Wan 3.0 720p 5s clip: Pika 33 credits, Runway API 50, Sume $0.625

The cheapest way to buy one 5-second 720p Wan 3.0 clip today is a Pika subscription: its pricing page lists 33 credits for "Video · 720p · 5s", which is about $0.29 to $0.37 on a plan and $0.55 on a top-up pack. Runway's API charges 50 credits at $0.01 each ($0.50), and Sume bills $0.625, which is its provider list of $0.10 per second times 1.25.

Sume is not the lowest number in this comparison, and this post shows where the gap comes from so you can decide whether it matters for your volume.

What each page says

Pika's page shows a credit cost per generation and two prices per plan. Starter is listed at $10 a month ($8 on annual billing) for 900 credits, Creator at $35 ($28 annual) for 3,150 credits, and top-ups at 60 credits per $1. Runway's developer pricing page sets the credit at $0.01 and lists the wan3 model at 5, 10 and 20 credits per second for 480p, 720p and 1080p. Sume's video docs state that billing is the provider list times 1.25 on every model, and wan-3.0 accepts 2 to 30 seconds per clip.

Sume's recorded provider list for Wan 3.0 is $0.05, $0.10 and $0.20 per second at 480p, 720p and 1080p, the same numbers Runway's credit table works out to. Read the live per-model figures from GET /v1/videos/models before you budget, because list prices move.

Ten clips and a hundred clips

At ten clips the spread is small: about $2.93 to $3.67 on Pika plans, $5.00 on Runway's API and $6.25 on Sume. At a hundred clips it is $29 to $37 on Pika plans, $50 on Runway and $62.50 on Sume. Those are the numbers if every clip is a keeper, which it rarely is, so multiply by your retry rate.

A plan only wins if you use the credits. A Starter plan holds 900 credits, which is 27 clips at 33 credits each (891 credits). If you make four clips a month you are paying $10 for $2.20 of generation at the plan rate. Sume has no subscription: the cost is the clip, from a prepaid USD balance, so a month with four clips costs $2.50.

What the extra 25 percent buys

Sume's price includes an HTTP API with Idempotency-Key support, async jobs with polling or webhooks, and durable result URLs on Sume's media host, plus the same key calling other models and steps such as text to speech, captions and the timeline render. If you are clicking a prompt into an app, none of that matters and Pika's plan rate is the better deal. If your code submits the clip, the comparison is Sume against Runway's API, and the gap there is $0.125 per 5-second clip.

Quality is the other variable. This post compares prices for the model name each page lists. The three services may run different settings, queues or post-processing, so render the same prompt on each before you commit a volume.

A quick submit

On Sume the request is one call. Check supported_durations and pricing_skus in the models list first.

curl https://api.sume.com/v1/videos \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: wan-720p-demo-1" \
  -d '{"model":"wan-3.0","prompt":"A paper boat on a rainy street, slow dolly","resolution":"720p","duration":5}'