Castaly · Blog · Pricing & billing
Seedance 2.5 Pricing: What Does One 5-Second Clip Cost?
Seedance 2.5 bills by tokens, not seconds. The formula, what a 5-second clip costs at 480p, 720p and 1080p, and how holds, refunds and retries change the bill.
Most video models on Castaly show a price per second. Seedance 2.5 shows Billed by tokens instead, and that label is where budgets slip: the same five seconds can cost $0.67 or $3.54 depending on one dropdown.
This guide turns a Seedance 2.5 setting into a dollar figure before you press Generate. Every number comes from Castaly's public price list and the token rules Castaly bills by.
The short answer
A 5-second Seedance 2.5 clip at 16:9 costs:
| Resolution | Tokens | Price per 1M tokens | One clip |
|---|---|---|---|
| 480p | 50,638 | $13.2145 | $0.67 |
| 720p | 108,900 | $13.2145 | $1.44 |
| 1080p | 245,025 | $14.4495 | $3.54 |
Turning on generated audio does not change these figures. Castaly has no separate audio rate for Seedance 2.5, so a clip with sound is billed exactly like a silent one.
How Seedance 2.5 counts tokens
A token here is a slice of output video, not a word. The count depends on three settings — resolution, aspect ratio and duration — and nothing in your prompt:
frames = 24 × seconds + 1
tokens = floor(width × height × frames ÷ 1024)Width and height are not a free choice. Seedance renders each resolution and ratio on one fixed canvas:
| Ratio | 480p | 720p | 1080p |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16:9 | 864 × 496 | 1280 × 720 | 1920 × 1080 |
| 9:16 | 496 × 864 | 720 × 1280 | 1080 × 1920 |
| 1:1 | 640 × 640 | 960 × 960 | 1440 × 1440 |
| 4:3 | 752 × 560 | 1112 × 834 | 1664 × 1248 |
| 21:9 | 992 × 432 | 1470 × 630 | 2206 × 946 |
Worked example: a 5-second 720p clip at 16:9 has 121 frames, so it is 1280 × 720 × 121 ÷ 1024 = 108,900 tokens. At $13.2145 per million tokens, that is $1.44.
What moves the bill
Resolution does most of the work
1080p has 2.25 times the pixels of 720p and a slightly higher rate, so the same clip costs about 2.5 times as much. 480p has 46% of the pixels of 720p at the same rate, so a 480p draft costs a little under half.
Length scales the bill almost exactly. At 16:9:
| Length | 480p | 720p | 1080p |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 s | $0.67 | $1.44 | $3.54 |
| 10 s | $1.33 | $2.87 | $7.05 |
| 15 s | $2.00 | $4.29 | $10.56 |
| 30 s | $3.99 | $8.57 | $21.10 |
Aspect ratio barely matters
Every canvas at one resolution covers nearly the same area. A vertical 9:16 clip at 720p is 720 × 1280, exactly as many pixels as 16:9, and the widest ratio adds less than 1%. Choose the ratio for the platform you publish to, not to save money.
Reference videos change both the rate and the count
When a request includes a reference video — to edit, extend or borrow motion from it — Seedance 2.5 bills every token at a lower input-video rate: $7.904 per million tokens at 480p and 720p, $8.645 at 1080p. The reference video's own length is added to the count as well, at 24 frames per second on the output canvas.
A 5-second 720p output with a 5-second reference video is 216,900 tokens, about $1.71 — more than the same clip without a reference, even at the lower rate. Reference images, first and last frames, and audio references add no tokens.
Why the hold can exceed the clip
Castaly reserves an estimate from your balance when the task starts, then settles the final charge from the tokens reported for the finished clip. Any difference goes back to your wallet automatically.
Seedance 2.5 starts with Auto duration and the Follow reference ratio. Because Auto duration lets the model choose any length up to 30 seconds, the hold covers the longest clip on the largest canvas — about $8.63 at 720p — even when the result is six seconds long. If your balance is tight, pick a fixed duration and ratio and the hold drops to the price in the tables above.
Budget for a usable clip, not a generation
The number that matters is cost per clip you keep. If one in three 720p generations is usable, a usable 5-second clip costs 3 × $1.44 = $4.32.
A cheaper loop for a 1080p shot:
- Settle the prompt, ratio and length on 480p drafts at $0.67 each.
- Render the chosen setup once at 1080p for $3.54.
- Keep clips short while you iterate. Fifteen seconds costs three times as much as five.
Two drafts and one final come to $0.67 × 2 + $3.54 = $4.88, against $10.62 for three attempts at 1080p. The final render is a new generation, not an upscale of a draft, so use drafts to test the prompt, framing and timing.
FAQ
Does audio cost extra on Seedance 2.5?
No. Castaly has one token rate per resolution for Seedance 2.5, and turning on generated audio does not change it or the estimate.
Is 480p cheaper per token than 720p?
No. Both are $13.2145 per million tokens. A 480p clip is cheaper only because its canvas has fewer pixels.
Do failed generations cost anything?
No. A task that fails is refunded in full, and the refund appears on the run in Creations.
Can I use the same balance through the API?
Yes. Castaly runs on your Modelflare account, so your paid balance is shared and API calls to seedance-2.5 use the same public price. Castaly gift balance can only be spent inside Castaly.
Why does the Studio not show a dollar price for Seedance 2.5?
Because the cost depends on the canvas and the length together. The Studio labels the model Billed by tokens; use the tables in this article, or the formula, to estimate a clip before you generate it.