Narrate a 3-minute Short: Sume TTS, word timings and 60 s caption cuts

YouTube Help says Shorts can be up to three minutes (read 2026-10-03). On Sume, narrate one with a single tts_create request (the transcript limit is 20,000 characters, far above what three minutes of speech needs), ask for timestamps.words, and cut the captions into pieces of 60 seconds or less, because Sume's caption job covers videos up to 60 seconds. At $0.0475 per 1,000 characters, a 3,000-character script costs $0.1425 before the minimum applies.

The plan

The listed rates are in the Sume catalog, and you should confirm them live with GET /v1/catalog.

Cutting at 60 seconds

Split the words[] list at a sentence end near each 60-second mark, subtract the piece's start time from every start and end, and send each piece as words. Three pieces make three caption jobs. Then join the captioned pieces in Timeline. See the captions guide for the word limits.