Reuse your own Reel for Small Business Saturday: import, trim, caption

To reuse your own Instagram Reel for Small Business Saturday, import its public URL with POST /v1/media-imports ($0.15), cut the 12 seconds that matter with POST /v1/video-trim ($0.02), and burn a new offer line with POST /v1/video-captions ($0.20). That is $0.37 for a fresh clip from footage you already shot. Import only posts you own or have rights to.

The U.S. Small Business Administration's Small Business Saturday page (read 2026-10-11) names Saturday, November 28, 2026 for the 2026 observance. A bakery, bookshop or salon with a good October Reel can point it at that date without a reshoot.

What does the import return?

The import route takes a public TikTok or Instagram video URL, mirrors the file to Sume-owned storage and records it as an asset. The job estimate is a fixed $0.15 per accepted import. YouTube and other hosts are refused with unsupported_platform, so a YouTube video needs another route. Set get_transcript: true if you also want the spoken words back as text.

When the job is ready, the resource gives you a media.sume.com url, an asset_id, and a has_watermark flag. Check that flag before you reuse the clip: a platform watermark in the corner will sit inside your new post.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/media-imports \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: reel-import-001" \
  -d '{
    "url": "https://www.instagram.com/reel/YOUR_REEL_ID/",
    "get_transcript": true
  }'

How do I cut it down to the part that sells?

Use the mirrored url as video_url in the trim route (read 2026-10-11) with start and duration, for example start: 6, duration: 12. Precision exact is the default and re-encodes frame-accurately; keyframe copies the stream and can start up to a GOP early. The route reserves $0.02 per job and the source may be up to 1,800 seconds.

Trim before you caption: the caption job is a flat $0.20 for up to 60 seconds, so there is no saving from a shorter clip, but there is a quality gain, because the new text lands on the right words.

What new text goes on?

The captions route (read 2026-10-11) runs speech-to-text on a clip with audible speech, or burns cues you write. If the Reel already has burned-in captions, a second layer will collide with it; use a source with clean video, or pick a design.placement.anchor_ratio that moves your new line to a free part of the frame. A single cue works well for the offer: "Sat Nov 28. Open 8 to 6. Free tote with $40." Write the offer you actually run.

What does a batch cost?

The three steps are $0.15, $0.02 and $0.20 per Reel. Re-captioning a finished video in another style with source_caption_id is still a $0.20 render, but it skips the second transcription.