Cost to research a competitor ad: search plus video analysis

One researched reference costs $0.40 on Sume: a trending video search at $0.10 and a video analysis at $0.30. Ten references are $4.00 and fifty are $20.00.

Price table

Both are fixed prices from the docs, not per-second rates.

Cheaper pattern

A search returns many ranked results, so one search can feed several analyses. Run one search at $0.10, pick ten videos and analyze them for $3.00. That is $3.10 for ten references instead of $4.00.

Analyze only the videos you would copy a pattern from. At $0.30 each, skipping one weak candidate pays for the next search.

• Search once per topic, not once per video.
• Analyze after filtering by views or date.
• Keep the analysis output to reuse it across briefs.

What this buys

Search returns public video metadata. Analysis reads a video you point it at and returns structured findings that a generation prompt can use. The research fee is flat, so it does not grow with video length.

From research to a draft

Once you have analyses, you can turn the findings into a brief and generate a first draft. A 15-second draft on Grok at 720p costs $0.1875, on Wan 3.0 at 720p $1.875. Ten references plus a draft per reference on Grok is $3.10 for research plus $1.88 for ten drafts, or $4.98 in all.

That makes research the larger line item on cheap models and a rounding error on expensive ones. Spend on it when the choice of angle matters more than the choice of model.

Limits

Search results are metadata and rankings, and analysis quality depends on the video. The tables show the model amount. A workspace Agent Fee line can be added on top, so treat the job's own usage cost as the truth and check the live catalog before you budget; limits and rows change.