Question 1

How much storage does one hour of video use?

Accepted Answer

Roughly 2 GB per hour at 1080p on Streamlet. Every upload is encoded into a full adaptive ladder — 1080p, 720p, 480p and 360p — so stored bytes are the sum of all renditions plus about 5% for segment containers, thumbnails and caption tracks, not the size of the source file alone.

Question 2

Does Streamlet charge for bandwidth or egress?

Accepted Answer

No. Every Streamlet plan includes CDN delivery at no extra cost. Your bill is the plan price, so doubling your viewers does not change what you pay. Encoding and storage are included in the plan too.

Question 3

How is video delivery cost calculated?

Accepted Answer

Delivered bytes equal hours watched multiplied by the average delivered bitrate. Because adaptive streaming serves most viewers below the top rendition, this calculator weights watch time across the ladder — about 45% at the top rung, 28% one below, then 15%, 8%, 3% and 1% — rather than assuming every viewer streams at maximum quality.

Question 4

Which video hosting provider is cheapest?

Accepted Answer

It depends on the shape of the workload. Metered providers such as Mux, Cloudflare Stream and Bunny are cheaper at very low watch time because you pay only for what you use. Because they bill per minute or per gigabyte delivered, their cost rises with every viewer, while a flat-plan provider such as Streamlet does not. The crossover point is what this calculator is for.

Video hosting bill calculator

Library

Audience

Quality ceiling

Captions & team

The same workload, six bills