual mistake is to read '80 credit minimum' as a per-clip fee and to add 80 on top of the per-second charge. It is a floor, not an add-on: the charge is the larger of the computed amount and 80. For a 4-second 480p clip the two are equal, so the answer is 80, not 160. For every longer or higher tier, the computed amount is already above the floor.

Write the formula in your cost sheet as max(80, output seconds times rate plus reference seconds times reference rate) so a spreadsheet cannot drift from the page.