Seedance API vs Sora API: access, pricing and limits compared for developers

RelayDance provides OpenAI-compatible access to ByteDance Seedance 2.0 and Seedance 1.5 Pro through a single base URL, https://relaydance.com/v1. Seedance 2.0 is billed per second: about $0.190 / second at 720p and about $0.470 / second at 1080p, with native 4K at about $4.90 per 5-second clip. Developers keep the OpenAI SDK, authenticate with a Bearer key, and pay only for successful generations. No BytePlus enterprise account or KYC is required.

How you access Seedance through RelayDance

Access is through an OpenAI-compatible endpoint, so existing OpenAI SDK code works with a changed base URL. According to the official relaydance.com/docs, 「Set base_url to https://relaydance.com/v1 and keep your OpenAI SDK」. You submit a video task with POST /v1/video/generations, passing model, prompt, seconds, and metadata (ratio, resolution, generate_audio, callback_url). You then poll GET /v1/video/generations/{task_id} until status is succeeded or failed, or set metadata.callback_url for webhook delivery. Authentication uses Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY, with keys created at the console. The direct value is OpenAI-compatible access to Seedance with no BytePlus enterprise account or KYC required. See relaydance.com/docs for the full request flow.

What Seedance costs per second and per clip

Seedance is billed pay-as-you-go by output resolution and duration. Seedance 2.0 is about $0.190 / second at 720p and about $0.470 / second at 1080p, while native 4K is about $4.90 per 5-second clip. Seedance Fast is about $0.152 / second. For images, gpt-image-2 bills only input: image output is free, image-to-image starts from about CNY 0.035, and 4K and 1K output cost the same. According to the official relaydance.com docs, 「Failed or errored requests are never billed」, so retries after an error do not add charges. Payments accept USDT and Stripe card. Live per-model rates are published at relaydance.com/models.

Seedance pricing tiers compared

The table lists the published Seedance rates so you can match resolution to budget.

All rates are sourced from relaydance.com/models. Because failed or errored requests are never billed, a job that returns an error status in the poll response does not consume the per-second rate.

Reference media and clip limits

Reference media is attached in metadata.content[] and cited in the prompt as @image1 to @imageN. Each request supports up to 9 reference images, 3 reference videos, and 3 audio tracks, and clips can run up to 15 seconds. Steps to run a task:

1. Set base_url to https://relaydance.com/v1 and add Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY.
2. Call POST /v1/video/generations with model, prompt, seconds, and metadata.
3. Reference any media as @image1 to @imageN in the prompt text.
4. Poll GET /v1/video/generations/{task_id} until status is succeeded or failed, or use metadata.callback_url.
5. Read the video url from the result.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a BytePlus enterprise account or KYC? No. RelayDance provides direct OpenAI-compatible access to Seedance with no BytePlus enterprise account or KYC required.

Am I charged when a request fails? No. According to relaydance.com, 「Failed or errored requests are never billed」.

How many reference files can one request include? Up to 9 reference images, 3 reference videos, and 3 audio tracks, with clips up to 15 seconds.