Live streaming is gradually becoming a great engagement-cum-entertainment source for streamers. Apart from social media streamers, various huge brands and corporates are also keeping up with live streams to showcase their workflow and events to a mass audience. Live streaming has been seen as a lucratively popular deal for communication over the web.

We make sure that each of our clients is served with the most amazing experience. You can always get in touch with us for a detailed conversation.

Videosdk.live also deals with developing live streaming APIs. This blog is dedicated to Standard Live Streaming. It will make a reader understand its price computation and contrast the prices of other providers.

How to Calculate the Cost of Standard Live Streaming?

Considering A video for live streaming is divided into three major steps, from production to final output. These are 1. Encoding  2. Storage  3. Delivery

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  • The total price of live-streaming a video is the sum of the costs of all three components.
  • The total cost of a live streaming= Encoding + Storage + Delivery

Pro Plan

A pro plan is a plan which is devised by VideoSDK  to keep up with the costs for the viewers in a trouble-free

Let’s understand the computation

Example 1 :

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We can observe how the price is computed for a month.

To make a note;

  • The encoding price is only charged once in a lifetime.
  • The video will not comply with further encoding costs for the next time
  • The lifetime encoding cost does not fall with any other video uploaded by the streamer.
  • Storage costs will be computed for each month.
  • We calculate costs for 100% of the video

Lifetime video encoding= $0.05 per minute; Per month video storage= $0.003 per minute

As we see, the image explains the cost with a resolution of 1080p. Similarly, the cost can also be calculated for different resolutions as well. Let’s take the same example.

Calculation of cost for Live Streaming

Total Minutes= 30; Total Views= 100

Encoding- 30 x 0.05= $1.5; Storage- 30 x 0.003= $0.09

  1. Resolution- 240p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0004

Calculation- Delivery= 30 x 100 x 0.0004 = $1.2

Total cost at 240p= 1.5 + 0.09 + 1.2= $ 2.79

2. Resolution- 360p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0006

Calculation- Delivery= 30 x 100 x 0.0006 = $1.8

Total cost at 360p= 1.5 + 0.09 + 1.8= $ 3.39

3. Resolution- 480p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0008

Calculation- Delivery= 30 x 100 x 0.0008 = $2.4

Total cost at 480p= 1.5 + 0.09 + 2.4= $ 3.99

4. Resolution- 720p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0010

Calculation- Delivery= 30 x 100 x 0.0010 = $3

Total cost at 720p= 1.5 + 0.09 + 3= $ 4.59

5. Resolution- 1080p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0012

Calculation- Delivery= 30 x 100 x 0.0012 = $3.6

Total cost at 1080p= 1.5 + 0.09 + 3.6= $ 5.19

Let's take another example and look at the pricing where the streaming minutes are increased. This example will let you understand the calculations with change in different units- Minutes, or Views, or both.


Example 2;

Calculation of cost of Live Streaming

Total Minutes- 150; Total views- 100

Encoding- 150 x 0.05= $7.5; Storage- 150 x 0.003= $0.45

  1. Resolution- 240p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0004

Calculation- Delivery= 150 x 100 x 0.0004 = $6

Total cost at 240p= 7.5 + 0.45 + 6= $ 13.95

2. Resolution- 360p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0006

Calculation- Delivery= 150 x 100 x 0.0009 = $6

Total cost at 360p= 7.5 + 0.45 + 9= $ 16.95

3. Resolution- 480p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0008

Calculation- Delivery= 150 x 100 x 0.0008 = $12

Total cost at 480p= 7.5 + 0.45 + 12= $ 19.95

4. Resolution- 720p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0010

Calculation- Delivery= 150 x 100 x 0.0010 = $15

Total cost at 720p= 7.5 + 0.45 + 15= $ 22.95

5. Resolution- 1080p; Unit price per Minute- 0.0012

Calculation- Delivery= 150 x 100 x 0.0012 = $18

Total cost at 1080p= 7.5 + 0.45 + 18= $ 25.95

Enterprise plan

An Enterprise Plan is a plan for companies that stream live regularly and demand increasing viewers on their platform. We bring this plan to promote mass engagement at affordable prices.

Contact Support for the best pricing deals.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Pricing

AWS is a popular name among the providers of live-streaming services. To be on point, it provides streaming services in two specific resolutions- 1080p and 4K. We will put an eye focus on the 1080p resolution.

Note that: AWS works with only two resolutions. It does not provide a lower streaming resolution than 1080p. Where other companies make a provision of streaming on different resolutions from 240p to 1080p, AWS will only provide streaming with 1080p resolution.

AWS calculates its pricing based on GB. We have converted the pricing units into minutes to gain a better understanding of the pricing concept. We have put forward the unit conversion in the next part of this blog.

AWS Pricing at 1080p per minute

Encoding= $ 0.062

Storage= $ 0.0024

Delivery= $ 0.003

Calculation of costs in Minutes or GB?

Calculating the cost of live streaming can be done in either of the ways. Some companies compute costs with GB, the reason being they provide multiple services and prefer keeping a unified unit for all.

While other companies prefer calculating costs through the video minutes to make calculations effortless for their clients. A video is always uploaded in minutes, therefore calculation in minutes is easy and not challenging. VideoSDK  calculates costs based on video minutes.

How to convert GB into minutes?

This is a simple table that describes the ratio of GB to minute.

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Comparison

VideoSDK and AWS both work on an identical aspect and that is providing the best quality live streaming for streamers. We have distinguished these two based on their pricing policies.

Note that we have converted the streaming units of AWS into minutes from GB to make an unbiased comparison of pricing.
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VideoSDK comes up to be an affordable approach for live-streaming when we compare it to AWS. It might become a questionable point of quality, but AWS lies on the same page concerning quality. Everything they offer is identical. As AWS deals in a resolution of 1080p and VideoSDK provides playback in multiple resolutions, we observe a huge pricing gap. And even when we compare the 1080p resolution of both companies, there is a huge price difference, we can say, double it!