Streaming bandwidth & CDN cost calculator

Estimate how much data your streaming service will deliver each month, what it costs on your CDN, how much storage your catalog needs and the peak bandwidth your live events require.

Audience

Monthly active viewers

Watch hours per viewer

h/mo

Streaming apps commonly see 5–20 hours per active viewer.

Quality mix

Share of viewing hours delivered at each quality. Values are normalized to 100%.

Codec

SD 480p

HD 720p

Full HD 1080p

4K 2160p

Average delivered bitrate: 5 Mbps

Pricing

CDN price per GB

Flat-rate example: ZeroBuffer lists $0.0049/GB in every region (checked October 2026). Most CDNs charge more outside North America and Europe.

Catalog size

hours

Storage per GB-month

Live streaming (optional)

Live hours per month

Set to 0 if you only stream on demand.

Avg. concurrent viewers

Peak concurrent viewers

Monthly delivery & storage$13.6K$162.7K per year

Data delivered447.75 TBPer month, VOD + live

Cost per viewer$0.678$0.0678 per viewing hour

Live peak egress14.9 GbpsAt 3,000 concurrent viewers

Monthly cost breakdown

VOD delivery$13.4K

Live delivery$0

Storage$129.38

Details

VOD data	447.75 TB
Live data	0 GB
Stored renditions	5.63 TB
Average bitrate (H.264)	5 Mbps
Switching to HEVC saves	$5,373/mo

Skip the infrastructure build-out.

RentAnOTT ships with adaptive encoding up to 4K, CDN delivery and auto-scaling AWS infrastructure for VOD and live, sized to your audience from day one. Bring these numbers to a demo and we'll map them to your launch.

Estimates only. CDN pricing varies by region, volume tier and contract. Excludes encoding, DRM licensing, origin egress and player overhead.

The formula behind the numbers

Streaming cost is driven by data delivered. One viewing hour at 1 Mbps transfers 0.45 GB (3,600 seconds ÷ 8 bits per byte ÷ 1,000). So the monthly total is:

viewers × watch hours × average bitrate × 0.45 = GB per month

Multiply by your CDN price per GB for delivery cost. Storage is smaller: each hour of catalog is stored once for every rendition in your adaptive bitrate ladder.

What moves your bill

Quality mix. A 4K hour costs about 10× an SD hour. Defaulting mobile users to 720p can cut costs sharply with little visible loss.
Codec. HEVC and AV1 deliver similar quality at lower bitrates. See the video bitrate calculator for recommended ladders.
Region and volume. CDN prices differ by continent and drop with committed volume.
Live peaks. Live events add data and also need capacity for the peak moment, not just the average.

Put delivery cost in context

Delivery is usually a small share of revenue once you price correctly. Compare your cost per viewer with revenue per user in the OTT revenue calculator, and read our live streaming player guide for how players and formats affect delivery.

FAQ

Common questions

How much bandwidth does one hour of streaming use?

Data per hour equals bitrate × 0.45. At 3 Mbps (720p H.264) one viewing hour uses about 1.35 GB; at 5.5 Mbps (1080p) about 2.5 GB; at 15 Mbps (4K) about 6.75 GB. HEVC and AV1 cut those numbers by roughly 40–50%.

How do I estimate CDN cost for a streaming service?

Multiply monthly viewers by watch hours and average bitrate to get data delivered, convert it to GB, then multiply by your CDN price per GB. Add storage for every rendition in your catalog. The calculator does all of this and splits VOD from live.

How much does a CDN charge per GB?

Prices range widely: some flat-rate CDNs list under $0.005 per GB in every region, low-cost CDNs often charge around $0.01 per GB in North America and Europe, while hyperscaler list prices are closer to $0.08–0.09 per GB for the first tiers. Asia, Latin America and Africa usually cost more, and committed volume brings prices down.

What is peak egress and why does it matter for live streaming?

Peak egress is the bandwidth needed at the busiest moment of a live event: concurrent viewers × bitrate. 10,000 viewers at 5 Mbps need 50 Gbps. Your CDN and origin must handle that peak, not just the monthly total.

Does switching codecs really reduce streaming costs?

Yes. HEVC typically needs about 40% less bitrate than H.264 for similar quality, and AV1 about 50% less. Delivery cost scales with bitrate, but you need devices that can decode the newer codec, so most services keep an H.264 fallback.

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