How a rate basis changes the order of work
Two pages can offer the same length range and reward completely different working habits. A per-second basis makes every extra second of every attempt a cost. A flat rate per request makes a five second test as expensive as a fifteen second one. As of 2026-09-12.
| Basis | Cheapest way to explore | What is wasteful |
|---|---|---|
| Per second of output | At the shortest usable length | Iterating at full length |
| Per request, flat | At full length | Generating short tests |
| Per priced step | At the step below the target | Landing between two steps |
| Not published | Unknown | Assuming either pattern |
Inclusion rule. Rate bases a specification or priced page can state. No rates are quoted and no currencies are compared. Order. Most common published basis first.
1Per-second billing makes the duration field an invoice line
Fifteen seconds costs three times five. The difference between a draft and a final is measured in the same unit as the difference between two cuts, so the cheap order is to settle framing, lighting and cast at the bottom of the range and raise the length once.
Discovering at the top of the range that the framing was wrong is the expensive mistake, and it is the one a habit carried over from a flat-rated tool produces.
2A priced step punishes landing in between
Where length is sold as steps, a value between two steps is bought at the higher one and trimmed. The waste per attempt is small and the attempts are many, and it never appears as a line item.
The practical response is to write beats onto the steps rather than to the second. That is a constraint reaching the script from a rate card, which is the kind of thing worth knowing before the script is written.
3An unpublished basis is a planning gap
Where a page prices quality and says nothing about length, the figures cannot be turned into a cost per second, and a campaign is budgeted in seconds. A rate per request with no length beside it does not convert.
So the gap is not only about scheduling. It blocks the estimate as well, and no amount of detail in the resolution column makes up for it.
A craft note, not a spec. Nothing here is taken from a platform or a vendor, and nothing here should be quoted as a requirement. The sourced material is on published limits. Related: Where cuts get placed, Why dates matter.
4A generator's ad pipeline
For ad work around “Billing and iteration”, SceneMixer's pages explain how its ad projects are produced:
The shot seconds in the storyboard add up to the segment length, so editing them changes it.
SceneMixer, Fixing One Shot Without Redoing Everything — “Can I change the duration of a segment?” (read 2026-10-13)
Sixty to a hundred and twenty seconds is the working range for short drama, and that is what the outline paces for. A 90-second episode is typically seven segments of about fourteen seconds stacked together.
SceneMixer, Vertical AI Video Generator — “How long should a vertical episode be?” (read 2026-10-13)