One 30 s Seedance 2.5 job vs two 15 s Mini jobs: cost and trade-offs

At 720p, one 30 s Seedance 2.5 job costs $17.334; two 15 s Seedance 2 Mini jobs cost $5.67 for the same 30 seconds of footage. Mini's range ends at 15 s, so reaching 30 seconds on it means two jobs and an assembly step.

Same 30 seconds, two ways

What the saving does not include

Two jobs are two separate generations. A subject, light and motion that match across the cut are your job, not the API's; Sume's Seedance ids take no seed, so you cannot pin the second job to the first. You also need to join the clips, which Timeline 1.0 does at $0.10 per output minute (rounded up).

The ratio

At 720p the single 30 s job costs 3.06 times the Mini pair ($17.334 against $5.67) and 1.91 times the Fast pair ($17.334 against $9.072). At 1080p the Mini gap widens to 3.34 times ($42.6465 against $12.7575).

A rule of thumb

• One continuous move or a single scene: one 30 s job on seedance-2.5.
• Two beats that can cut: two 15 s jobs on any tier.
• Budget first: Mini pair, then re-render the keepers.