How we price Quortex Play
In this article, we will explain how you'll be charged for using Quortex Play.
The business model of Quortex follows a Pay As You Go model. Streaming is fast moving world and you need partners that will scale with your business rather than trying to guess what the future will look like.
We have a unique pricing model that you will not find anywhere else. When using Quortex Play, you will be charged :
By the amount of ingested data, in GB, accumulated over a month.
By the amount of transcoded data, in GB, accumulated over a month.
By the amount of delivered data, in GB, accumulated over a month.
By the amount of stored data, in GB, accumulated over a month. This only applies when storage is used (e.g. when activating catchup for instance)
For the support and product plan (optional)
Input, Processing, Delivery and Storage items follow a tiered price list, where "the more units you consume, the less you pay per unit". If you don't subscribe to a Commitment plan, it is invoiced every month based on your real consumption.
This is the total number of bytes, accumulated over a month, that the platform will ingest.
A static fee of $0.1 per hour per input is applied for auto-generated inputs, or for inputs that do not receive any incoming stream. A static fee of $0.1 per hour per input is also charged when startover is activated at the pool level. A static fee of $0.1 per hour per input is also charged when catchup is activated at the pool level.
This is the total number of bytes at the output of the processing, accumulated over a month. This includes the transcoded video profiles, the audio variants, the subtitling and the playlists/manifests.
Keep in mind that everything is done in Just-In-Time, meaning that you will only pay for the segments that are being watched by someone. If you create a channel that nobody's watching, or if a given profile isn't watched, you will simply not pay for it!
This is the total number of bytes that the platform will output, accumulated over a month.
The price for delivery applies for CDN or for Origin delivery.
This is the total number of bytes that the platform will store on your behalf. Note that this is only activated on specific use cases, e.g. catchup or Virtual Inputs.
The number of GB that is user over a month is an average of the number of GB used hourly, over all the hours of a month. If you use 500 GB during the first half of the month, then 0 GB for the second half of the month, you will be charged 250 GB for the full month duration.
The prices given above are full Pay As You Go - you will be charged $0 if you don't use the platform.
You can also benefit from private pricing that will come with a commitment. Commitments can be taken for 1 year or 3 years, and will come with significant discounts on the price list. Please contact sales@quortex.io to get more information on the possible discounts, based on your usage! The commitment can be ake
When you commit, we still charge pay as you go, we are just lifting the entry barrier in exchange for a discount. For instance, we will make a 20% discount on the processing price list if you commit to using at least 80TB of transcoding every month during a year. Note that you can't select commitment plans when paying by Credit Card.
The commitment plans are charged at the beginning of every month.
The platform comes by default with a best effort support mode, and not all the features are activated. You can subscribe to different product plans that also come with different levels of support.
You want to stream a 4 hour event (let’s say a tennis match). Your mezzanine feed is at 10 mbps. Your event will be watched by 1000 viewers, at the average bitrate of 3.8 mbps, and a rendition ladder with a cumulated bitrate of 11.14 mbps. You stream this match in HLS and DASH, and use 6 profiles, up to 1080p50 (because sports looks incredibly better at 50 frames per seconds!).
Input: $0.84
You will consume 4 x 3600 x 10000000 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 16.76 GB. As this is under the first tier of 100 GB, you will pay 16.76 * $0.050 = $0.84
+ Processing: $10.96
We assume that all the profiles are pulled by at least one viewer. This is probably a worst case scenario, as in real-life, it is very likely that not all the profiles will be pulled, resulting in cost savings. The total transcoded traffic for this event is 4 x 3600 x 11140000 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 18.67 GB.
This is under the first tier of 100GB, so you will pay 18.67 x $0.587 = $10.96
+ Delivery: $162.85
As the average bitrate is assumed to be 3.8 mbps, the total traffic is 4 x 3600 x 3800000 x 1000 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 6370 GB.
You will end up paying (10 x $0.035) + (100 $0.030) + (1000 $0.028) + (5260 * $0.025) = $162.85
+ Support Plan: $0
I decided to use the "Basic" plan, so it's all included!
You want to stream a live channel for one month. You have 5 000 subscribers, watching your live channel 2 hours per day on average, with a peak in the morning and during prime-time. You select a rendition ladder with 5 profiles, up to 720p25 at 3 mbps. The average watcher bitrate is estimated at 2.36 mbps. Your input mezzanine feed is at 10 mbps.
Input: $86.35
You will consume a total of 10 000 000 x 3600 x 24 x 30 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 3 017 GB.
You will pay, based on the input tiers: (100 x $0.050) + (400 x $0.040 ) + (1500 x $0.030) + (1017 x $0.020 ) = $86.35
+ Processing: $739.50
Let’s consider a worst case where all the profiles will be transcoded, leading to 6.14 mbps (the sum of all the profiles) overall. Keep in mind that if no-one is watching some profiles, they will not be transcoded and will not incur any transcoding costs! The total transcoded bitrate will be 6 140 000 x 3600 x 24 x 30 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 1,852.74 GB.
You will pay, based on the processing tiers: (100 x $0.585) + (500 x $0.505) + (1,252.74 x $0.385) = $739.50
+ Delivery: $6,007.92
As the average bitrate is assumed to be 2.36 mbps, you will end up with 2 360 000 x 2 x 3600 x 30 x 5000 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 296 719 GB of delivered data over a month.
You will pay, based on the delivery tiers: (10 x $0.035) + (100 x $0.030) + (1000 x $0.028) + (10000 x $0.025) + (100000 x $0.022) + (185609 x $0.019) = $6,007.92
+ Support Plan: Professional, $1,000
I decided to use the "Professional" plan. My monthly usage is $6,833. 10% x $6,833 = $688. As this is below $1,000, you will may the minimum of $1,000 for this support plan.
For this use case, you certainly want to contact sales to benefit from commitment pricings!
Business Model
The business model of Quortex follows a Pay As You Go model. Streaming is fast moving world and you need partners that will scale with your business rather than trying to guess what the future will look like.
Price Items
We have a unique pricing model that you will not find anywhere else. When using Quortex Play, you will be charged :
By the amount of ingested data, in GB, accumulated over a month.
By the amount of transcoded data, in GB, accumulated over a month.
By the amount of delivered data, in GB, accumulated over a month.
By the amount of stored data, in GB, accumulated over a month. This only applies when storage is used (e.g. when activating catchup for instance)
For the support and product plan (optional)
Input, Processing, Delivery and Storage items follow a tiered price list, where "the more units you consume, the less you pay per unit". If you don't subscribe to a Commitment plan, it is invoiced every month based on your real consumption.
Input Tiering
This is the total number of bytes, accumulated over a month, that the platform will ingest.
| Total (GB) | Tiers (GB) | Unit Price |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 100 | $0.050 |
| 500 | 400 | $0.040 |
| 2000 | 1500 | $0.030 |
| 6000 | 4000 | $0.020 |
| 20000 | 14000 | $0.014 |
| 100000 | 80000 | $0.012 |
| 200000 | 100000 | $0.011 |
| Above | $0.010 |
A static fee of $0.1 per hour per input is applied for auto-generated inputs, or for inputs that do not receive any incoming stream. A static fee of $0.1 per hour per input is also charged when startover is activated at the pool level. A static fee of $0.1 per hour per input is also charged when catchup is activated at the pool level.
Processing Tiering
This is the total number of bytes at the output of the processing, accumulated over a month. This includes the transcoded video profiles, the audio variants, the subtitling and the playlists/manifests.
| Total (GB) | Tiers (GB) | Unit Price |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 100 | $0.587 |
| 500 | 400 | $0.505 |
| 2000 | 1500 | $0.385 |
| 6000 | 4000 | $0.354 |
| 20000 | 14000 | $0.275 |
| 100000 | 80000 | $0.231 |
| 200000 | 100000 | $0.195 |
| Above | $0.165 |
Keep in mind that everything is done in Just-In-Time, meaning that you will only pay for the segments that are being watched by someone. If you create a channel that nobody's watching, or if a given profile isn't watched, you will simply not pay for it!
Delivery Tiering
This is the total number of bytes that the platform will output, accumulated over a month.
| Total (GB) | Tiers (GB) | Unit Price |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 10 | $0.035 |
| 100 | 90 | $0.030 |
| 1000 | 900 | $0.028 |
| 10000 | 9000 | $0.025 |
| 100000 | 90000 | $0.022 |
| 1000000 | 900000 | $0.019 |
| 5000000 | 4000000 | $0.018 |
| Above | $0.015 |
The price for delivery applies for CDN or for Origin delivery.
Storage Tiering
This is the total number of bytes that the platform will store on your behalf. Note that this is only activated on specific use cases, e.g. catchup or Virtual Inputs.
| Total (GB) | Tiers (GB) | Unit Price |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 10 | $0.115 |
| 100 | 90 | $0.104 |
| 1000 | 900 | $0.097 |
| 10000 | 9000 | $0.092 |
| 100000 | 90000 | $0.085 |
| 1000000 | 900000 | $0.078 |
| 5000000 | 4000000 | $0.076 |
| Above | $0.069 |
The number of GB that is user over a month is an average of the number of GB used hourly, over all the hours of a month. If you use 500 GB during the first half of the month, then 0 GB for the second half of the month, you will be charged 250 GB for the full month duration.
Adding Commitment Plans
The prices given above are full Pay As You Go - you will be charged $0 if you don't use the platform.
You can also benefit from private pricing that will come with a commitment. Commitments can be taken for 1 year or 3 years, and will come with significant discounts on the price list. Please contact sales@quortex.io to get more information on the possible discounts, based on your usage! The commitment can be ake
When you commit, we still charge pay as you go, we are just lifting the entry barrier in exchange for a discount. For instance, we will make a 20% discount on the processing price list if you commit to using at least 80TB of transcoding every month during a year. Note that you can't select commitment plans when paying by Credit Card.
The commitment plans are charged at the beginning of every month.
Adding Product & Support Plans
The platform comes by default with a best effort support mode, and not all the features are activated. You can subscribe to different product plans that also come with different levels of support.
| Basic | Professional | Enterprise | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | |||
| Price, in % of the monthly usage | 0% | 10% | 20% |
| Minimum price per month | 0 | $1000 | $5000 |
| Features | |||
| # Pools | 1 | 5 | No Limit |
| # Inputs per pool | 3 | 3 | No Limit |
| # Users per org. | 3 | 10 | No Limit |
| Redundant Inputs | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Virtual Input | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Startover | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Origin Output | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Catchup | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Single Sign-On | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Support | |||
| Live Chat Support | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Online Help, Public API | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Response Time | 48h, Best Effort | 2h, SLA | 30mn, SLA |
| Email Support | ❌ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Phone Support | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Dedicated Account Owner | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| Personalized Training | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
Examples
Example 1: A Tennis Match => $174 / event
You want to stream a 4 hour event (let’s say a tennis match). Your mezzanine feed is at 10 mbps. Your event will be watched by 1000 viewers, at the average bitrate of 3.8 mbps, and a rendition ladder with a cumulated bitrate of 11.14 mbps. You stream this match in HLS and DASH, and use 6 profiles, up to 1080p50 (because sports looks incredibly better at 50 frames per seconds!).
Input: $0.84
You will consume 4 x 3600 x 10000000 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 16.76 GB. As this is under the first tier of 100 GB, you will pay 16.76 * $0.050 = $0.84
+ Processing: $10.96
We assume that all the profiles are pulled by at least one viewer. This is probably a worst case scenario, as in real-life, it is very likely that not all the profiles will be pulled, resulting in cost savings. The total transcoded traffic for this event is 4 x 3600 x 11140000 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 18.67 GB.
This is under the first tier of 100GB, so you will pay 18.67 x $0.587 = $10.96
+ Delivery: $162.85
As the average bitrate is assumed to be 3.8 mbps, the total traffic is 4 x 3600 x 3800000 x 1000 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 6370 GB.
You will end up paying (10 x $0.035) + (100 $0.030) + (1000 $0.028) + (5260 * $0.025) = $162.85
+ Support Plan: $0
I decided to use the "Basic" plan, so it's all included!
Example 2: A 24/7 Live Channel => $7,833 / month, incl. Professional Support*
You want to stream a live channel for one month. You have 5 000 subscribers, watching your live channel 2 hours per day on average, with a peak in the morning and during prime-time. You select a rendition ladder with 5 profiles, up to 720p25 at 3 mbps. The average watcher bitrate is estimated at 2.36 mbps. Your input mezzanine feed is at 10 mbps.
Input: $86.35
You will consume a total of 10 000 000 x 3600 x 24 x 30 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 3 017 GB.
You will pay, based on the input tiers: (100 x $0.050) + (400 x $0.040 ) + (1500 x $0.030) + (1017 x $0.020 ) = $86.35
+ Processing: $739.50
Let’s consider a worst case where all the profiles will be transcoded, leading to 6.14 mbps (the sum of all the profiles) overall. Keep in mind that if no-one is watching some profiles, they will not be transcoded and will not incur any transcoding costs! The total transcoded bitrate will be 6 140 000 x 3600 x 24 x 30 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 1,852.74 GB.
You will pay, based on the processing tiers: (100 x $0.585) + (500 x $0.505) + (1,252.74 x $0.385) = $739.50
+ Delivery: $6,007.92
As the average bitrate is assumed to be 2.36 mbps, you will end up with 2 360 000 x 2 x 3600 x 30 x 5000 / (8 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024) = 296 719 GB of delivered data over a month.
You will pay, based on the delivery tiers: (10 x $0.035) + (100 x $0.030) + (1000 x $0.028) + (10000 x $0.025) + (100000 x $0.022) + (185609 x $0.019) = $6,007.92
+ Support Plan: Professional, $1,000
I decided to use the "Professional" plan. My monthly usage is $6,833. 10% x $6,833 = $688. As this is below $1,000, you will may the minimum of $1,000 for this support plan.
For this use case, you certainly want to contact sales to benefit from commitment pricings!
Updated on: 31/03/2023
Thank you!