# A TikTok and Reels shorts pipeline with AI video, end to end > Build vertical shorts on eroq with Ads templates, five to ten second clips, batched takes, a publishing cadence and the credit math for one short. Published 2026-09-03 · eroq.ai — canonical: https://eroq.ai/blog/tiktok-reels-ai-shorts-pipeline A short is not a small film. It is a unit of production — one idea, three shots, published on a schedule, judged in the first second. That changes every decision downstream, starting with how much you are willing to spend per unit before an algorithm has an opinion about it. This is the pipeline we run for vertical shorts on TikTok and Reels, step by step, with the credit arithmetic at the end computed from the [pricing page](/pricing) rather than from vibes. The condensed version lives on the [social shorts use case](/use-cases/social-shorts). ## Decide the unit before you open the studio The shape decides the budget, so settle it once and stop revisiting it: - Vertical 9:16, set in the video tool's Settings and left alone. - Three clips of 5 seconds each, cut hard, plus one still for the cover. - A hook in the first shot — motion toward the camera, or a face entering frame. - Headroom top and bottom for captions and the platform's own interface chrome. Clip length is capped by your plan — 10 seconds free, 15 on Hobby, 20 on Creator, 30 on Studio and above — and by the engine. The cap matters less than it looks. Shorts live on cuts, and three 5-second clips beat one 15-second clip almost every time. ## Pick one engine and stop renegotiating Every engine is priced per clip, so your default engine is your cost per short: - **[Motion One](/models/eroq-motion-one)** — 100 credits for 5 seconds, 180 for 10, on every account including free, 480p/720p. It is also the uncensored engine, which is the one to use for mature-brand accounts. Adults only, fiction only. - **[Seedance 1.0 Lite](/models/seedance-1-lite)** — 40 credits for 3 seconds, 60 for 5, 90 for 8, 110 for 10, Hobby and up. The cheapest way to hold a daily cadence. - **Hailuo 02** — 100 for 5 seconds, 180 for 10, 720p, Hobby and up. Cinematic physics, dramatic light. - **Kling 2.5 Turbo** — 120 for 5 seconds, 220 for 10, 1080p, Creator and up. Fluid motion and faces. - **Veo 3 Fast** — 256 credits for a fixed 8-second clip, Creator and up, and the only engine that renders its own sound. Seedance, Kling, Hailuo and Veo are moderated upstream and are SFW only. Motion One is the one that is not. ## Ads mode when there is a product in the shot [Ads mode](/tools/ai-ad-generator) is the same render pipeline with the brief pre-written. Pick a template — "UGC testimonial" is the workhorse — and the prompt arrives shaped like an ad instead of like a poem. Your product goes in as an **Element**: a reusable object with a description and photos, @mentionable in any prompt, up to 50 per account. Build it once and every ad you shoot this quarter has the right bottle in it. The placement decides the aspect ratio, not the template: vertical for TikTok and Reels, square for feed, wide for YouTube and web. That setting lives with the rest of them. ## Write the shot as one paragraph Prompts work best as one flowing paragraph naming subject, motion, camera, light and mood — 30 to 80 words, no bullet lists, no stage directions in brackets. Here is a complete one we would ship: > A barista slides a takeaway cup across a zinc counter into frame, steam curling off the lid, handheld camera at chest height following the cup until a hand catches it, morning window light from the left bouncing warm off the wood, shallow focus on the hands, calm tempo, vertical frame with headroom at the top for captions. Two shortcuts worth learning. The camera can be named rather than described — there are 17 [camera moves](/glossary/camera-move) including push-in, tracking, handheld, whip pan, POV, FPV drone and Snorricam, and written directions in the prompt such as "wide shot" or "dolly" are detected as well. And the director's rack (film type, era, tempo, camera gear, lens, aperture, palette, lighting) folds into the prompt server-side, so choosing Tempo "Dynamic" and Palette "Candy pop" once beats rewriting the same adjectives on every take. When a draft comes out flat, hit Enhance; the rewrite costs nothing. ## Batch the takes, judge them later The habit that separates a channel that ships from a channel that fiddles is batching. Every render can shoot 1 to 4 [takes](/glossary/take), the cost multiplies on the Generate button up front, and a take that fails refunds itself — per take, not per batch. Batching is also how the cadence survives a bad week. Sit down once, write six shot paragraphs, run them at two takes each, then spend the rest of the session cutting. Every render lands in your library automatically with its full recipe, so next week's variation is a Remix, not a rewrite. ## The credit math for one short One short, three 5-second clips, one cover still, one short voice-over. On Motion One: - Clips — 3 × 100 = **300** - Cover still with Image One — 1 × 10 = **10** - Voice-over of 300 characters on Voice Turbo, 2 credits per 100 characters — 3 × 2 = **6** Total **316 credits**, roughly $3.16 at the entry pack rate where $10 buys 1,000 credits. A second take on the hook shot makes it 416. Swap the clips to Seedance 1.0 Lite and the same short is 3 × 60 + 10 + 6 = **196 credits**. That is the number to plan around if you post every day. Creator ($49 for 6,000 credits) is 6,000 ÷ 196 = 30.6, so a daily cadence fits inside one plan; on Motion One the same plan is 6,000 ÷ 316 = 18.9, so eighteen shorts. Hobby ($15 for 1,800 credits) is 1,800 ÷ 196 = 9.1 shorts. Studio ($149 for 20,000) is 20,000 ÷ 196 = 102 shorts, which is three a day with room to be wrong often. Plan credits roll over forever and credits never expire, so a week where you shoot nothing is not a week you paid for nothing. ## FAQ ### How many credits does a daily posting habit cost? Thirty shorts at 196 credits each is 5,880 credits a month, which fits inside Creator's 6,000. The same thirty on Motion One is 30 × 316 = 9,480, so Studio's 20,000 is the comfortable tier for that engine. ### Which engine gives the best vertical hook? Kling 2.5 Turbo at 1080p if the shot is a face or fast motion and you are on Creator or above. Motion One if you want one engine on every account, including free, and the freedom of an uncensored model for mature-brand work. ### Can I test the whole pipeline on the free 50 credits? Partly. Fifty credits cover a cover still (10), a 300-character voice-over on Voice Turbo (6) and a prompt Enhance (free) — but the cheapest clip on the free tier is a 5-second Motion One render at 100 credits, so the video step needs a pack or a plan. Ready to cut the first one? [Open the video studio](/studio/video), write three paragraphs, and batch the takes before you judge any of them.