Seedance video generation, billed per second

In shortFour Seedance models — 2.0 Fast, 2.0 Mini, 2.0 and 2.5 — over one HTTP API that takes the BytePlus ModelArk request body as-is. You pay per second of generated video, only for generations that succeed. Sold by Dawnwood Inc., a US company, with Stripe invoices.

Prices

USD per second of output video, by resolution. Billed on the duration you request. 1080p and video-reference inputs are not offered yet.

fal prices are its public 720p rates as of 2026-10-13. Credits: 1 credit = $0.10, so a 5-second 720p Seedance 2.0 Fast clip is 7.5 credits. Full comparison across providers: Seedance API pricing compared.

Quickstart

Mint a key in the console under Developers (it is a Dawnwood personal access token, dw_pat_v1_…, with the model_api scope). Create a task, then poll it.

# 1. create a task
curl -s https://models.dawnwood.ai/v1/video/generations \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DAWNWOOD_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Idempotency-Key: shot-0001" \
  -d '{
    "model": "seedance-2.0-fast",
    "content": [
      {"type": "text", "text": "A woman in a red coat turns at the top of a rain-soaked stairwell, slow push-in"},
      {"type": "image_url", "image_url": {"url": "https://example.com/lead.png"}, "role": "reference_image"}
    ],
    "resolution": "720p", "ratio": "9:16", "duration": 5, "generate_audio": true
  }'
# -> {"id": "cgt-dw-..."}

# 2. poll until status is succeeded / failed / cancelled
curl -s https://models.dawnwood.ai/v1/video/generations/cgt-dw-... \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $DAWNWOOD_API_KEY"

Python

import os, time, requests

BASE = "https://models.dawnwood.ai/v1"
H = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['DAWNWOOD_API_KEY']}"}  # dw_pat_v1_...

task = requests.post(f"{BASE}/video/generations", headers=H, json={
    "model": "seedance-2.0-fast",
    "content": [{"type": "text", "text": "Two strangers share an umbrella at a night bus stop, handheld"}],
    "resolution": "720p", "ratio": "9:16", "duration": 5, "generate_audio": True,
}).json()

while True:
    t = requests.get(f"{BASE}/video/generations/{task['id']}", headers=H).json()
    if t["status"] in ("succeeded", "failed", "cancelled"):
        break
    time.sleep(10)

print(t["content"]["video_url"] if t["status"] == "succeeded" else t["error"])
print(t["billing"])  # credits, usd, refunded

Coming from ModelArk or fal

ModelArk: change the base URL and the key. POST /v1/contents/generations/tasks and GET /v1/contents/generations/tasks/{id} are aliases of the endpoints above, the body is the same model / content[] / resolution / ratio / duration / generate_audio, and the official dreamina-seedance-… model ids are accepted.

# before: BytePlus ModelArk
BASE = "https://ark.ap-southeast.bytepluses.com/api/v3"
KEY  = os.environ["ARK_API_KEY"]

# after: Dawnwood Models (same path, same body, same task object)
BASE = "https://models.dawnwood.ai/v1"
KEY  = os.environ["DAWNWOOD_API_KEY"]   # dw_pat_v1_..., model_api scope

requests.post(f"{BASE}/contents/generations/tasks", headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {KEY}"}, json=body)

fal: the prompt becomes a text item in content[], each image URL becomes an image_url item with a role, and aspect_ratio becomes ratio. Side-by-side code: Migrating Seedance from fal or ModelArk.

Concurrency and rate limits

• Each API key has a limit on tasks running at the same time; your current limit is shown in the console's Developers section.
• Past the limit, task creation returns 429 with a Retry-After header. Wait that many seconds and resubmit.
• Send an Idempotency-Key header: a retried request with the same key returns the same task and is never charged twice.
• Poll GET /v1/video/generations/{id} every 10 seconds or so; finished video URLs stay valid for 24 hours.

Billing

• Only successful generations are charged. Credits are reserved when the task is created; if it fails or is rejected upstream, they are returned in full and the task shows "refunded": true.
• Price = requested seconds × the per-second rate for the model and resolution. No rounding up to whole credits.
• The API spends purchased credits only. Signup and gift credits and subscription-included credits belong to the production pipeline and cannot be spent on the API; without enough purchased credits a request returns 402 paid_credits_required.
• Credits are bought in the console through Stripe, with receipts and invoices from Dawnwood Inc.

Content policy

Dawnwood Inc. is a US company and the API is sold under our Terms. They forbid generating a real person's likeness without authorization and sexual content. The upstream model runs its own moderation: when it rejects a request we return that rejection as-is and refund the credits. We do not offer a way around it.

Models

Questions