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Estimating pricing for Twilio Programmable Video

Twilio's Programmable Video has no minimum fees, and only charges for what you use. This guide gives pricing information and estimates for a number of different use cases. The following Programmable Video products are covered:

Notice: The estimates here are based on list pricing, but volume discounts are available. For full details, see the Programmable Video pricing page, or contact a Twilio Video expert.

Rooms and participants

Twilio Programmable Video pricing is based on two core concepts:

  • A Room represents a real-time audio, video, and/or screen-share session, and is the basic building block for a Programmable Video application. For a breakdown of the different room types, see Understanding Video Rooms (Twilio Docs).
  • A Participant represents client applications that are connected to a Room, and sharing audio and/or video media to the Room.

For full details on Programmable Video concepts, see our Twilio Video Basic Concepts Guide (Twilio Docs). 

WebRTC Go Rooms

Twilio's introductory Video WebRTC Go Rooms use peer-to-peer topology and are similar to P2P Rooms.  Video WebRTC Go Rooms are free of charge with the following limitations:

  • Rooms may only have up to two participants
  • Unlimited TURN relay
  • Two days of Video Insights
  • Unlimited Datatracks
  • Maximum of 500 concurrent participants at a time per account; i.e: 250 rooms with 2 participants

 

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Rooms

P2P Rooms are billed at $0.0015 per Participant minute.

Participants are billed only for the time they are connected to a room, whether or not they are communicating. Participants are not charged for the bandwidth used, and/or the number of media tracks published or subscribed from the room.

Example Scenario Pricing
2 Participants in a P2P Room for 15 minutes $0.0015/min x 2 Participants x 15 min =
Total: $0.045
2 Participants communicating in HD in a P2P Room for 15 minutes $0.0015/min x 2 Participants x 15 min =
Total: $0.045
2 Participants communicating only audio in a P2P Room for 15 minutes $0.0015/min x 2 Participants x 15 min =
Total: $0.045
2 Participants behind a Symmetric NAT or Firewall that requires TURN relay in a P2P Room for 15 minutes $0.0015/min x 2 Participants x 15 min =
Total: $0.045
3 Participants with 1 communicating audio and video, and 2 only listening in a P2P Room for 30 minutes $0.0015/min x 3 Participants x 30 min =
Total: $0.135
3 Participants in a P2P Room where the 1st is connected for 30 minutes, the 2nd is connected for 15 minutes, and the 3rd is connected for 20 minutes $0.0015/min x (30min + 15min + 20min) =
Total: $0.0975

Please note that our billing system rounds up to the nearest minute. For example, a Participant connected for 21 minutes and 5 seconds would be charged for 22 participant minutes.

Group Rooms

Group Rooms are billed at $0.004 per Participant minute.

Participants are billed only for the time they are connected to a room, whether or not they are communicating. Participants are not charged for the bandwidth used, and/or the number of media tracks published or subscribed from the room. This pricing applies to both Small Group Rooms (up to 4 Participants) and standard Group Rooms (Up to 50 Participants).

Example Scenario Pricing
2 Participants in a Group Room for 15 minutes $0.004/min x 2 Participants x 15 min =
Total: $0.12
6 Participants in a Group Room - 1 and 2 connect the first 15 minutes, 3 and 4 connect 10 minutes late, and stay connected for 20 additional minutes, 5 and 6 connect only for the last 5 minutes. $0.004/min x (15min + 15min + 20min + 20min + 5min + 5min) =
Total: $0.32
15 Participants in a Group Room for 60 minutes $0.004/min x 15 Participants x 60 min =
Total: $3.60
51 Participants in a Group Room for 20 minutes, with the 51st attempting to join during the last 5 minutes $0.004/min x 50 Participants x 20 min =
Total: $4.00*

*The 51st Participant is unable to connect due to the 50 Participant limit in a standard Group Room, and is not billed.

Please note, we recommend developers use standard Group Rooms, as they're the same cost as a Small Group Room, but don't have the small Given both Group Rooms and Small Group Rooms are charged at the same rate, we recommend developers use Group Rooms.

Audio-Only Group Rooms

The differences between using Audio-Only Group Rooms and regular Group Rooms is that

  • Rooms will not allow video tracks and/or screencasts
  • Data tracks are permitted
  • The price is $0.0016 per participant minute

Group Room Recording

Group Room Recording is billed at $0.004 per recorded Participant minute. This charge is in addition to the standard Group Room Participant rate.

Billing for Group Room recording begins once a Participant publishes any media track - audio webcam/video, screencast, etc. - and continues as long as media tracks are being published. Recording for Group Rooms must be enabled when the Room is created. Once recording is enabled, all Participants of the Room will have all tracks they publish recorded.

Example Scenario Pricing
2 Participants communicating audio and video in a recorded Group Room for 20 minutes $0.004/min x 2 Participants x (20min Room rate + 20min Recording rate) =
Total: $0.32
3 Participants in a recorded Group Room for 20 minutes - 1 sends audio for only 5 minutes, 2 sends audio, video, and screen share for 20 minutes, 3 sends audio for 20 minutes, but their microphone is muted for 18 minutes. $0.004/min x (20min + 20min + 20min Room rate + 5min +20min + 20min Recording rate) =
Total: $0.42

Recording Compositions

Group Room Recording Compositions are billed at $0.01 per Composition minute.

Compositions combine the multiple tracks published to a recorded Group Room into a single file for playback or archiving. Compositions are billed by the duration of the final composed media file output, rather than the duration, number, or nature of the source media recordings.

Example Scenario Pricing
A 10-minute long Composition mixing audio and video tracks from 12 different Participants $0.01/min x 10 min =
Total: $0.10
A 10-minute long Composition mixing only 1 audio track from 1 Participant $0.01/min x 10 min =
Total: $0.10

Media Storage

The first 10GB of Recordings and/or Compositions on Twilio's Servers is complimentary. For media storage greater than 10GB, is an additional $0.00167 GB/day.

To avoid additional storage charges, we recommend regularly downloading any media files you wish to keep, and then deleting the records. If the recordings and / or compositions are stored externally onto Amazon’s S3 servers, they will not incur this charge. See Storing into AWS S3 (Twilio Docs) for full details.

Media Encryption

Additional Media Encryption for both Recordings and Compositions is included in the Enterprise Edition Plan.

Media Downloads

Unlimited downloading of Video recordings and Compositions stored on Twilio's Servers is now included with Group Rooms Recording. For full details, see Programmable Video REST API: Recordings (Twilio Docs).

DataTracks in Group Rooms

DataTracks enable the exchange of low latency messages in Group Rooms. Unlimited Data Track usage is included with Group Rooms. For full details, see our guides for each SDK on twilio.com/docs:

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