Opus 5.5 renders a 30-second Starship launch for $21.40
The author had Opus 5.5 build and render a 30-second Starship launch shot as code for $21.40 in tokens, comparing it against Blender's per-seat pricing.
Opus 5.5 just rendered a 30-second Starship launch for $21.40 in tokens, next to a Blender seat that bills $715 before anyone opens the file Price per seat hides the real comparison. One is a license you pay whether you render anything, the other is a bill that scales with the shot you actually ship. SCENE - a full Starship stack built from one brief, tower, raptors and vapor plume included SHOT - the same stack staged, lit and launched into a dusk-to-navy sky COST - every second of footage priced against what the run actually burned, not against a seat someone forgot to cancel Blender wants $715 before the file is even open. That is the tool bill, not the output bill. That ceiling shows up fast. A seat that renders nothing this month still charges full price. Opus 5.5 starts earlier. The scene is written as code, so every camera move, every material swap and every extra second is a prompt away. At $4 in and $20 out per million tokens, a 30-second shot clears at $21.40. One Blender seat buys 33 of these before the month is out. The quality gap is not subtle either. Procedural geometry holds up under lighting changes in a way a static scene file never does. The brief, both outputs side by side and the full token bill are laid out underneath.
This post quotes another post: x.com/0xcodio/status/2109275834984915150