AI video billing metered by pixel area, not duration: developer warns to reconcile invoices
DryProgress9179 · reddit · 2026-08-15
A developer on Reddit shares how their product lost money for three weeks because the video generation API billed by output pixel area, not per second as documented. The 1080p tier was negative margin. The author emphasizes that cost dashboards based on own estimates can only confirm estimates, and advises reconciling with provider invoices. Lists common billing pitfalls (cache tokens, reasoning tokens, audio per minute) and six practical checks. Notes that tools like LiteLLM and Langfuse may drift from actual invoices.
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