Runway Agent adds Seedance 2.5 Draft mode: 480p costs and the Sume way

On October 2 Runway added a Seedance 2.5 Draft mode to its Agent for all plans: a toggle that makes fast 480p drafts, which Agent can also suggest when you iterate. On Sume you get the same effect by pinning seedance-2.5 and sending resolution: "480p" on the first pass, then repeating the prompt at a higher resolution.

The Runway entry is on its product changelog and the rates come from its API pricing page, both read 2026-10-03. Sume's limits come from the video generation docs and Video Router docs.

What does Runway's Draft mode do?

The changelog entry describes fast 480p drafts that you can switch on or off, with Agent suggesting them when a faster, cheaper iteration makes sense. It is a feature of the Agent chat inside Runway, not a new API parameter, and the API changelog has no matching field. That matters if you script against the API: there is nothing to toggle, you simply ask for 480p.

Runway's API prices seedance2_5 by resolution, with a 80-credit minimum per generation at every tier.

What does a 480p draft save?

On the figures above, a 10-second draft at 480p is $2.00 against $6.80 at 1080p, so one 1080p render pays for 3.4 drafts. The 80-credit minimum is $0.80, which is also the price of any clip of 4 seconds or less at 480p: four seconds times 20 credits is exactly 80.

Reference media adds cost on Runway: 10 credits per second at 480p, 15 at 720p and 34 at 1080p for input and reference video. Keep references out of drafts if the draft is only checking composition and timing.

How do you draft on Sume?

seedance-2.5 accepts 4 to 30 seconds at 480p, 720p and 1080p on Sume, so the first call can ask for the lowest tier. Send the same request twice with only resolution changed. Sume reserves the provider list price times 1.25 on submit and reports the billable amount in usage.cost when the job completes, so read that field after the draft instead of estimating.

curl -X POST https://api.sume.com/v1/videos \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SUME_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: draft-001" \
  -d '{"model":"seedance-2.5","prompt":"A vertical product clip on a desk, natural light","resolution":"480p","aspect_ratio":"9:16","duration":6}'

What is different about the two drafts?

Runway's Agent decides when to suggest a draft; on Sume you decide, and nothing suggests it. Sume's docs also state that no v1 model accepts seed, so a 1080p rerun of the same prompt is a new sample, not a sharpened copy of the draft. Pick the draft that matches your intent on motion and framing, then expect the final to differ in detail.

The sibling posts on the 480p-then-1080p workflow and what changes without a seed go deeper on that second point.

What should a draft pass actually check?

Use the draft to settle three things: whether the subject does what the prompt asked, whether the camera move reads correctly, and whether the pacing fits the length. Leave fine detail, faces and legible text for the final, since a 480p frame cannot show them reliably.

A good routine is three drafts per idea at 4 to 6 seconds, one final per winner. On Runway's rates, three 5-second drafts at 480p are 300 credits, or $3.00, and a single 5-second 1080p final is 340 credits, or $3.40. The whole exploration costs about two finals.