Wan 3.0 draft at 480p, final at 1080p: no seed means a full re-render

On Sume, wan-3.0 costs about $0.0625 per output second at 480p, $0.125 at 720p, and $0.25 at 1080p. A 36-second episode of six 6-second shots is $2.25 as a 480p draft and $9.00 at 1080p. Because no v1 model accepts a seed, rendering a good draft again at 1080p produces a different take, so use drafts to test prompts and blocking, then re-roll the keepers.

The per-second figures are the provider list ($0.05, $0.10, $0.20) times Sume's 1.25 margin. Read the live numbers in GET /v1/videos/models under pricing_skus before you budget.

The arithmetic

Video generation says wan-3.0 accepts 2-30 seconds per job and that Sume reserves provider list times 1.25 at submit, with usage.cost as the billable amount. A 6-second shot is therefore $0.375 at 480p, $0.75 at 720p, and $1.50 at 1080p.

Why a draft cannot be upscaled

The Sume differences table says each v1 model reports seed: false and rejects the field. Without a seed, the same prompt at a higher resolution is a new generation. A draft cannot become the final by changing resolution.

That changes how you spend. Use 480p drafts to compare prompt wording, camera moves, and casting across variants. When one wins, you have its prompt, not its pixels. Render that prompt at the target resolution and expect something close, not identical.

A cheaper plan

Draft only the shots you are unsure about. If a shot is a plain insert, go straight to the final resolution. Run each draft as its own job with an Idempotency-Key, so a retry does not bill twice.

For TikTok, 720p is a common working size, and the shots are assembled into one MP4 with Timeline 1.0 at $0.10 per output minute. Check supported_resolutions and supported_aspect_ratios for wan-3.0 in GET /v1/videos/models before you send 9:16 at a new resolution; the docs tell you to read them per model.

When drafts pay off

A draft saves money when most shots will be rejected. If you expect to keep one shot in three, drafting at 480p costs a quarter of the 1080p price per attempt. If you expect to keep most shots, drafting adds cost, because every keeper is rendered twice.

For a TikTok series, the final size is often 720p or 1080p vertical. If a platform recompresses your upload anyway, a 720p final may look the same on a phone as a 1080p one, and halves the bill, from $9.00 to $4.50 for 36 seconds. Compare both on a real phone once, then pick the cheaper one that holds up.

Log usage.cost for each job and compare it with your estimate; a gap means your plan is off.