Draft Cache

A draft cache is a space where AI temporarily stores rough, cheap-to-make drafts before finishing a final output. It's similar to a painter sketching a rough draft in pencil before touching a brush to the real canvas. A sketch is far cheaper and faster to make than a finished painting, but it's not meant to be kept around for long.

Generative AI services use a similar setup. They produce a draft at a lower cost than the final output and show it to the user first; if the user likes it, they can then finalize it or download it as-is. But these drafts often disappear automatically after a set amount of time, so users need to pick the ones they like and move them to their own storage. Otherwise, they'll have to pay again and generate everything from scratch.

An article on FLUX 3 video explains that under one pricing plan, 'drafts cost a third of the price of the final version.' The same article notes that download links for generated videos expire about two hours after the job finishes — a useful example for getting a feel for how cheaply made outputs tend not to be held onto for long. A common point of confusion is that a draft cache is not a safe, long-term storage space. If you get a result you like, you need to move it to your own storage within the given time window.