Approve before it renders: an AI video agent that shows every price

Hand an AI agent a video brief and the first question isn't how good it will be, but what it will spend. Make, the second mode of Ask in the eroq studio, answers it before anything runs. Clap, eroq's cheerful little clapperboard, writes the storyboard, lists every render with its exact price, and waits: nothing renders, and no render is paid for, until you click "Approve".

This guide is for creators and marketers who want to know what a production costs before it costs anything. For the whole flow, start with Make, your AI producer.

From one sentence to a priced plan

On the studio home, set the switch under the Ask bar ("Ask | Make") to Make and type:

A 15-second vertical ad for AMBRE, for TikTok.

AMBRE is a perfume saved as an element. Clap asks one question at a time (here, who holds the bottle), with your characters as picture chips, and you tap Mara. It writes a storyboard of three 5-second scenes and proposes its first plan, a look test:

Render	Model · format	Credits
Keyframe · Scene 1	Krea2 · 9:16	10
Keyframe · Scene 2	Krea2 · 9:16	10
Keyframe · Scene 3	Krea2 · 9:16	10
Total		30

The card is headed "Plan · 3 renders" and ends on one button, "Approve · 30 credits", beside a reminder: "Nothing renders before you approve". Tap a row to read its full prompt, with a link ("Open it in Image") to set that render up in its own tool instead. If a character or product has no look sheet yet, the card says so, with a "Make a sheet" link, before you pay for keyframes that would miss it.

Why the price on the card is the price you pay

The card is not an estimate. Clap chooses the renders, but the studio prices them with the same function its tools charge with, after setting each one the way the engine will render it: the length snapped to what the engine and your plan allow, the engine's own resolution and sound. What the card lists is what Approve buys.

Approved renders run through the same pipeline as the studio's tools, and the bill settles like this:

• A render that lands costs its row price, nothing more.
• A render that fails is refunded automatically: its row reads "The render failed (not charged)." and the card ends on "(failures are refunded)".
• A clip waiting on a keyframe that failed never runs: "Its keyframe did not render, so the clip did not run (not charged)."

The Production panel on the right keeps a running total of credits spent, counting only renders that landed.

Keyframes first: the cheap look test

A keyframe is one still per scene. On the default image model it costs 10 credits; a 5-second clip on the default video engine, Seedance 2.0 Mini, costs 45 credits. So the look test settles wardrobe, light and framing at still-image prices: if scene 2 comes back wrong, a new keyframe costs 10 credits, while finding out on a clip costs a clip.

When the keyframes land, a grey line says "3 renders landed" and Clap proposes the shoot: a second plan with one "Clip · Scene N" row per scene, each "Seedance 2.0 Mini · 5s · 9:16 · sound · from keyframe". "From keyframe" means the clip opens on its scene's keyframe, which becomes its first frame (on engines that take a start frame), so the look you approved is the look that moves. Keyframes first goes deeper.

The whole ad, step by step:

Step	What renders	Credits
Look test	3 keyframes	30
Shoot	3 clips of 5 s on Seedance 2.0 Mini	135
Sound	a voiceover under 100 characters	3
The whole ad		168

A voiceover costs 3 credits per 100 characters, rounded up. That's a take: a 15-second ad, shot and voiced, every price on screen before it was spent.

Guardrails on every plan

A few rules keep one click from turning into a spree:

• A cap per plan. One plan card holds at most 8 renders, and at most 6 of them clips; a longer film takes a few plans, each approved on its own.
• Only the newest plan runs. Ask for a change and Clap writes a fresh card; the old one fades and says "A newer plan replaced this one."
• No approving what you can't cover. Short of the total, the button turns into "Needs N credits" and a "Top up" link sits next to your balance. Plans and packs are on pricing.
• Clap plans to your balance. It sees your credits, proposes only engines your plan unlocks, and is built to offer a cheaper plan (shorter scenes, a cheaper engine, no keyframes) when one would cost more than you have.

The brain: Auto is included

Next to the switch, a picker titled "What Clap thinks with" sets the model Clap plans with. Auto, eroq's own pick for producing, is included: a Make conversation on Auto costs nothing until you approve a plan.

You can also pick a named model, billed per message, its price shown in the picker before you send: Claude Sonnet 5.5 at 11 credits per message, Claude Opus 5.5 at 22 credits, GPT-5.6 Sol at 11 credits, Gemini 3.1 Pro at 13 credits and Grok 4.7 at 9 credits. That's 6 brains in all, Auto included. Two rules keep it honest:

• A message a named model can't answer is free. Auto answers instead, and the reply says so: "Answered by Auto — the model you picked could not, so this message cost nothing."
• Renders cost the same whatever brain planned them. A named model changes how Clap thinks, not what a clip costs. Six messages on Grok 4.7 add 54 credits to a production; on Auto, nothing.

More in choosing the model that directs your video.

How to keep a production cheap

• Shorter scenes. A clip's price grows with its length: 45 credits for 5 seconds on the default engine, 90 credits for 10.
• Fewer scenes and takes. An ad often works in two scenes as well as four, and every scene or extra take is one more clip.
• A cheaper engine for drafts. Keep Seedance 2.0 Mini for the first pass and name a premium engine for the keepers: the same 5 seconds on Kling 3.0 is 170 credits. The engine guide compares them.
• Keyframes first. Lock the look at still prices before any clip runs.
• Redo one scene, not all. Say "Make scene 2 at night" and the fix comes back as a plan for that scene; Clap doesn't re-propose a shot that already landed unless you ask for another take.
• Assemble for free. "Open in Cinema" turns your clips into a Cinema film without rendering anything; trim, add sound and export an MP4 there. Only a scene you re-render in Cinema is billed.

An AI agent that asks before it spends your credits

Some AI agents work like a contractor holding your card: give them a goal and they pick engines, generate variations, retry failures and keep going, and the first report you read is the bill. Make works the other way round: you approve before anything generates. There is no autopilot and no scheduled job; Clap proposes, and the "Next steps" under its reply are suggestions you tap. In plain Ask mode, nothing renders at all.

Clap doesn't watch your clips to judge them either; it reads which renders landed or failed, so whether a take is good stays your call. A short line under the bar in Make mode says it plainly: Make spends credits on the renders you approve and can make mistakes, so check each plan first. With every row priced and every prompt a tap away, it takes seconds.

FAQ

How much does an AI video cost with Make?

The sum of its renders, added up on the plan card before anything runs. On the defaults, a keyframe costs 10 credits, a 5-second clip 45 credits and a voiceover 3 credits per 100 characters, so a 15-second ad with a look test and a short voiceover comes to 168 credits. Talking it through on Auto is free.

Can Make spend my credits without asking?

No. Nothing renders until you click "Approve" on a plan card, and one card holds at most 8 renders. Clap proposes the next step after each batch but never runs it on its own. The only other cost is a message on a named brain, priced before you send.

What happens to my credits when a render fails?

They come back automatically, and a clip waiting on a failed keyframe doesn't run at all. Clap then proposes a fix (a retry, another engine, a shorter clip) as a new plan to approve.

Does a named brain make the renders more expensive?

No. Renders cost the same whatever brain planned them. A named brain costs its own credits per message, shown before you send, and a message it can't answer is answered by Auto for free.

What if I don't have enough credits for a plan?

The button turns into "Needs N credits", a "Top up" link appears next to your balance, and nothing starts. Or ask Clap for a cheaper version: fewer or shorter scenes, a cheaper engine, or no keyframes.

Open the studio, switch to Make, and read your first plan card before you approve it.