Seedream 5 Lite vs Grok Image on Sume: 1.75x price, different ratios

Seedream 5 Lite costs $0.04375 per image on Sume and Grok Image costs $0.025, so Seedream is 1.75 times the price (0.04375 divided by 0.025). The two rows also list different aspect ratios: Seedream lists nine and Grok lists thirteen, and seven are common to both. Prices and lists are from Sume's catalog as of 2026-10-09.

Price is the smaller part of the choice. Pick on the ratio you need first, then on cost.

Side by side

The ratio counts come from the Sume contract that the image docs describe. Seedream lists 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3, 3:4, 4:5, 5:4, 3:2 and 2:3. Grok lists 2:1, 20:9, 19.5:9, 16:9, 4:3, 3:2, 1:1, 2:3, 3:4, 9:16, 9:19.5, 9:20 and 1:2. The common ones are 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3, 3:4, 3:2 and 2:3.

Where the ratios decide it

If you print or post at 4:5, the common feed ratio on photo apps, Seedream lists it and Grok does not. If you make wide banners or very tall phone images, Grok lists 2:1, 1:2 and 9:20 and Seedream does not. For 1:1, 16:9, 9:16, 4:3 and 3:4 either row works.

An unlisted ratio is not silently adjusted. Sume returns a 400 unsupported_parameter error for values the model does not list, so you find out at submit time and are not billed.

Reading the price gap

A 1.75 times gap sounds large and is small in dollars. At 50 images a month the gap is 94 cents. It matters when volume is high or when the picture is a throwaway, such as a draft that a person will replace. It matters less when the picture ships to a customer and an hour of rework costs more than the whole batch.

Billing is the same on both rows. Sume charges the provider list price times 1.25, rounds the hold up to whole cents, and bills only completed generations. Read usage.cost on the response to see the actual amount for each call.

Cost over a batch

The gap per image is 1.875 cents. On 100 images that is $1.875, and on 10,000 it is $187.50. For a one-off project the gap is small. For a product that renders millions of images, it is the main line of the bill.

Run the same ten prompts on both rows before deciding, which costs $0.4375 on Seedream and $0.25 on Grok, a total of $0.6875. Look at the images, since the price table says nothing about how they look. The Image API docs show how to switch the model field between the two.