Three 175-second Shorts from a 28-minute recording for $0.36

Three 175-second YouTube Shorts from a 28-minute recording cost $0.36 on Sume: two audio detach jobs at $0.01 each, speech-to-text on 28 minutes at $0.28, and three video trim jobs at $0.02 each. That assumes the recording is already a Sume-hosted video with a square or vertical frame, and that you skip burned-in captions, which are priced separately.

Why 175 seconds

YouTube's help page says Shorts can now be up to three minutes, and that square or vertical uploads up to three minutes are categorized as Shorts (read 2026-10-09). A 175-second cut leaves five seconds of margin under 180. The same page says a Short over one minute with an active copyright claim is blocked globally, so a long Short carries more risk if the recording includes third-party audio.

A 28-minute source is 1,680 seconds, under the 1,800-second source limit for video trim, audio detach and video inspect. A recording longer than 30 minutes must be split before import.

The steps and their prices

Detach the audio as 16 kHz mono wav, the shape Sume's speech-to-text takes. Audio detach caps output at 900 seconds, so a 1,680-second track needs two ranges, 0 to 840 and 840 to 1,680, which is two jobs at $0.01. Transcribe both to find three passages worth 175 seconds each. Sume's STT is $0.01 per audio minute, so 28 minutes is $0.28.

Then trim the video at those times with exact precision, the default, so each cut starts on the frame you chose. Send start and duration 175, keep audio as keep. Each result is a new MP4 and the source is untouched.

Variations

If the recording is 15 minutes or less, one detach job is enough and the STT line shrinks with the length: at 14 minutes the total is $0.01 plus $0.14 plus $0.06, which is $0.21.

Captions are a separate job. The standalone caption job reserves $0.20 for videos of 60 seconds or less, so it does not price a 175-second clip; check the live catalog before you add it to a long Short.

• Detach: $0.01 per job, 900 s output cap.
• STT: $0.01 per audio minute.
• Trim: $0.02 per job, 0.2 to 900 s output.
• Frame: a 16:9 recording is not a Short; crop it first with video filter.

Before you upload

Use video inspect to probe each output; the probe is free and reports duration and frame size. Confirm each file is under 180 seconds and square or vertical before you upload.

A practical note

Choose the three passages before you trim. Read the transcript for self-contained moments: a question and its full answer, a story with an end, or a how-to with a result. A clip that starts mid-sentence loses viewers in the first second. Add a one-second lead before the first word and a half-second tail after the last, so the cut does not clip speech. Because trim is $0.02, you can afford two candidate cuts per passage and pick the better one after watching.