Prices that depend on when you generate

Vidu publishes an off-peak rate at half the normal price on the same page as its standard figures. It is the only conditional price among the channels tracked here, and it means Vidu has two correct answers to what a second costs. As of 2026-09-12.

Fig. 1 Filled where the channel publishes something in that column, hollow where its pricing page is silent.

Channels whose published price varies with a condition the buyer controls. Recorded 2026-09-12.
Channel	Figure	What it covers
Vidu Q3, standard	$0.035 / $0.06 / $0.075	540p / 720p / 1080p
Vidu Q3, off-peak	Half the standard rate	Stated on the same page
Every other channel	One rate	No conditional pricing published

Inclusion rule. Conditions stated on the vendor's own pricing page. Promotional pricing announced elsewhere and time-limited offers are not recorded. Order. The channel with a conditional rate first.

1A conditional rate is a scheduling decision, not a discount

Half price for generating at a different hour is only available to work that can wait. For an overnight batch it is a straightforward saving; for anything with a person watching the progress bar it does not exist. The published figure is real and the conditions determine who it is real for.

This ledger records both figures rather than picking one. Picking the lower would flatter the channel; picking the higher would ignore a genuine route that a batch-oriented production can actually take.

2Conditional pricing breaks single-number comparisons

Any table that shows one price per channel has to choose, and whichever it chooses is wrong for some readers. The choice here is to show the standard figure in the main ledger and carry the condition in its own row, so the comparison stays honest and the saving stays visible.

It is worth watching whether other channels add similar mechanics. Compute is cheaper at some hours for every vendor; only one of them currently passes that through in a published way.

3What would have to be true for it to change a budget

A production would need work that is genuinely deferrable, a pipeline that can submit unattended, and enough volume for half of a few cents a second to matter. Those three conditions together describe batch generation of a long series, which is a real shape of work and not the common one.

For everyone else the standard rate is the rate. The row exists so that the reader can tell which of those two positions is theirs, rather than discovering the condition after budgeting.

Conditional discount
Off-peak generation is half the normal pricestated on the same pageVidu, API prices / recorded 2026-09-12
Q3 reference-to-video
$0.035, $0.06 and $0.075 per second at 540p, 720p and 1080pVidu, API prices / recorded 2026-09-12

4The production behind the price

Price aside, what goes into the seconds behind “Conditional prices” is described in SceneMixer's guides:

Typically 60–120 seconds, always 9:16 vertical, ending on a hook. SceneMixer's episode outlines are generated with that pacing, and setting a project to 9:16 makes every segment vertical (the default is 16:9).
SceneMixer, How to Make ReelShort-Style Dramas with AI — “How long is a ReelShort-style episode?” (read 2026-10-13)

Every character gets an AI-generated full-body reference sheet at analysis time. Face and body crops from that sheet are injected into every video segment that features the character, so the same face, hair, and signature look persist across all episodes.
SceneMixer, Turn a Novel into a Video Series with AI — “How does SceneMixer keep characters consistent across episodes?” (read 2026-10-13)

5Sources

Each figure is read from the vendor page linked in the ledger, checked 2026-09-12. How a figure qualifies is on method; what a rate leaves out is on limits and unspent credits and parallel generations. Nearby: Paying for pixels, A minute, costed, Who publishes.