Seedance 2.5: How to Try It Free, Pricing and API Costs

The easiest way to try Seedance 2.5 for free is Dreamina, CapCut's web app, which gives out free daily credits. To build it into a workflow, use the API on BytePlus, fal or Replicate. At 720p it costs about $0.23 a second on BytePlus and Replicate.

ByteDance released Seedance 2.5 on July 31, 2026. It does longer clips than 2.0, up to 30 seconds, and it can be extended.

Try it free in Dreamina

Dreamina runs on credits, and its pricing page says you get free credits every day. That's the no-cost way to test a prompt.

Two things to know first. Dreamina blocks real faces in uploaded images and video, so design your characters with an image model. And Dreamina adds an invisible watermark to what it makes.

Dreamina also runs big first-month deals. In late September 2026 one offer worked out to about $0.035 per second of 720p Seedance 2.5. Deals and prices change by country, so check the pricing page before you budget.

API prices per second

These are list prices per second of output, for a video with no video input:

Where	480p	720p	1080p
BytePlus ModelArk (official)	—	about $0.231	about $0.569
fal.ai	$0.2205	$0.473	$1.164
Replicate	$0.1028	$0.2312	not listed

The takeaway: a 10-second 9:16 clip at 720p is about $2.31 on BytePlus. fal costs about twice that at 720p, but it has US-hosted endpoints and a draft mode.

BytePlus prices Seedance by tokens, not seconds, so the per-second figures above are our math for a 9:16 clip. You're only billed for successful generations, and clips blocked by moderation are free.

Turning 2.5 on at BytePlus

BytePlus doesn't switch 2.5 on for every account. You need one of three things:

a balance over $30,
a $30 or bigger AI Savings Plan,
or a resource pack.

2.5 or the cheaper 2.0?

Seedance 2.0 is still on sale, and it's cheaper. On BytePlus it's about $0.151 a second at 720p, and 2.0 Mini is about $0.076.

Version	Longest clip	Best for
Seedance 2.5	30 seconds, extendable	Main scenes and long dialogue takes
Seedance 2.0	15 seconds	Multi-shot scenes at a lower price
Seedance 2.0 Mini	15 seconds	Cheap drafts and animatics

The takeaway: draft on 2.0 Mini, finish on 2.5. Just keep one version for a whole series, because 2.0 and 2.5 look visibly different.

Get more out of every clip

Write the shots in 2.5's format. Our Seedance prompt generator uses whole-second timestamps and the official dialogue braces.
Use draft mode. On fal, 2.5 can make a cheap 480p preview of a take before you finish it at 1080p.
Start from a working prompt. Our Seedance prompts are free to copy.

For versions, character references and 9:16 tips, read our Seedance guide. Comparing models on price? See is Kling AI free and how to use Veo 3 for free.