Someone asks for a thirty-second jingle for their shop, or a five-minute song for their wedding, and they want a number before they say yes. You open a music-generation model's docs and find a rate per second, another per character, or just "starting at". Nothing that actually answers the question.
On Tchavi the answer is one line: a generated track has a flat price, whatever its length. Here is the breakdown, the numbers, and what a normal month looks like for someone producing a handful of tracks.
In short
- Generating a song with
minimax-music-2.6(MiniMax) costs 329.242 credits, about 110 F, whether the track runs thirty seconds or five minutes. - Re-singing an existing track with
minimax-music-covercosts 658.484 credits, about 219 F — double the price of a generation. - There is no duration parameter: the price depends on neither the length of the track produced nor how long generation takes.
- A 3,000 F top-up buys 9,000 credits, enough for 27 complete songs (8,889.534 credits used, 110.466 left over).
- The 50 free credits you get at signup do not cover a song — you would need more than six times that.
- A job that fails after billing is refunded in full.
What a song costs
minimax-music-2.6 writes and performs a track from a description — style, mood, language, and your own lyrics if you supply them. The price is 329.242 credits per generated track. At Tchavi's flat rate, 3 credits equal 1 CFA franc (F), so 329.242 credits equal 109.75 F — 110 F rounded, the figure shown on the model's page.
On our own test run, generation took 65.9 seconds and produced a track that came out 1 minute 10 long. The model picks the length itself, up to a five-minute cap; you cannot request a specific one.
Here is what those 110 F buy — a song we generated, prompt included:
Prompt : A minor, 102 BPM, afrobeats with highlife guitar, round bass and log drum, female lead with a small backing choir, bright and hopeful, the energy of a market opening at dawn
minimax-music-2.6 · 329.242 credits · 1:10 · generated in 65.9 s
Why a flat price per track changes how you work
Everywhere else on Tchavi, you pay for what you use: text per token, an image per image, video per second produced, transcription per minute started. The more you ask for, the more you pay, and the billing unit tracks the output unit.
Music is the exception. There is no duration parameter in the call, and nothing to true up once the track is done: the price is set at submission and does not move afterward. A thirty-second jingle for an Instagram story and a five-minute song for a wedding cost exactly the same: 329.242 credits, 110 F.
In practice this changes your math. With video or transcription, asking for less brings the bill down. With music it does not: if all you need is a short jingle, you pay the price of a full song anyway. Worth writing a careful prompt so you get a track you can reuse whole, not just its first ten seconds.
And a cover — what does that cost?
minimax-music-cover keeps the melody of a track you supply and changes everything around it — genre, voice, instruments, arrangement, and the lyrics too if you give it new ones. It needs a source_audio_url, a publicly reachable MP3 or WAV; without one the request is refused before any billing, so you never pay for a malformed attempt.
The price is 658.484 credits, about 219.49 F — 219 F rounded, exactly double the price of a generation. As with generation, there is no duration parameter: the cover follows the length of the source track, the model does not choose it.
On our test, a cover took 76.4 seconds for a result that came out 1 minute 6 long.
A normal month, for someone producing a handful of tracks
Picture a small studio putting out one jingle a week for different clients, plus the occasional cover of one of them in another style for a second client — six songs and one cover in a month.
- 6 × 329.242 credits = 1,975.452 credits for the songs
- 1 × 658.484 credits for the cover
- Total: 2,633.936 credits, about 877.98 F — roughly 878 F
A single top-up at the 1,000 F minimum (3,000 credits) easily covers that month, with 366.064 credits left over, about 122 F, which never expires and rolls into the next month.
At a busier pace, ten songs a month comes to 3,292.42 credits, about 1,097.47 F: a little more than a minimum top-up, well under a 3,000 F one.
And to put a 3,000 F top-up in perspective on this use case alone: 9,000 credits divided by 329.242 gives 27.34, so 27 complete songs, using 8,889.534 credits and leaving 110.466 credits over — not quite enough for a 28th. On covers alone, the same top-up gets you 13: 9,000 ÷ 658.484 = 13.67, so 13 covers for 8,560.292 credits, with 439.708 left.
The 50 credits you get for verifying your email cover neither — you would need more than six times that for a single song. They are enough for a first text or image call, not for hearing a generated track without paying.
When a generation fails
Two different things can happen. Some combinations are refused before any billing: asking for a cover without a source_audio_url, sending a source_audio_url to a generator, or asking for instrumental together with lyrics. In those cases you lose nothing — the request is rejected at validation.
If a job is accepted, billed, and then fails on the provider's side, the charged credits are refunded in full, automatically. You never pay for a track you did not receive.
Try it
curl https://tchavi.com/api/v1/music/generations \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $TCHAVI_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
"model": "minimax-music-2.6",
"prompt": "Mid-tempo afrobeats, highlife guitar and a round bass, joyful chorus"
}'
The response immediately returns credits_used: 329.242 and your remaining balance — the exact price, before the track is even ready. Parameters, covers and the SDK are covered in the music generation docs; both models, with their audio demos, are on the music catalogue page; and how credits work in general is explained in the credits documentation.
create your account and top up KES 250
FAQ
How much does an AI-generated song cost on Tchavi?
329.242 credits per track with minimax-music-2.6, about 110 F, whatever the length produced, up to a five-minute cap.
Does the price change with the length of the track?
No. There is no duration parameter: a thirty-second jingle and a five-minute song cost the same, 329.242 credits.
How much does a cover cost?
658.484 credits with minimax-music-cover, about 219 F — double the price of a generation.
What happens if my generation fails?
Invalid combinations (a cover without a source, instrumental with lyrics, a source sent to a generator) are refused before any billing. If an accepted job later fails on the provider's side, the charged credits are refunded in full, automatically.
Do the 50 free signup credits cover a song?
No. A song costs 329.242 credits, more than six times the 50 credits you get for verifying your email. Those credits are there to test a first text or image call, not to hear a generated track for free.
How many songs does a 3,000 F top-up buy?
9,000 credits (what a 3,000 F top-up gives you) divided by 329.242 credits is 27.34: 27 complete songs, using 8,889.534 credits and leaving 110.466 credits over, available the next month since credits never expire.
create your account and top up KES 250
Tchavi is an OpenAI-compatible AI API gateway: one key gives access to over 100 text, image, audio and video models, and you pay for it with mobile money, no bank card (countries and operators). More guides on the blog. Follow us: LinkedIn and X.