Seedance API in Taiwan: Costs and Unified Invoice Options

Query date: 2026-09-02 (Taipei time). Policies change over time, so every judgment in this article is labeled with its source and query date. Before purchasing, follow what your account's checkout page actually shows.

How do you use the Seedance API in Taiwan?

Seedance is ByteDance's text- and image-to-video generation model, offered through the API of the Volcano Engine platform. The same family includes Seedream, an image generation model. This article covers: how to use it, how much it costs, and whether you can get a Taiwan unified invoice.

First, a point that is easy to confuse

Under ByteDance, the products related to generated content are actually three different things:

Jimeng          = consumer-facing web / app, operated through a UI, not an API for developers
Seedance        = the underlying text- and image-to-video model, called through the Volcano Engine API
Seedream        = the underlying text-to-image model, also called through the Volcano Engine API

If you want to add a video or image generation feature to your own program or product, the one you need is the Seedance / Seedream API, not Jimeng. Jimeng is a consumer product and has no API open to third-party integration.

How pricing works

According to Volcano Engine's official description, the Seedance API uses tiered pricing: the unit price falls as monthly call volume rises. Monthly and annual plans are also available and are more cost-effective than metered billing, but they require an enterprise purchase and Volcano Engine's contract process.

The common question for Taiwan developers is not "is it expensive," but that Volcano Engine mainly serves mainland Chinese enterprise customers. Account registration, real-name verification, and contract signing are all designed by default around mainland Chinese companies.

You can call it directly through a compatible platform, skipping this entire process:

For TWD unit prices, see the model list; for full video generation feature details, see AI video generation.

Can Seedance get a Taiwan unified invoice?

As of the query date, no official explanation could be found, and there are structural reasons for this.

Volcano Engine is ByteDance's enterprise cloud service for the mainland Chinese market. The billing and contract processes described in its official documentation (real-name verification, enterprise contracts) are designed by default around mainland Chinese companies. We did not find any independent purchasing or invoicing process description for Taiwan or overseas customers.

This is different from Grok / Kimi / GLM, where the official documentation is simply unclear. Seedance / Volcano Engine's service design is itself oriented toward mainland Chinese enterprises as the primary audience. For a Taiwan company to contract directly with the vendor is already a higher bar, let alone a unified invoice.

Can I enter a Seedance tax ID? What about expense reporting?

The Ministry of Finance publishes a public list, "Offshore e-commerce operators that have issued cloud invoices", which covers all offshore companies that have completed Taiwan cross-border e-commerce tax registration (340 companies in total). As of the query date 2026-09-02, we checked each entry, and ByteDance / Volcano Engine is not on the list. This is not just a case of "official documentation does not say so": they have not completed tax registration in Taiwan at all. The checkout page therefore has no Taiwan tax ID field, and there is no statutory obligation to collect business tax or issue cloud invoices. For comparison, OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Alibaba Cloud are all on the list. This is the same matter as the previous section's point that Volcano Engine is built for mainland Chinese enterprise customers, viewed from two sides.

What about expense reporting? The English receipt you get from paying by card on the official site can serve as internal supporting evidence for a company's expenses. However, most companies' formal expense processes only accept unified invoices: an English receipt cannot be used to deduct business tax, and may not pass expense review. If your company requires a unified invoice for expense reporting, use "Option 2" in the next section and buy through a Taiwan-based platform, where a Taiwan company issues an electronic unified invoice that can carry your tax ID (both two-part and three-part forms are available).

So what should I do?

Option 1: Buy directly from Volcano Engine

Suitable for companies with a physical presence in mainland China that can complete enterprise real-name verification. For most Taiwan companies, the bar is fairly high.

Option 2: A Taiwan-based API platform

BazaarLink is an AI API platform operated by a Taiwan company (集聯科技有限公司, tax ID 62232477):

• Priced in TWD, issues electronic unified invoices (two-part and three-part both available), so accounting can post them directly
• No separate contract or real-name verification with Volcano Engine required; call directly with an API key
• OpenAI-compatible API: Seedance, Seedream, GPT, Claude, Gemini, and others share one set of keys
• Monthly billing for businesses is negotiable

curl https://bazaarlink.ai/api/v1/videos \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk-bl-YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model": "bytedance/seedance-2.0", "prompt": "a cat walking on the beach"}'

But be clear about when it is not a good fit:

• If you want the Jimeng (即夢) web or app consumer features → that is not an API product, so it cannot be connected this way
• If your company already has a physical presence in mainland China and can go through Volcano Engine's official contract → buying directly from the vendor may be more cost-effective
• If you just want to test and your usage is small → evaluate with the platform's trial credits first

Sources and query log

• Volcano Engine: Seedance 2.0 API integration guide and pricing system (query date 2026-09-02)
• Further reading: AI video generation model comparison, How to expense AI API costs at Taiwan companies

TWD billing · Taiwan invoices · leading AI models · OpenAI-compatible API