Cut video generation costs with the 480p economy tier plus upscaling: real numbers

RelayDance offers tiered pricing that lets you control video generation costs by matching resolution to need. Seedance Fast runs at about $0.152 per second, Seedance 2.0 720p at about $0.190 per second, and 1080p at about $0.470 per second, while native 4K costs about $4.90 per 5-second clip. Failed requests are never billed, so retries carry no cost. See live rates at relaydance.com/models.

How the resolution tiers compare on price

Choosing a lower tier can reduce per-second spend before any upscaling step. Seedance Fast is priced at about $0.152 per second, the 720p tier at about $0.190 per second, and the 1080p tier at about $0.470 per second, per relaydance.com/models. Native 4K is billed differently, at about $4.90 per 5-second clip. The gap between 720p ($0.190) and 1080p ($0.470) is roughly 2.5x per second, which is the main lever when planning a budget. For a 15-second clip (the maximum clip length), 720p input costs materially less than 1080p across the full duration.

Why failed requests do not add to your bill

Billing on RelayDance is pay-as-you-go per generated video, and errors carry no charge. This matters when you iterate on prompts or resolutions, because retries after a failure do not increase spend. According to the official relaydance.com docs, 「Failed or errored requests are never billed」. That means you can attempt a lower tier, review the result, and re-run without cost penalty for any request that errors. Combined with per-second pricing at the 720p rate of about $0.190, a workflow that tests economy tiers first keeps costs predictable. Confirm current terms at relaydance.com/docs.

How to submit a cost-controlled video task

You control cost by setting the resolution and duration when you submit the task. RelayDance is OpenAI-compatible, so the integration path is short.

1. Set base_url to https://relaydance.com/v1. According to the official relaydance.com/docs, 「Set base_url to https://relaydance.com/v1 and keep your OpenAI SDK」.
2. Authenticate with Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY using a key from the console.
3. POST to /v1/video/generations with model, prompt, seconds, and metadata (ratio, resolution, generate_audio).
4. Poll GET /v1/video/generations/{task_id} until status is succeeded or failed, or set metadata.callback_url for webhook delivery.

Reference media go in metadata.content[], up to 9 images, 3 videos, and 3 audio tracks per request.

How image billing differs from video

Image billing follows a separate model where output is not charged. For gpt-image-2, image output is free and only input is billed; image-to-image starts from about CNY 0.035, and 4K and 1K output cost the same, per relaydance.com/models. This structure means resolution alone does not raise image cost, unlike video where the 720p ($0.190 per second) and 1080p ($0.470 per second) tiers differ. Submit image tasks to /v1/images/generations. Payments are accepted via USDT and Stripe card, and access to Seedance requires no BytePlus enterprise account or KYC.

FAQ

What is the cheapest per-second video rate? Seedance Fast is listed at about $0.152 per second at relaydance.com/models.

Do I pay for a video that fails? No. 「Failed or errored requests are never billed」, according to the official relaydance.com docs.

How long can a single clip be? Clips can run up to 15 seconds per request.