Threads API: wait about 30 seconds before publishing a container

Threads recommends waiting on average 30 seconds after creating a media container before you call threads_publish, so its server can finish processing the upload. The page points to the media container status endpoint for details. Publishing is two steps: create the container, then publish it.

Facts about Threads are from its Posts documentation, read 2026-10-01; Sume facts are from the docs.sume.com pages listed under Sources.

What are the two steps?

What other limits does the page give?

Text posts are limited to 500 characters; emojis are counted as their number of UTF-8 bytes, so an emoji uses more than one of the 500. A carousel takes up to 20 images, videos or a mix, needs at least two children, and counts as a single post against the profile's rate limit. Video length limits are in Threads video upload limits.

How does this compare to a Sume job?

It has the same shape: submit, then poll, then use the result. For Sume, submit with an Idempotency-Key, poll the job, then read the result. Video generation returns a job ID and a polling URL immediately and you poll GET /v1/videos/{jobId} until completed. If a request is rate limited with a 429, wait the retry-after period. See Errors.

What URL do I give Threads?

Threads needs media hosted on your public server. Sume returns durable media.sume.com URLs, and expires_at is null for them, which is the normal case. Publish only after the Sume job is complete and the Threads container is ready.