Quick answer: the per-second tier rate, 10 to 100 credits for ten seconds, is only the first term. The bill also depends on reference images past the fifth (three credits each on 2K), on video input seconds on the video-to-video path, on the 2K lane’s four-second minimum, and on the fact that you are billed for requested seconds while the delivered file runs longer.
The rate card for H3 is simple to read and easy to mis-budget against, because per-second pricing is only the first term. Here are the six numbers that actually decide what a job costs, in the order they usually surprise people.
1. The tier rate, and its spread
| Tier | Credits / s | 10 s take |
|---|---|---|
| 480P | 1 | 10 |
| 768P | 2 | 20 |
| 960P | 3 | 30 |
| 1080P | 3 | 30 |
| 1440P | 4 | 40 |
| 2K | 10 | 100 |
At the published $0.01 per credit, that is $0.10 to $1.00 for ten seconds. The spread is 10× across tiers that all look like "a video".
2. Reference images are free until they are not
On the standard, multimode and commerce image-to-video lanes below 2K, reference images have no separate charge within the nine-image limit. The 768P video-to-video and 2K reference lanes include five images, then charge three credits for each additional image.
This is the single easiest line item to blow up. A nine-reference job at 2K is not "a 2K job" — it is a 2K job plus four charged images. Budget the references separately, or cap them at five and use the other four to prove the concept at 768P first.
3. Video input is billed as well as output
On the video-to-video path you pay for input seconds and output seconds. A 6-second reference feeding a 5-second result is eleven seconds of charge, not five. At 768P video-to-video that is 66 credits rather than 30.
Two consequences: trimming a reference clip before submitting is a real cost reduction, and "extend this clip" is priced by the length of what you hand in.
4. Duration minimums
The 2K lane starts at 4 seconds. You cannot ask for a two-second test and pay a fifth of the price; the minimum is the minimum. The 768P video-to-video lane also starts at four seconds; the other text-to-video and image-to-video lanes start at one.
5. What you are billed on is not what you receive
Billing is on the whole seconds you requested. What you receive is quantised to 24 fps frames, so a five-second request comes back at roughly 5.17 seconds and a six-second request at about 6.58.
That mismatch runs the other way from what people expect — the file is longer than the bill, not shorter. It matters for editing and for storage, not for cost. Do not re-price a job from the file's duration.
6. What you start with
A new account gets 18 credits in its first week and 15 each week after. That is one 480P five-second shot (5 credits) with room to spare, or a 768P five-second shot at 10 credits, or nothing at all at 2K, where the four-second minimum costs 40.
Which is the honest version of "free tier": it is enough to learn the model's behaviour at the two cheap tiers, and it is deliberately not enough to experiment at 2K.
Worked examples
| Job | Credits |
|---|---|
| 480P, 5 s, 3 references | 5 |
| 768P, 10 s, 9 references | 20 (references free on this lane) |
| 1080P, 10 s | 30 |
| 1440P, 10 s, multimode preset | 40 |
| 2K, 10 s, 9 references | 100 + 12 for the four charged images |
| 768P video-to-video, 6 s in / 5 s out | 66 |
The budgeting rule that survives contact
Estimate at 768P with five references, because that combination is the cheapest way to find out whether a shot works, and it is free of reference charges. Re-render only the selects at the tier the deliverable needs. The difference between iterating at 768P and iterating at 2K is 5×, and iteration is where most of a project's credits go.
FAQ
How much do ten seconds cost? Ten credits at 480P up to 100 at 2K, which is $0.10 to $1.00 at the published $0.01 per credit.
Are reference images free? All nine are free on the image-to-video lanes below 2K. The 768P video-to-video and 2K reference lanes include five, then charge three credits per additional image.
Why is a short 2K test so expensive? The lane starts at four seconds, so the floor is 40 credits regardless of how short you wanted it.
Where this runs
Every rate above, including the per-image charge and the ten-second cost for each tier, is on the rate card at https://callirra.com/minimax-h3; the same rates apply to the API, which charges against the same credit pool as the browser generator.
I work on Callirra, so these are the billed rates rather than estimates. If you find a job whose settled charge does not match this arithmetic, the settlement record is the authority and I would want to see it.