Egress fees for video
What a cloud provider charges for every gigabyte that leaves its network — the line on the invoice that grows fastest once people actually watch your video.
Egress is the data that leaves a provider’s network, billed per GB; because every minute watched is downloaded by a viewer, video egress scales directly with watch time — so the per-GB price, the cache hit ratio and the bitrate you stream decide the bill.
What are egress fees?
Egress fees are charges for data transferred out of a cloud or hosting provider’s network — to the internet, to another region or to another provider. Uploading (ingress) is usually free; downloading is metered per gigabyte. On public clouds this is often the least predictable line of the bill, because it grows with usage rather than with what you provisioned.
For video, egress is the main event. Every viewer downloads the stream they watch, so delivery volume rises in direct proportion to watch time. A library that costs little to store can cost a lot to serve once it becomes popular.
How to estimate video egress
Delivery volume is roughly average bitrate × watch time. In gigabytes: Mbps × hours × 0.45.
| Average bitrate | Per watch hour | 500 watch hours | 10,000 watch hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.5 Mbps (≈480p–720p) | 0.68 GB | 338 GB | 6,750 GB |
| 3 Mbps (≈1080p) | 1.35 GB | 675 GB | 13,500 GB |
| 6 Mbps (high-bitrate 1080p) | 2.7 GB | 1,350 GB | 27,000 GB |
The real average is lower than the top rendition: an adaptiveAdaptive Bitrate (ABR)Automatically adjusts video quality in real time to match each viewer’s connection speed — smooth playback from 480p to 4K with no buffering.Open definition → player spends part of the time on lower qualities, especially on mobile.
Where video egress hides
- Origin to CDN. Some setups pay twice: once for data leaving cloud storage to fill the CDN, and again for the CDN delivering it to viewers. A low cache hit ratioOrigin shield (tiered caching)A cache tier between CDN edges and the origin that collapses duplicate requests, so a traffic spike reaches your server once, not thousands of times.Open definition → makes the first part large.
- Overstreamed quality. Sending 1080p to a phone in a small embed is bandwidth the viewer never sees.
- Hotlinking. Other sites embedding your files add traffic with no audience of yours — see hotlink protectionHotlink protectionStopping other sites from playing your video on your bandwidth bill — domain-locked embeds, expiring signed links and playback tokens.Open definition →.
- Regions and tiers. Per-GB rates often differ by region, and flat plans can jump once traffic crosses a band.
How to reduce video delivery costs
A CDNCDN (Content Delivery Network)A global network of edge servers that caches video close to viewers, cutting latency and absorbing traffic spikes.Open definition → priced for video usually costs far less per GB than raw cloud egress, and its caches keep the origin out of most requests.
Tune the adaptive ladder and cap resolution for small players; a more efficient codecCodecThe algorithm that compresses and decompresses video — H.264, H.265 (HEVC) and AV1 are the most common in modern streaming.Open definition → carries the same quality in fewer bits.
Lock playback to your domains and expire public links so you only pay for your own audience.
Check how volume bands apply, whether there are minimum commitments and what the price becomes at the volume you expect next year, not this month.
What delivery costs on Kinescope
| Monthly delivery | Price per GB |
|---|---|
| 0–1,000 GB | €0.03 |
| 1,000–6,000 GB | €0.02 |
| 6,000–21,000 GB | €0.015 |
| 21,000–51,000 GB | €0.01 |
| Above 51,000 GB | Custom |
Rates from the pricing page; storage and processing are billed separately. Paid plans start at €10/month; the Free plan includes 200 GB of traffic a month.
Further reading
- What is a video CDN? How it works and when you need one — includes a worked bill for 500 watch hours.
- Build vs buy video streaming — what an in-house stack costs, delivery included.
