Veo 3.1 Lite at $0.05 a second vs the cheapest 480p clips on Sume

Google's Gemini API pricing page lists a Lite tier of Veo 3.1 at $0.05 per second at 720p and $0.08 at 1080p (read 2026-10-03). That is the lowest per-second figure on the page. If your question is simply "what is the cheapest AI video per second", it is worth lining up against what Sume charges for its own cheapest clips.

Sume does not list a Veo model in its rate tables, so this is a price comparison only. It says nothing about how the clips look; run the same prompt on both before you commit a budget.

Sume's cheapest per-second rates

Sume bills the provider list price times 1.25 on every video model (see the Video API docs). Two catalog models start at the same $0.0625 per second: MiniMax H3 Max at 480p and Wan 3.0 at 480p. Both come from provider lists of $0.05 per second, multiplied by 1.25.

At 720p the gap opens: Veo 3.1 Lite is $0.05 per second, while Wan 3.0 at 720p is $0.125 per second on Sume and H3 Max at 768p is $0.10.

Reading the table

On raw price per second, Veo 3.1 Lite is cheaper than every Sume rate in the table, by 20 percent at 720p against Sume's 480p floor, and by more against Sume's 720p-class rates. Sume's price includes its 25 percent house margin; the vendor figure is list.

Two things the table does not capture. First, Sume's 480p rows are a different resolution from Veo's 720p row, so the like-for-like Sume row is 768p H3 Max at $0.10 or Wan 3.0 at 720p. Second, the unit you pay for is the whole clip: a 10-second clip is always 10 times the per-second rate, and a retake is a second charge.

Estimate before you run

Sume publishes a price per second for each model on the models endpoint, so you can compute a batch before spending anything. This snippet does the multiplication for a 10-second clip across the Sume rates above.

rates = {
    'h3-max 480p': 0.0625,
    'wan-3.0 480p': 0.0625,
    'h3-max 768p': 0.10,
    'wan-3.0 720p': 0.125,
    'h3-max 1080p': 0.20,
}
seconds = 10
for name, per_second in rates.items():
    print(f'{name}: ${per_second * seconds:.2f} for {seconds} s')

When the cheaper list wins

If you only need 720p clips and you already hold a Google API account, Veo 3.1 Lite at $0.50 per 10 seconds is the cheapest line item on either side. If you want one wallet and one API for video, images, speech, and assembly, the Sume rate is what that convenience costs. Decide on your own test clips, then multiply by your monthly volume.