Timeline render: 61 seconds costs double 60 on Sume

A 60-second Timeline render on Sume reserves $0.10 and a 61-second render reserves $0.20, because the reservation is ceil(seconds / 60) x $0.10, with a one-minute minimum and a 30-minute maximum (1,800 seconds). Trim a render by one second and you can halve its reservation.

The rule

The catalog's pricing basis for Timeline 1.0 is ceil(audio.duration_seconds / 60) x $0.10 per output minute, maximum 1,800 seconds. The same text says the render uses worker ffmpeg only, with no provider inference, and that all source URLs must be Sume-hosted.

Every length from 1 to 60 seconds reserves $0.10, from 61 to 120 reserves $0.20, and so on. The table shows the edges: 29 s and 60 s are both one minute; 601 s becomes 11 minutes.

Reservation is a ceiling

The catalog description adds that the render is reserved at the per-minute rate and captured at the render's own compute cost, never above the reservation. So $0.20 for a 61-second render is the most you can be charged, not a guaranteed charge.

That makes the reservation the right number for budgets and the wrong number for invoices. Plan with the ceiling; expect the captured amount to be at or below it.

Where it matters

For one render, the difference between 60 and 61 seconds is ten cents. For a library it adds up. A hundred 61-second renders reserve 100 x $0.20 = $20.00; trimming each to 60 seconds reserves $10.00. If you can lose one second of padding per video, you save half.

Check durations in code before you submit: if the total is between 60 and 65 seconds, see whether trimming the outro by a few frames is acceptable. Do the same at 120, 180 and 600 seconds.

• 60 s: $0.10
• 61 s: $0.20
• 120 s: $0.20
• 121 s: $0.30

A second scenario

Check the other edge of the scale. A 25-minute render (1,500 seconds) reserves 25 x $0.10 = $2.50; a 1,501-second render reserves 26 x $0.10 = $2.60. The jump is the same ten cents, but at 30 minutes the cap stops it: 1,800 seconds is $3.00 and anything longer is outside the model's range, so split longer programs into parts.

Related per-job prices

Other Timeline operations are cheap flat jobs in the catalog: compose is $0.02 per job, audio concat or split is $0.01 per job, and video trim and filter are $0.02 per job. The Timeline docs page lists the slots and limits, including 1 to 200 video slots per render.

Reproduce the numbers

Open https://api.sume.com/v1/catalog, which needs no key, and find the entry for the product. Each model_pricing row carries price, unit, pricing_basis and the estimated, minimum and maximum cents. Multiply the unit price by your quantity and round only at the end. The catalog also has applied_* fields that include an agent fee of 550 basis points; the figures in this post use the base prices.