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How to Make AI Video Ads for 60¢ a Clip With Seedance 2.5.
I turn a few product photos into video ads with Claude Code and Seedance 2.5 for about 60 cents a clip. The setup, the prompts and what went wrong.
I turn a few product photos into video ads with Claude Code and Seedance 2.5 for about 60 cents a clip. The setup, the prompts and what went wrong.
I give Claude Code a few product photos and a short brief, it plans the ads, and Seedance 2.5 turns them into video for about 60 cents a clip. Every ad in my video below came out of that setup, for a standing desk and a book I made for the test.
Seedance 2.5 is ByteDance's AI video model, and BytePlus sells direct access to its official API. BytePlus sponsored the video this guide is based on. Every cost figure below comes from my own usage dashboard.
In this guide you'll learn how to:
Seedance 2.5 is a video model that turns text, images and video into clips up to 30 seconds long, with sound. The Seedance 2.5 API docs list every task type, including text-to-video and editing a clip you already have.
Claude Code can't make video by itself. It can read your product brief and plan the shots, but it needs the Seedance API to make the clips.
BytePlus gives you the official Seedance 2.5 API directly, with documentation and a support team, and no third party in the middle. Through it, Claude can send a whole batch of video jobs on its own and download each clip when it's ready.
The usage page also shows the exact tokens every clip used. That's how I worked out the cost per ad below.
A 10-second Seedance 2.5 ad at 480p cost me about 60 cents. The Light resource plan is $32 for 5 million tokens, valid for 3 months, and each of my 10-second drafts used 96,475 tokens. For a 10-second product ad, that's a good price.
That's about 50 drafts per plan. The plan is prepaid with no monthly subscription, and when the tokens run out you move to pay-as-you-go.
Full quality costs more. A 12-second clip at 1080p used 1.2 million tokens, about $7.70, so I only render 1080p once the draft is right.
You need one API key, one skill and a folder with your product photos. These are the steps I followed in the video, with the prompts I used.
Go to the Seedance 2.5 page on BytePlus and buy the Light plan. Individual creators can buy it directly, so you don't need an enterprise account.
The model only runs if your BytePlus balance is above $30 or you hold a Seedance 2.5 resource plan. So do this step first.
In the BytePlus console, open ModelArk, create an API key and copy it. Then go to model activation and activate Seedance 2.5. I activated all the models while I was there.
Keep the key out of the chat window. Ask Claude where it goes, then paste it into that file yourself:
Where is my .env file? I want to add an API key for Seedance 2.5.Copy the whole Seedance 2.5 API docs page and paste it into Claude Code with this prompt:
This is the documentation for Seedance 2.5. Use it so you know how to send requests, how to prompt it and anything else that's relevant.A skill is a set of instructions Claude Code loads when a job needs them. I explain how they work in Claude Code skills explained. My Seedance skill is free on GitHub, and it installs with one prompt:
Install this skill for me: https://github.com/tomaibuilder/seedance-clip-skillThe skill shows you the full request before anything is sent and waits for your yes. Every clip starts as a 480p draft, and 1080p needs a second approval, so Claude can't burn through your tokens without asking.
Want to build your own instead? Ask Claude Code for a helper skill that sends Seedance requests and downloads the finished video. Tell it to get your permission before every request.
Put everything about the product in one folder: a few photos, a short description, who buys it, your brand rules and the claims you're allowed to make. For the test I set up two products, a standing desk and a book called Claude Code Starter Kit.
Then ask Claude to check it all:
I've got a standing desk I want to make Seedance clips for. Check the product brief and the photos in this folder, then tell me what the product is, who it's for and why someone would buy it.Next I paste in my clip request prompt. It covers the subject, the goal, the style and setting, the sound, the rules for the clip and what I want back. A short version you can paste:
Using the product brief, give me 8 ad ideas for 10-second clips. For each one, give me the idea in one sentence, the style and setting, and the sound. Then wait for me to pick.Claude came back with eight ad directions for the desk. I picked one, three and four, and it wrote the Seedance prompts for those.
Do this before you generate anything, because the API isn't cheap. Every clip you send should already have a clear idea behind it.
Approve the request and Claude sends each ad to Seedance 2.5 as its own task. Each one comes back with a task ID and a status, so Claude knows which clips are done and downloads them as they finish.
Seedance didn't make this last part. Claude used its own tools for the on-screen text, plus a voice API I connected, and turned my two favourite drafts into finished ads.
The desk ad's voiceover says: "The steel frame holds 80 kg. Two buttons take it from 72 to 120 cm. Sit or stand at the same desk." The voice and the copy both need work, but it's a usable first draft.
For a better design, show Claude an ad you like or give it your brand guidelines.
Round one gave me three desk ads and three book ads. The first book ad was spot-on. The desk ads had problems: one rose a little fast for a standing desk, and in another a hand pressed the down button and the desk went up.
For round two I added ad recipes to the skill, collected from skills other people have built for the Seedance 2.5 API. A recipe is the list of ingredients for one type of ad, like a UGC clip or a before-and-after. Then I ran both products again.
The desk ads got much better. The before-and-after surprised me in a good way, and this time the hand in the UGC clip pressed the up button. The book went backwards: one clip misspelled "Claude" and another cut off the bottom of the cover.
All six round-two ads used about half a million tokens. That's roughly $3 for the batch.
Printed words are the weak spot. Seedance misspelled the title on my book, so add titles and prices after the clip is made, or check every letter before you use it.
It also gets actions wrong sometimes, like the desk going up when the hand pressed down. You only catch that by watching every draft, which is one more reason to review at 480p.
Don't expect a finished ad on the first try. As I said in the video: "If you're expecting to one-shot everything with these kinds of tools, then you're thinking about it from the wrong perspective."
Most clips need a round of fixes. So generate at 480p, adjust the prompt and only pay for 1080p once you're happy.
Yes, if you need lots of ad variations to test and don't want to plan every shot yourself. Claude writes the ideas and the prompts, and each 10-second draft from Seedance costs about 60 cents.
It's not a fit if you need perfect on-screen text or a polished voiceover straight away. You'll still fix those by hand.
You pay for Seedance 2.5 by the token. On BytePlus the cheapest option is the Light plan at $32 for 5 million tokens, which covers about 50 10-second clips at 480p.
A 10-second clip at 480p cost me about 60 cents, based on 96,475 tokens on the $32 Light plan. A 12-second clip at 1080p used 1.2 million tokens, about $7.70.
No. Claude Code writes and sends the requests for you. Your job is to add the API key and approve the ads Claude plans.
It can, but it often misspells words. In my test it got the book title wrong, so I add titles and prices after the clip is made.
Not from an ordinary photo. The API rejects real faces in uploaded references unless the person is set up as an approved asset on BytePlus. The simple route is to film yourself separately and use Seedance for the product shots.
A 480p draft costs about a tenth of a 1080p final. Most clips need at least one fix, so you find the problems cheaply and pay for full quality once.
One product brief can turn into a full batch of video ads to test. Get the Seedance 2.5 resource plan on BytePlus, install the free skill and run your first 480p draft. To learn the Claude Code side properly, start with the free Claude Code Blueprint.
Five interactive lessons. Install Claude Code, build your first automation, and deploy it live on the internet — all in under an hour. Free, no coding required.
Grab the Blueprint →