CREATOR ECONOMICS

What will it cost to finish a usable video?

Price the takes you reject, the footage you keep, and the cash you need today. This calculator makes no AI calls, needs no account, and stores nothing.

Evidence status: The owner adopted all three pilot-2 cuts as usable experiment evidence, including Seedance’s honest 28-second incomplete result. None is approved as finished commercial quality. Calculator ranges remain editable planning scenarios, not universal success rates.

01 / PLAN

Describe the edit

All inputs are your planning assumptions. Use an observed pilot ratio below only as a small-sample starting point.

Finished runtime sec Finished shots Retained seconds / shot Billable seconds / take

Resolution Audio Attempts / usable shot

Attempts include the keeper. A 3 means two rejected takes, on average, for every shot used.

Model and purchase assumptions

Run through Model Purchase route Existing valid credit balance USD Plan price USD Credits included USD value Minimum top-up USD Purchase fee + tax assumption %

Runpod uses prepaid USD credits. Its documentation says you can start with $10; prepaid cards require at least $100. Exact checkout minimum and taxes may differ. The 0% fee is an editable assumption, not a verified tax exemption. Bundle fields are hypothetical and do not describe a Runpod subscription.

Human production cost

Review minutes / attempt Editing hours Hourly cost USD Other finishing costs USD

02 / ESTIMATE

$0.00 to finish

How this estimate works

Use this to plan, not to quote. Provider availability, exact supported settings, taxes, refunds, and provider pricing can change. Verify the live endpoint before funding a run.

03 / EVIDENCE LAYER

Pilot 2: the same six-shot brief through three API routes

Runpod Public Endpoints was chosen for the pilot because one account exposes the three selected video routes on usage billing, without individual model subscriptions. These are API-route results, not claims about each vendor’s full subscription app.

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Owner-validation status is loading. Human production time is unknown. Seedance’s ratio is six attempts divided by five five-second keepers; its sixth beat remained only three seconds, so it did not complete the strict 30-second brief.

Prior exploratory pilot — incomplete 30-second ad

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SOURCES

Pricing records used in this calculator

Runpod billing — prepaid credits, $10 starting amount, prepaid-card minimum, non-refundable deposits; verified 6 Sep 2026. Checkout-specific taxes and fees are unknown.
Runpod Public Endpoints overview — pre-deployed video APIs, usage billing, asynchronous jobs, and no charge for failed generations; checked 6 Sep 2026.
WAN 2.6 I2V — $0.10/s at 720p and $0.15/s at 1080p; 5/10/15-second settings. Kling v2.1 I2V Pro — $0.45/5s and $0.90/10s; no documented resolution or audio selector. Seedance 1.5 Pro I2V — $0.024/s at 480p and $0.052/s at 720p, 4–12 seconds, optional generated audio. Checked 6 Sep 2026.
P-Image Edit — $0.01/image for the six shot-specific reference frames used in pilot 2; checked 6 Sep 2026.
OpenRouter video models, Vercel AI Gateway video, and fal video API were checked for one-account coverage. They remain candidates for later route comparisons.