5 minute vertical episode: Seedance 2.5 $173.84 or avatar plus $74

A 5 minute vertical episode costs $173.84 built from ten 30 second Seedance 2.5 shots, or $74.00 built from five 60 second avatar plus clips, each including $0.50 for the Timeline 1.0 join. The cheaper route shows one talking person against one scene; the dearer one can show any scene.

The length is in range for the 3 to 5 minute videos that Metricool reports TikTok favouring. Whether your account can post five minutes is a separate check.

Side by side

Seedance 2.5 clips run 4 to 30 seconds. An avatar talking-video job runs 4 to 60 seconds at 720p. Both support 9:16.

What each route shows

An avatar job renders one resolved avatar in one shared scene. That suits a host, a confession or a monologue. It cannot cut between locations inside a single job, and a second person needs a second job.

Seedance takes a prompt and optional first and last frames, so it can show a chase, a street or a kitchen. Its limit is that each shot is generated separately, so keeping the same lead across shots is on you.

Mixing both

Many series use the avatar for talking beats and Seedance for cutaways. A 5 minute episode of 3 minutes of avatar plus ($44.10) and 2 minutes of Seedance ($69.34, four 30 second shots) is $113.44 plus $0.50 to join, or $113.94.

Join them with Timeline 1.0, which accepts up to 200 video slots and defaults to 1080x1920 output. The fit option controls how a clip fills the frame.

Before you spend

Run POST /v1/timeline-1.0/plan on your layout; it is unbilled. For avatar, generate the first-frame preview before the full job. Remember the price of a retry is the full job again.

These are list-to-billable amounts as documented on 2026-10-03. Confirm live prices in GET /v1/catalog.