Vacation rental check-in video for guests with AI voice

To make a check-in video for vacation-rental guests, photograph each step (the street sign, the lockbox, the door, the Wi-Fi card, the parking spot), write one sentence per photo, and join them on Sume with a text-to-speech voice and a Timeline render. A 60-second video with about 900 characters of script costs about $0.14: $0.043 for the voice and $0.10 for one rendered minute. The same video with a talking avatar would be $11.04 at Standard rates.

Why a video instead of a longer message?

Guests arrive tired and often read only the first lines of a message. A video of the path from the street to the door answers the question that causes late-night calls: which door, which box, which code. It is also the same file for every guest, so the cost is paid once per property, not once per stay.

What goes in the 60 seconds?

Keep to the sequence a guest actually walks. Use real photos, because a generated hallway will not match your hallway.

• Street and parking: 8 seconds, one photo each.
• Lockbox and door: 10 seconds, with the lock closed-up.
• Wi-Fi, heating or air conditioning, and hot water: 15 seconds.
• House rules, quiet hours and bins: 15 seconds.
• Who to call, and when: 7 seconds.

How do I keep the door code out of the video?

Do not say or show the code. A video file is easy to forward and lives on your hosting for as long as you keep it. Say 'the code is in your booking message' and send the code separately. Use the same rule for the Wi-Fi password: show the card, never read the characters aloud. If a rule changes, edit one sentence, regenerate the voice and render again.

What does it cost, and how do I add captions?

Voice is $0.0475 per 1,000 characters, and Timeline is $0.10 per rounded-up output minute. A portfolio of ten properties is ten voices and ten renders, about $1.43. For captions, send authored cues to the standalone video-captions endpoint, which burns overlay text without speech recognition; its rate is not on the pricing page, so check it in the playground first. Captions help guests who play the clip with sound off, and guests who read a second language.