Overview
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.
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.
What You Need To Know
Rooms and participants π
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).
Group Rooms π
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.
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.
Group Room Recording π
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 π
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 π
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 Amazonβs S3 servers, they will not incur this charge. See Storing into AWS S3 (Twilio Docs) for full details.
Media Encryption π
Additional Media Encryption for both Recordings and Compositions is included in the Enterprise Edition Plan.
Media Downloads π
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 π
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: