Online Video Delivery And Storage Pricing Guide

I follow very closely the costs that content delivery networks and service providers charge to store and delivery audio and video content that is both downloaded and streamed. I get my data primarily from the customers, the people who are actually buying these services. They routinely call to ask if they are getting a good deal, want to know what others are paying, what the going rate is and what future pricing trends will be.

For me, this is the best way to get data; from talking to the people who are signing the contracts and actually paying for these services. The people who call are everyone from large media and entertainment companies who have sites that are in the top 20 most visited per month, to small companies who have only a few videos. I am amazed at how many times customers do not take the time to shop around. They don’t know what the going rate is and don’t know what the market is getting for these services, which is why I am always happy to take their calls and questions. Recently, I helped re-negotiate a contract for a large entertainment company with their service provider and with very little work, they saved over $1 million dollars the first year. It wasn’t hard to do and wasn’t time consuming, yet, the entertainment company simply didn’t know that they could be saving money.

Pricing continues to get lower for delivery and storage and content companies need to continue to evaluate their contracts on a regular basis, especially if they are a company who’s traffic has grown a lot since you first signed your contract. You should be paying less per GB for the more that you do and be given an incentive to push more traffic. This is something the delivery networks are usually very willing to do but you need to reach out to them to initiate it.

That being said, I am now routinely seeing pricing in the sub $0.20 range, per GB delivered, for customers doing more than 100TB a month and committing to that level monthly. With the increase in bitrates and increase in the length of time videos are being consumed, there are now more and more customers doing over 100TB a month in delivery.

The point is do your homework and know what the going rate is. Reevaluate your contract on a quarterly basis and see if there is a need for you to adjust what you are committing to. It is in your best interest and in the best interest of a good service provider who wants to give you an incentive to use more of their delivery services.

If you want to know more about pricing trends, you can read my article from last months Streaming Media magazine entitled "online video delivery and storage pricing guide" or post any follow-up questions you have in the feedback section.