Storyboard with stills first: how many images cost one AI clip

A common way to control video spend is to look at stills first: generate a handful of frames for each idea, drop the weak ones, and only then spend on motion. This post is about the cost ratio only. It does not claim a still predicts how a clip will turn out, because motion adds many things an image cannot show.

Prices are Sume billed rates read on 2026-10-03.

How many stills equal one clip?

Each cell divides a clip's price by a still's price and rounds down. A five-second Wan 3.0 clip at 480p ($0.3125) costs about as much as eight flux-2-pro stills ($0.0375 each).

When does screening with stills pay off?

It pays off when the clip is expensive and the question is compositional: product placement, framing, color, a pose. A 15-second Seedance 2.5 clip at 720p is $8.667. Screening ten ideas with flux-2-pro stills costs $0.375, and the saving is real if it removes even one rejected clip.

It does not pay off when the question is about motion, pacing or audio. For those, a short, low-resolution clip on Wan 3.0 is the cheaper screen: $0.3125 for five seconds at 480p.

A suggested order

Start with the cheapest stills to explore, move to a mid-priced still model once a direction survives, and pick a clip model last. Then render the clip at 480p, and the final at delivery resolution. If your final model supports a first frame, a still you approved can seed it, as in the Halloween first-frame post.

The numbers here move whenever a rate card changes, so reread the image price list before you plan a large run.