--- title: "What Is a Bitrate Ladder? Definition and Examples" description: "A bitrate ladder is the set of resolution and bitrate pairs a video is encoded into for adaptive streaming. See an example ladder and how to design one." url: "https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/bitrate-ladder" markdown_url: "https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/bitrate-ladder.md" category: "Streaming technology" updated: "2026-10-05" --- # What is a bitrate ladder? A bitrate ladder, or encoding ladder, is the list of versions a video is encoded into for adaptive streaming. Each rung pairs a resolution with a bitrate, and the player moves up and down the rungs as the viewer's connection changes. ## An example ladder These are illustrative figures for H.264 at up to 30 frames per second. The right numbers depend on codec, frame rate and the content itself. - 2160p (4K) at about 16 Mbps - 1440p at about 9 Mbps - 1080p at about 5 Mbps - 720p at about 3 Mbps - 540p at about 1.8 Mbps - 360p at about 0.8 Mbps - 240p at about 0.4 Mbps ## Designing a ladder - Top rung: the best quality your audience's screens and connections can use - Bottom rung: low enough to keep playing on a poor mobile connection - Spacing: each rung roughly 1.5 to 2 times the bitrate of the one below, so switches are neither jarring nor pointless - Count: four to seven rungs for most services - Alignment: identical keyframe positions on every rung, so switching is seamless ## Fixed, per-title and per-scene ladders A fixed ladder applies the same rungs to every title. It is simple and wasteful: animation gets far more bitrate than it needs and fast sport gets too little. Per-title encoding analyzes each video and builds a ladder to suit it, which commonly cuts delivery volume substantially for easy content at no loss of quality. Per-scene or content-aware encoding goes further and varies the settings within a title. ## Why the ladder matters commercially The ladder sets both the quality viewers see and the size of your delivery bill, since the bill follows the average bitrate delivered. It also sets storage and encoding cost: every extra rung is another copy of every title. ## Bitrate ladder on RentAnOTT RentAnOTT encodes uploads into an adaptive ladder, up to 1080p on Launch and up to 4K on Growth and Scale. The bitrate calculator helps you estimate bitrates and file sizes for your content. [Try the bitrate calculator](https://www.rentanott.com/tools/video-bitrate-calculator). ## Related terms - [Adaptive bitrate streaming](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/adaptive-bitrate-streaming) — Adaptive bitrate streaming (ABR) is a delivery method in which a video is encoded at several quality levels and the player switches between them during playback, choosing the highest quality the viewer's connection can sustain without stalling. - [Bitrate](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/bitrate) — Bitrate is the amount of data used to represent one second of video or audio, measured in kilobits or megabits per second (kbps or Mbps). A higher bitrate carries more detail and produces larger files and higher delivery costs. - [Transcoding](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/transcoding) — Transcoding is converting a video from one encoded format into another. On a streaming platform it means taking an uploaded file or a live feed and producing the several resolutions and bitrates needed for adaptive playback on every device. - [Video resolution](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/video-resolution) — Video resolution is the number of pixels that make up each frame of a video, written as width by height, such as 1920 × 1080. More pixels can show finer detail, and require more data to store and deliver. - [Codec](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/codec) — A codec is the algorithm used to compress video or audio for storage and delivery and to decompress it for playback. The name combines coder and decoder. The choice of codec determines how small a file is at a given quality and which devices can play it. - [Egress cost](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/egress-cost) — Egress cost is the charge for data leaving a cloud provider's or CDN's network, billed per gigabyte transferred. For a streaming service it is the cost of delivering video to viewers, and it is usually the largest variable cost of the service. - [Video storage](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary/video-storage) — Video storage is the disk space a streaming service uses to hold its catalog. It includes the original files that were uploaded and every encoded version made from them, and it is billed by the gigabyte for each month the files are kept. ## Further reading - [Streaming bandwidth cost calculator](https://www.rentanott.com/tools/streaming-bandwidth-cost-calculator) - [2K video resolution explained](https://www.rentanott.com/blogs/2k-video-resolution) - [Pricing](https://www.rentanott.com/pricing) ## Frequently asked questions ### How many rungs should a bitrate ladder have? Four to seven suits most services. Add rungs at the top for 4K and keep at least one very low rung for weak connections. ### Should vertical video use a different ladder? Yes. Define the rungs in portrait dimensions, such as 1080 by 1920 and 720 by 1280, instead of rotating a landscape ladder. ### Does every rung need to be a different resolution? No. Two rungs can share a resolution at different bitrates, which is common at 1080p for large screens on varying connections. All 163 terms: [Streaming and OTT glossary](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary). ## Book a demo Tell RentAnOTT what you are launching. The team walks through the platform and maps the path to go-live around your catalog, markets and revenue model. Book a demo: https://www.rentanott.com/contact ## More from RentAnOTT - [Home](https://www.rentanott.com/index.md) — What RentAnOTT is, what every plan includes, and how launch works - [Features](https://www.rentanott.com/features.md) — Every core feature and optional add-on - [Pricing](https://www.rentanott.com/pricing.md) — Platform tiers, apps, add-ons, usage rates and example bills in INR and USD - [Free tools](https://www.rentanott.com/tools.md) — OTT app builder and calculators for streaming revenue, bandwidth, bitrate and pricing - [Insights](https://www.rentanott.com/blogs.md) — All streaming business articles - [Glossary](https://www.rentanott.com/glossary.md) — Definitions of streaming and OTT terms - [Book a demo](https://www.rentanott.com/contact.md) — Talk to RentAnOTT about your launch Full site in one file: https://www.rentanott.com/llms-full.txt