What is Sume? A video agent platform, its API, and billing

Sume is a video agent platform. People author and iterate on video with an agent in chat, save the result as a reusable recipe called a Format, and call that Format from their own backend over HTTP. Individual generation tools, such as image, video, avatar, text-to-speech, and timeline, also exist as HTTP APIs.

That definition is from Sume basics, read on 2026-09-27; the public site titles the product "Video Agent API built for automation." This page lists only what the docs and site say Sume offers. What is a video agent? explains the idea behind it.

What does Sume offer?

The product map in Sume basics lists these surfaces:

• Agents: the chat UI at www.sume.com/agents, where a person writes a brief, approves spend, inspects artifacts, and saves a recipe.
• Formats: saved recipes your backend calls by handle and slug. Each run boots a fresh sandbox, loads the recipe, runs the agent with generation tools, and returns artifacts plus optional structured JSON. Ready-made Formats by Sume answer at the sume handle.
• Agent Completions and Scheduled: the same agent on an ad-hoc task from your backend, or a saved task on a cadence.
• Models: single generation endpoints, such as POST /v1/videos (a catalog model or sume/auto), POST /v1/images, Sume Avatar 1.0, and the Music Router.
• A TypeScript SDK, @sume-com/sdk, and a dashboard for keys, jobs, usage, and billing.

What are Sume's domains and entry points?

The docs call the Format API the surface most partners should integrate; models are supporting building blocks for when you need one invocation and nothing else. A CLI and hosted MCP also exist and still work, but the docs say they are not the primary path today.

How do developers call Sume?

Create an API key in the dashboard and send it from a server-side environment as Authorization: Bearer or x-api-key. The key carries the workspace, so you do not send a workspace id in request bodies. A Format run is one POST /v1/formats/{handle}/{slug}/runs that answers with a receipt; you then take a signed webhook or poll. Sume API quickstart walks through a first call, and What is a Sume Format? covers the recipe.

How does Sume charge?

Plans are Free $0, Pro $40 / month, Startup $120 / month, Scale $400 / month, and Enterprise covers custom terms or invoice billing. Usage is billed at each model's published rate plus a 5.5% agent fee by default, and video generation, the Sume Agent, Formats, and the API all draw from one balance.

• API pricing is the public metered rate card and the source of truth for prices.
• You buy credits on the dashboard's Billing & subscription page; the public API reads GET /v1/balance and GET /v1/usage but has no top-up endpoint.
• Every Format run carries a generation spend cap, and each receipt reports the cap and what the run spent against it. How Sume pricing works and What is the Sume agent fee? go further.

Where do outputs and keys live?

API keys and spend resolve to a workspace, personal or team. A team-owned Format needs a key created in that team's workspace. Generated outputs that belong to Sume come back as media.sume.com URLs, which the docs call the public artifact contract; Do AI-generated video URLs expire? covers how long they last and who can open them.