A bad 30 s Seedance 2.5 take costs $17.33; a 10 s shot costs $5.78

One rejected 30-second Seedance 2.5 take costs $17.33 at 720p in 9:16 on Sume. A rejected 10-second shot costs $5.78. Price is linear in seconds, so a 30-second job and three 10-second jobs cost the same when they all succeed, and the shorter jobs are cheaper to retry.

The arithmetic

Seedance 2.5 is billed in video tokens. At 720p in 9:16 that is 21,600 tokens a second at $0.0214 per 1,000, times 1.25, which is about $0.5778 a second. 480p is $0.27 a second and 1080p is about $1.42.

Duration runs 4 to 30 seconds, so you can send a 30-second job or split it.

When one job is better

A single take keeps the lighting, the subject and the pacing together, and it needs one Timeline-free file. Split only when you can cut between beats.

Expected waste also differs. If one take in four is rejected, a 30-second job wastes about $5.78 per success on average (0.25 x $17.33 / 0.75), while a 10-second shot wastes about $1.93.

Joining the shots

Joining costs little: Timeline is $0.10 per output minute, so 30 seconds is $0.10. A cut between two Seedance shots needs the same frame rate, or Timeline resamples and the motion judders. Read the live rate from GET /v1/videos/models before you budget.