2-minute AI explainer at 1080p: Veo 3.1 Lite $9.60, Standard $48

A two-minute explainer made of 120 seconds of footage costs $9.60 on Veo 3.1 Lite at 1080p, $14.40 on Fast and $48.00 on Standard, at Google's per-second list prices. On Sume, Omni Flash at 1080p costs $22.50 for the same 120 seconds.

That assumes one take per second of finished video, which is the best case. Real projects generate more than they keep.

Totals for 120 seconds

Each total is 120 times the per-second price. Explainers rarely need 4K, but the 4K rows are included because Standard and Fast list it.

Lite does not list a 4K price.

What an explainer needs

An explainer is mostly cutaways under a voice track: product shots, abstract motion, screens. Few seconds need photorealistic faces, so a cheaper tier often covers most of the cut. A mix is common: Standard for a hook shot of five seconds, Fast for the middle, Lite for background loops.

Voiceover is a separate step from picture, so the video model only has to produce footage. Note that Omni's audio on Sume is always on and cannot be switched off at the API, so plan to replace or lower it in your edit.

Takes and revisions

If you keep one of every three generated seconds, multiply by three: $28.80 for Lite 1080p, $43.20 for Fast, $144.00 for Standard and $67.50 for Omni on Sume. The ranking does not change, but the gap in dollars does.

A revision that changes the script means regenerating the affected shots, so cost scales with the number of shots touched. Keep shots short and separable.

A budget split

As an example split of 120 seconds: 10 seconds of hook at Fast 1080p ($1.20), 70 seconds of cutaways at Lite 1080p ($5.60) and 40 seconds of screens and abstract motion at Lite 720p ($2.00). That totals $8.80, which is less than 120 seconds of Lite 1080p because it leans on the cheaper resolution where detail does not matter.

The split is arithmetic, not a recommendation of which shots tolerate a lower tier. Look at your own cut.

Sume note

Sume does not list a Veo model. Its Google video model is gemini-omni-flash-1.1, which takes 3 to 10 seconds at 360p, 720p, 1080p or 4K, in 16:9 or 9:16, with audio always on. Sume bills the provider list rate times 1.25 for each output second, so its rates are $0.0375, $0.125, $0.1875 and $0.375 a second. A two-minute explainer is twelve 10-second requests at most, or more if you use shorter shots.