Weekly podcast intro: 52 new themes cost $6.50, one theme 12.5 cents

A fresh Music 1.0 intro for every weekly episode costs 52 x $0.125 = $6.50 a year on Sume. One permanent theme costs $0.125. The gap is small enough that the real decision is creative: do you want listeners to hear the same sonic signature every week, or a new one?

Three plans, priced

Music 1.0 is a flat fee per accepted generation, so the cost depends only on how many tracks you generate, not on how long they are or whether you add an image. These plans assume one accepted generation per track and no rerolls.

Keep the master file

Generated audio has no seed, so you cannot recreate a track by repeating the prompt. The first approved intro is your master. Store the audio artifact, the prompt, job.model and job.request.routed_model next to it. If you pin lyria-3.5 on the Music Router, a seasonal variant is generated by the same engine as the master, which keeps the family sound.

For variants, keep the instruments and key from the master brief and change one axis, for example tempo or the named moment in the arc. That is closer to a variation than a fresh brief.

Fit it to the episode

The intro has to end where the narration starts. Timeline 1.0 takes the narration as the audio spine and the music as a soundtrack bed with fade_out_seconds up to 10 and duck_db 0 to 20, so a 20-second intro can fade into a voice. A render is $0.10 per ceil(output minute). For a short sting you only need to trim, a one-minute render is $0.10 whatever the sting length.

Because there is no duration field, ask for the length in the prompt ('a 20-second intro') and trim the result if it runs long.

Rights and disclosure

Cost is not the only question. Read the music terms for your own use, and check the platform where you publish for AI disclosure rules. Those are separate from the price and the docs do not answer them for you.

A recurring intro is a brand asset, so spending $6.50 on 52 throwaways is cheap, and spending $0.125 on one you keep is cheaper.