Pricing options

AWS Elemental MediaLive offers pay-as-you-go on-demand, reserved, and discounted pricing for live video transcoding.

MediaLive offers pay-as-you-go pricing. You pay an hourly rate for running inputs, outputs, and add-on features. The duration of each running resource will be rounded up to the nearest minute, above a 10-minute minimum. No long-term commitments or upfront payments are needed.

Save up to 70% compared to on-demand pricing on inputs, outputs, and add-on features with a 12-month commitment. These rates are charged for every hour in the month for each month of your commitment period.

If you are willing to make a commitment for 3 or 5 years of reserved usage, contact us.

AWS Pricing Calculator

Calculate your MediaLive and architecture cost in a single estimate.

Create your custom estimate now
Photo of calculator

Pricing overview

To calculate the total cost of a MediaLive channel, add together the cost of each input, output, and add-on feature. To calculate the total cost of a MediaLive Statistical Multiplex (Statmux) channel, add the cost of each input, MediaLive Statmux output, add-on feature, and multiplexer. Channels incur costs for as long as the channel is running, even if the inputs are not receiving any content and outputs are not producing content. There are additional charges for idle resources and data transfer, if applicable.

MediaLive offers two types of channels: single-pipeline and standard. Single-pipeline channels run one processing pipeline in one Availability Zone (AZ). Standard channels run two processing pipelines in different AZs, providing increased channel resiliency. A standard channel costs less than running two identical single-pipeline channels in the same AWS Region.

For channels that run for more than 180 hours per month, you can use reserved pricing and save up to 70% with a 12-month usage commitment. This rate is charged for every hour in the month, for each month of your commitment period. Reservations apply at the input, output, and add-on feature level and are not tied to specific channels. This means if you delete and replace your channel with a new one, your reservations will continue to apply, as long as your running inputs, outputs, and add-ons match your committed reservations.

Resolutions for MediaLive

Standard definition (SD) is less than 720 vertical resolution.

High definition (HD) is greater than or equal to 720 vertical resolution, but less than or equal to 1080 vertical resolution.

Ultra-high definition (UHD) is greater than 1080, up to and including 2160 vertical resolution.

Input pricing

The price for each input is determined by a combination of dimensions including codec, bit rate, and resolution of the input stream. AWS Elemental Link inputs are billed by device type. The total input price is the sum of all inputs attached to the channel.

  • AVC inputs
  • HEVC inputs
  • MPEG-2 inputs
  • AWS Elemental Link inputs
  • AWS Cloud Digital Interface (CDI) inputs

* If you create a channel with input switching (using more than one input) enabled, the cost of two active inputs will be applied to that channel even if more than two inputs are configured in the schedule.  

Output pricing

The cost for each output is determined by a combination of dimensions including codec, bit rate, resolution, and frame rate. The total output price is the sum of all outputs generated for the channel.

  • AVC outputs
  • HEVC outputs
  • AV1 outputs
  • AWS Elemental MediaLive Statistical Multiplexing (Statmux) outputs

* If output frame rate is not explicitly set and the "Initialize from source" setting is enabled instead, MediaLive will provision resources for ">30fps", and costs will reflect a ">30fps" price even if the actual frame rate is lower.

** Outputs from MediaLive Statmux always need to be routed through AWS Elemental MediaConnect. If the MediaConnect flow is in a different AZ, data transfer cost will apply.

Add-on features

Costs for add-on features are applied once per channel, rather than per input or output.

  • Advanced audio: Dolby Digital (AC3), Dolby Digital Plus (EAC3), and Dolby Atmos (EAC3 ATMOS) audio encoding and Dolby E audio decoding.
  • Audio normalization: Audio normalization technology to enable monitoring and correction in accordance with the ITU-R BS.1770 standard and logging compliant with the CALM ACT (ATSC A/85).
  • Motion graphics: Usage is billed based on the largest input or output resolution specified in the channel.

Pricing examples

  • The per-hour cost for a live standard channel with two HD inputs (using input switching) and producing five outputs with advanced audio in the US East (N. Virginia) Region is $3.942:

    Input
    1080p HD, HEVC, 20Mbps = $0.588 per hour
    1080p HD, HEVC, 20Mbps = $0.588 per hour

    AVC outputs
    1080p HD, 5Mbps 30fps = $0.702 per hour
    720p HD, 2Mbps, 30fps, = $0.702 per hour
    576p SD, 1.2Mbps, 30fps, = $0.354 per hour
    432p SD, 0.8Mbps, 30fps = $0.354 per hour
    288p SD, 0.5Mbps, 30fps = $0.354 per hour

    Add-on functionality
    Advanced audio = $0.300 per hour

    Total
    $0.588 + $0.588 + $0.702 + $0.702 + $0.354 + $0.354 + 0.354 + $0.300 = $3.942 per hour
    Or $0.0657 per minute with a minimum charge of $0.657 (10 minutes)

  • The monthly cost for a channel with the same configuration as example one but with one input and with a 12-month commitment:

    Input
    1080p HD, HEVC, 20Mbps = $0.1438 per hour

    AVC outputs
    1080p HD, 5Mbps 30fps = $0.1726 per hour
    720p HD, 2Mbps, 30fps = $0.1726 per hour
    576p SD, 1.2Mbps, 30fps = $0.0863 per hour
    432p SD, 0.8Mbps, 30fps = $0.0863 per hour
    288p SD, 0.5Mbps, 30fps = $0.0863 per hour

    Add-on features
    Advanced audio = $0.0356 (~$26 per 30 day month)

    Total
    ($0.1438 + $0.1726 + $0.1726 + $0.0863 + $0.0863 + $0.0863 + $0.0356) = $0.78 per hour
    $0.78 per hour * 720 hours = $564.12 per 30-day month

    Compare this to $2,414.88, the cost for running the same configuration for a 30-day month using on-demand pricing.

  • The per-hour cost for a live single-pipeline channel with two HD inputs (using input switching) and producing five outputs with advanced audio in the US East (N. Virginia) Region is $2.3652:

    Inputs
    1080p HD, HEVC, 20Mbps = $0.3528 per hour
    1080p HD, HEVC, 20Mbps = $0.3528 per hour

    AVC outputs
    1080p HD, 5Mbps 30fps = $0.4212 per hour
    720p HD, 2Mbps, 30fps, = $0.4212 per hour
    576p SD, 1.2Mbps, 30fps, = $0.2124 per hour
    432p SD, 0.8Mbps, 30fps = $0.2124 per hour
    288p SD, 0.5Mbps, 30fps = $0.2124 per hour

    Add-on features
    Advanced audio = $0.18 per hour

    Total
    $0.3528 + $0.3528 + $0.4212 + $0.4212 + $0.2124 + $0.2124 + $0.2124 + $0.18 = $2.3652 per hour
    Or $0.03942 per minute with a minimum charge of $0.3942 (10 minutes)

  • The monthly cost for a channel with the same configuration as example three with a 12-month commitment:

    Inputs
    1080p HD, HEVC, 20Mbps = $0.0863 per hour
    1080p HD, HEVC, 20Mbps = $0.0863 per hour

    AVC outputs
    1080p HD, 5Mbps 30fps = $0.1036 per hour
    720p HD, 2Mbps, 30fps = $0.1036 per hour
    576p SD, 1.2Mbps, 30fps = $0.0518 per hour
    432p SD, 0.8Mbps, 30fps = $0.0518 per hour
    288p SD, 0.5Mbps, 30fps = $0.0518 per hour

    Add-on features
    Advanced audio = $0.0214 (~$15 per 30 day month)

    Total
    ($0.0863 +$0.0863 + $0.1036 + $0.1036 + $0.0518 + $0.0518 + $0.0518 + $0.0214) = $0.5566 per hour

    $0.5566 per hour * 720 hours = $400.75 for a 30-day month

    Compare this to $1,702.94, the cost for running the same configuration for one month using on-demand pricing.

     

  • The per-hour cost for a live single-pipeline channel with one AWS Elemental Link HD input, producing three outputs in the US East (N. Virginia) Region is $1.5548:

    Input
    Link HD = $0.50 per hour

    AVC outputs
    1080p HD, 8Mbps 30fps = $0.4212 per hour
    720p HD, 5Mbps, 30fps, = $0.4212 per hour
    480p SD, 3Mbps, 30fps = $0.2124 per hour

    Total
    $0.50 + $0.4212 + $0.4212 + $0.2124 = $1.5548 per hour
    Or $0.0259 per minute with a minimum charge of $0.2591 (10 minutes)

  • The per-hour cost for a live standard-pipeline channel with two AWS Elemental Link UHD inputs, producing six outputs in the US East (N. Virginia) Region is $21.791:

    Input
    AWS Elemental Link UHD = $4.583 per hour

    AVC outputs
    1080p HD, 5Mbps 30fps = $0.702 per hour
    720p HD, 2Mbps, 30fps, = $0.702 per hour
    288p SD, 0.5Mbps, 30fps = $0.354 per hour

    HEVC outputs
    2160p UHD, 30fps = $11.232 per hour
    1080p HD, 30fps = $2.808 per hour
    720p HD, 30fps = $1.41 per hour

    Total
    $4.583 + $0.702 + $0.702 + $0.354 + $11.232 + $2.808 + $1.41 = $21.791 per hour
    Or $0.363 per minute with a minimum charge of $3.632 (10 minutes)

See this blog post for a more detailed look at the factors that influence the cost of running a live streaming channel on AWS, like video bit rates, number of viewers, average bit rate viewed, and cache and hit ratios when using MediaLive, AWS Elemental MediaPackage, Amazon CloudFront, and AWS Elemental MediaTailor for monetization.

Idle resources

MediaLive charges for each push input and channel when these resources are not in use. Only push inputs (for example, RTP PUSH, RTMP PUSH, MediaConnect, and AWS Elemental Link devices) incur a cost when idle. Pulled inputs (for example, HLS PULL and RTMP PULL) do not incur an idle resource cost. The pricing for idle resources is:

Data transfer

As part of the AWS Free Tier, AWS customers receive 100 GB of free data transfer out to the internet free each month, aggregated across all AWS services and Regions (except China and GovCloud).  Also, there are no additional charges for data transfer within the same Region.

However, you may still incur additional charges when you serve content outside of AWS.  For instance, if the content output is delivered to a destination over the internet or by a CDN other than CloudFront, then data transfer charges apply.

The pricing below is based on data transferred in to and out of MediaLive on the internet or a Region other than the one in which the service is deployed.