Pricing for Interactive Live Streaming Standard
This article introduces the billing policy for the Interactive Live Streaming Standard product provided by Agora.
Overview
Agora calculates the billing of all projects under your Agora account monthly.
Billing begins once you implement interactive live streaming using the Agora Voice or Video SDK.
On the first day of each month, Agora sends you your bill for the previous month's usage via mail, and five days later deducts the payment from your account. For details, see Billing, fee deduction, and account suspension.
- Agora gives each Agora account 10,000 free-of-charge minutes each month. For more information on the deduction sequence and applicable products, see Agora's free-of-charge policy for the first 10,000 minutes.
- Once a user joins a live-streaming channel from apps integrated with the Agora Voice or Video SDK, the user subscribes to the audio and video streams sent by all other users in the channel by default, giving rise to usage and cost.
Composition
Agora calculates billing based on the usage of all sessions under each project. The billing for each session equals the total sum of charges for all users in the session.
At the end of each month, Agora adds up the usage duration (in seconds) of audio and video in each category, and divides them by 60 to get the respective service minutes (rounded up to the nearest integer). Then, the service minutes are multiplied by the corresponding pricing to get the cost of that month.
Cost = audio charges + video charges = audio pricing × audio service minutes + video pricing × video service minutes
- If a user successfully subscribes to both audio and video at the same time, then Agora only charges for the video service.
- For sessions with only one user, the cost of the session equals the audio pricing × service minutes of the session.
Service minutes
The usage duration of each session equals the total sum of service minutes of all users in the session.
For each user, Agora calculates the service minutes (accurate to seconds) from the user joining a channel to the user leaving the channel.
Depending on the subscribing behavior of the user, service minutes comprises the following:
- Video minutes: The total duration of the user receiving video.
- Audio minutes: If you deduct the video minutes from the total duration when the user is in the channel, you get the audio minutes of that user, regardless of whether that user subscribes to any audio.
- If User A subscribes to the video streams of both B and C for the same 10 minutes, A uses 10 minutes of video service.
- If User A subscribes to the audio stream of B, and video stream of C, both for the same 10 minutes, A also uses 10 minutes of video service.
Unit Price
In a live-streaming channel, Agora charges for audio and video service usage based on the role and level of the user.
Host: A user with the host user role is a host. The audio and video minutes of a host are billed based on Interactive Live Streaming Premium pricing.
Audience:
Interactive Live Streaming Standard audience: A user with the audience user role and the low latency user level is an audience member in Interactive Live Streaming Standard. The audio and video minutes of an audience member in Interactive Live Streaming Standard are billed based on Interactive Live Streaming Standard pricing.
Interactive Live Streaming Premium audience: A user with the audience user role and the ultra-low latency user level is an audience member in Interactive Live Streaming Premium. The audio and video minutes of an audience member in Interactive Live Streaming Premium are billed based on Interactive Live Streaming Premium pricing.
When an audience member in Interactive Live Streaming Standard subscribes to audio and video, the pricing is as follows:
| Service type | Category | Pricing ($US/1,000 minutes) |
|---|---|---|
| Audio | N/A | 0.59 |
| Video | High-Definition (HD)① | 1.99 |
| Full High-Definition (Full HD)① | 4.59 | |
| 2K① | 7.99 | |
| 2K+① | 17.99 |
① Agora determines video category based on aggregate video resolution, which is the sum of resolutions of all the video streams a user subscribes to at the same time. For details, see Aggregate video resolution.
Aggregate video resolution
Agora adds up the resolution of all the video streams a user subscribes to at the same time to determine the user's aggregate video resolution, which categorizes video as follows:
| Video category | Aggregate video resolution |
|---|---|
| High-Definition (HD) | Up to 921,600 (1280 × 720） |
| Full High-Definition (Full HD) | From greater than 921,600 (1280 × 720) to 2,073,600 (1920 × 1080) |
| 2K | From greater than 2,073,600 (1920 × 1080) to 3,686,400 (2560 × 1440) |
| 2K+ | From greater than 3,686,400 (2560 × 1440) to 8,847,360 (4096 × 2160) |
For example, if a user subscribes to two 960 × 720 video streams at the same time, the aggregate resolution is 960 × 720 + 960 × 720 = 1,382,400. The user is charged for Full HD video service.
Usage-based volume discounts
After deducting the first free-of-charge 10,000 minutes, Agora calculates your monthly total usage of Interactive live Streaming Standard and automatically applies the following discounts:
| Minutes used | Discount level |
|---|---|
| 100,000 to 499,999 | 5% |
| 500,000 to 999,999 | 7% |
| 1,000,000 to 3,000,000 | 10% |
- Agora adopts tiered discounts model, in which a specific discount is applied to the usage within that tier. The discount increases as usage reaches a new tier.
- Contact sales-us@agora.io for more preferential pricing plan If you expect your monthly total usage to be more than 3,000,000 minutes.
Examples
This section uses an example of interactive live video streaming involving five users to illustrate how Agora calculates aggregate video resolution, service minutes, and charges.
Scenario description
Five users join a channel at the same time and have interactive live video streaming for 60 minutes. In the video streaming, there are three hosts (Host A, B, and C), each with a video resolution set to 960 × 720. Two audience members subscribe to the low-latency live streaming from the hosts. Meanwhile, Host A shares their screen with all other users in the channel. The video resolution of the shared screen stream is set to and received at 1920 x 1080.
Aggregate video resolution calculation
The following table lists the aggregate resolution of the video streams that each user subscribes to, which determines the unit price for their video usage：
| User | Video streams subscribed | Aggregate video resolution | Total | Video category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Host A + screen sharing | 2 hosts | 960 × 720 × 2 | 1,382,400 | Full HD |
| Host B | 2 hosts + Host A's screen sharing | (960 × 720 × 2) + (1920 x 1080) | 3,456,000 | 2K |
| Host C | 2 hosts + Host A's screen sharing | (960 × 720 × 2) + (1920 x 1080) | 3,456,000 | 2K |
| Audience Member 1 | 3 hosts + Host A's screen sharing | (960 × 720 × 3) + (1920 x 1080) | 4,147,200 | 2K+ |
| Audience Member 2 | 3 hosts + Host A's screen sharing | (960 × 720 × 3) + (1920 x 1080) | 4,147,200 | 2K+ |
Cost calculation
The following table shows the calculation of the total cost of the video streaming：
| Billed service | Total usage duration (minutes) = Sum of all individual durations | Unit price ($US/1,000 minutes) | Cost of each service ($US) | Total cost($US) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full HD | 60 | 4.59 |
(60/1000) × 4.59 = 0.2754 | 3.393 ≈ 3.39 |
| 2K | 60 × 2 = 120 | 7.99 |
(120/1000) × 7.99 = 0.9588 | |
| 2K+ | 60 × 2 = 120 | 17.99 |
(120/1000) × 17.99 = 2.1588 |
- In interactive live video streaming, the usage duration of a host is billed on Interactive Live Streaming Premium pricing.
- Agora rounds up the total cost to two decimal places.
- If the minutes used in this example are in the first 10,000 minutes of your monthly total usage duration, the service is free of charge and the cost is $US 0.
Considerations
Accuracy of service minutes
At the end of each month, Agora adds up the usage duration (in seconds) of audio and video in each category, and divides them by 60 to get the respective service minutes (rounded up to the nearest integer). For example, if the duration of audio service of the month is 59 seconds, then the audio service minutes is calculated as 1 minute; if the duration of video service is 61 seconds, then the video service minutes is calculated as 2 minutes. The margin of error for service minutes for each month is within 1 minute.
Video resolution in the dual-stream scenario
In dual-stream mode, the aggregate video resolution is calculated as follows:
- If the user subscribes to the high-quality video stream, the aggregate resolution is calculated based on the resolution of the high-quality video.
- If the user subscribes to the low-quality video stream, the aggregate resolution is calculated based on the resolution of the video received by the user.
Video resolution in the screen sharing scenario
In scenarios involving screen sharing, the unit price of the screen-sharing stream is calculated on the basis of the video dimension that you set in ScreenCaptureParameters. For details, see descriptions in the following classes:
- Windows:
ScreenCaptureParameters - macOS:
AgoraScreenCaptureParameters
Resolution calibration
When calculating the aggregate resolution, Agora counts the resolution of 225280 (640 × 352) as 640 × 360.
FAQ
Why do I see audio minutes in my bill even though all users subscribe only to video streams?
Chances are:- The user being subscribed to has not subscribed to any video stream.
- After subscribing to a video stream, a user has not received any video stream due to poor network conditions.
