Understanding Mux Pricing

Read this guide to understand how Mux Video and Mux Robots pricing works. It explains input, storage, and delivery rates, plus the levers and add-ons that control your costs.

In this guide:

• Mux Video - Learn how Mux Video charges for input, storage, and delivery, and how video quality levels affect the price.
• Mux Robots - Understand how Mux Robots is priced, and what each AI workflow costs in units and dollars.
• Pricing levers and add-ons - Explore additional ways to modify your costs and do more with your assets such as volume discounts, resolution tiers, and paid add-ons like DRM.
• FAQs - Get answers to the most common pricing questions.

Start with the video you upload and store, then add the workflows your product uses, such as streaming to viewers or processing videos with Mux Robots. Estimate new input minutes and the duration of your retained library separately from delivered minutes and Robots usage. A library used for AI processing can have little or no delivery, while a small streaming library can have substantial delivery.

For on-demand upload and playback, basic quality is the default for new accounts and has free input. Live streaming requires plus or premium quality. Resolution also affects pricing; use your actual upload resolution and expected playback resolutions when estimating.

Each month includes 100,000 free delivery minutes and 100,000 free Mux Robots units for AI workflows. Pay as you go also includes a $20 monthly usage credit, and prepaid plans offer other credit amounts.

Pay as you go, prepaid credits, and contracts

• Pay as you go: the tables below include automatic volume tiers. Each rate applies to the minutes within that tier, rather than to all minutes at the final tier's rate.
• Prepaid credits: Launch and Scale plans apply their credits to usage calculated at the published rates. See how credits work.
• Custom contracts: separately negotiated rates for larger workloads. These are distinct from the automatic discounts in the tables.

The published tables show pay-as-you-go rates, including automatic volume discounts. Mux also offers custom contract pricing for larger workloads, with additional discounts available above $3,000/month. Contract rates are negotiated separately and aren't published in these tables.

For an estimate, separate existing library duration, new uploads, retention, and monthly delivery. The estimation guide explains these inputs, including migrations and live streaming. Mux Robots is priced separately, in units, based on the AI jobs that you run on your videos.

Mux Video

Mux Video pricing is made up of input, storage, and delivery. Let's start with input.

Input

Videos can come in all sorts of different formats, containers, codecs, or countless other variations. When a video is uploaded to Mux, we process it and create a high-quality, standardized version of the video through a process called "encoding." We use that standardized version to deliver any number of bitrates and resolutions based on the viewer's needs, but more on that later.

Mux supports a configurable video quality level on each asset, with three levels, basic, plus, and premium.

The basic video quality level uses a reduced encoding ladder, with a lower target video quality, suitable for simpler video use cases. There is no charge for video input when using basic quality. Basic assets are optimized for video use cases with simpler streaming needs, such as social or user-generated content, where high encoding costs may limit your business model.

The plus video quality level encodes your video at a consistent high-quality level. Assets encoded with the plus quality use an AI-powered per-title encoding technology that boosts bitrates for high-complexity content, ensuring high-quality video, while reducing bitrates for lower-complexity content to save bandwidth without sacrificing on quality. The plus quality level incurs a cost per video minute of encoding.

The premium video quality level uses the same AI-powered per-title encoding technology as plus, but is tuned to optimize for the presentation of premium media content, where the superior video quality is required, including use cases such as studio or cinematic projects. The premium quality level incurs a higher cost per video minute of encoding.

Live Streams are not available with the basic video quality level; Mux only supports plus and premium video quality levels for Live Streams.

The default video quality level for assets in new accounts is basic. You can configure your organization's default video quality level in the Settings pane in the dashboard, or after confirming the payment method when you change your plan. This configuration option is only available to account admins. You can also override the default video quality level on a per-asset basis at the time of asset creation.

Learn more about setting video quality levels.

Mux charges by minute of video encoded.

Basic quality input

On-demand video only.

Plus quality input

Live video is supported up to 1080p and on-demand video up to 4K.

Pricing is per minute.

1. Pay-as-you-go rates include automatic volume tiers. Custom contract rates are negotiated separately, with additional discounts available above $3,000/month.

Premium quality input

Live video is supported up to 1080p, on-demand video up to 4K.

Pricing is per minute.

1. Pay-as-you-go rates include automatic volume tiers. Custom contract rates are negotiated separately, with additional discounts available above $3,000/month.

Advanced static rendition (MP4s) preparation

Advanced static renditions are priced per minute of content, per static rendition, based on the resolution of the static rendition that is generated.

Note that there is no charge for generating standard static rendition MP4s. See the enabling static MP4 renditions guide for more information.

Basic and plus quality advanced static rendition preparation

Premium quality advanced static rendition preparation

Storage

When we talked about input, we mentioned that Mux creates a single, high-quality, standardized version of each video. That step is when most traditional video solutions or providers will create all the different versions of your video for streaming to different devices, which means storing all those different versions indefinitely. Mux, on the other hand, only creates and stores one version of your video because Mux is able to deliver the right versions of the video when your viewers need it.

With Automatic Cold Storage, Mux automatically applies discounts to infrequently accessed assets.

Storage is calculated by minute of video stored. Storage is prorated by the percentage of the month that the video is stored. For example, if a 10-minute asset is stored for only half a month, you will be charged for only 5 minutes.

The cost of video storage also includes the storage of primary audio, metadata, and captions. When you pay for the storage of a video, you can also transcode or transmux to normalize inputs, create metadata or thumbnails, and access it in the dashboard or through the API.

Mux Live Streams have the choice to use the plus or premium quality level. Mux offers live streaming up to 1080p.

Mux will automatically start creating an on-demand asset in the background when you begin broadcasting to your live stream. These assets are created and stored as assets with the video quality level you chose for encoding.

Basic and plus quality storage

Basic quality level assets have a minimum storage charge of one month and are prorated thereafter. Basic supports on-demand video only, up to 4K. Plus quality level does not have a minimum storage charge. Plus supports Live video supported up to 1080p and on-demand video up to 4K.

Pricing is per minute per month.

1. Pay-as-you-go rates include automatic volume tiers. Custom contract rates are negotiated separately, with additional discounts available above $3,000/month.

Premium quality storage

Live video supported up to 1080p and on-demand video up to 4K.

Pricing is per minute per month.

1. Pay-as-you-go rates include automatic volume tiers. Custom contract rates are negotiated separately, with additional discounts available above $3,000/month.

Static rendition (MP4s) storage

Static renditions are priced per minute of content, per static rendition, per month stored. The pricing is also based on the resolution of the static rendition.

Static rendition storage also benefits from the automatic cold storage feature when content is not viewed, see Automatic Cold Storage for more information.

Basic and plus quality static rendition storage

Premium quality static rendition storage

Automatic cold storage

With Automatic Cold Storage, we programmatically transition a video or audio-only asset to a different storage level based on how long it has been since it was last viewed. The colder the asset gets, the lower the billing rate becomes.

An asset transitions to Infrequent if it has not been played in the last 30 days, and will receive a 40% discount off of the applicable usage-based rate.

An asset transitions to Cold if it has not been played in the last 90 days, and will receive a 60% discount off of the applicable usage-based rate.

When an asset is first created, it instantly transitions into the Cold tier until the first time it is played.

All assets, including those with static rendition (MP4s) enabled, are eligible for Automatic Cold Storage. Viewing an asset through either the static rendition or the HLS URL will reset the cold storage timer for the entire asset.

Note: Downloading a master of an asset in infrequent or cold storage will cause the asset to be returned to the frequent storage class, and the cold storage timer to be reset.

Basic and plus quality automatic cold storage

Pricing is per minute per month.

Premium quality automatic cold storage

Pricing is per minute per month.

Basic and plus quality static rendition automatic cold storage

Pricing is per minute per month.

Premium quality static rendition automatic cold storage

Pricing is per minute per month.

Delivery

When someone wants to watch a video on Mux, we use a process called “just-in-time encoding,” where we turn that standard, single video file into any number of bitrates and resolutions based on the viewer's needs. This process happens instantly.

In order to deliver video, Mux partners with multiple CDNs. Videos are delivered over HTTP-based streaming formats like HLS. Video can be delivered to all major video players. If you're looking for a place to start with players, we suggest Mux Player. Mux Data is included with delivery, giving you the ability to monitor your video, including user engagement and quality of experience.

Cost is per minute of video delivered. To calculate video delivered, we measure the number of seconds of video delivered to a video player. Note that if a segment of video is delivered, it is charged, even if the viewer doesn't actually watch the video. For example, if a video player buffers 20 seconds of video ahead of the player, Mux Video still has to deliver those 20 seconds regardless of whether they are watched, and so those seconds are charged.

Mux Live Streams have the choice to use the plus or premium quality level. Mux offers live streaming up to 1080p.

Basic and plus quality delivery

Basic quality level assets support on-demand video only, up to 4K. Plus quality level supports live video up to 1080p, on-demand video up to 4K.

The first 100,000 minutes delivered each month, regardless of quality or resolution, are free.

Pricing is per minute.

1. Pay-as-you-go rates include automatic volume tiers. Custom contract rates are negotiated separately, with additional discounts available above $3,000/month.

Premium quality delivery

Live video supported up to 1080p, on-demand video up to 4K.

The first 100,000 minutes delivered each month, regardless of quality or resolution, are free.

Pricing is per minute.

1. Pay-as-you-go rates include automatic volume tiers. Custom contract rates are negotiated separately, with additional discounts available above $3,000/month.

Mux Robots

Mux Robots hosts AI workflows that allow you to extract structured data from your Mux assets. You can use the Mux dashboard or send a single API request with an asset ID.

Mux Robots is available to all Mux Video customers. The first 100,000 units each month are free.

Like with input, storage, and delivery, your usage credits ($20/month PAYG credit, pre-paid plans credits, or contract usage credits) are applicable to the use of Mux Robots.

Mux Robots is currently available for on-demand assets only.

Learn more about how to use Mux Robots.

Terminology

Mux Robots is organized in the following way:

Workflows — the desired work you would like Mux Robots to complete (e.g. translate captions, summarize an asset).

Jobs — running a workflow one time on one asset.

Minutes — the actual duration of your video assets. Durations are not rounded up to the nearest minute when calculating usage.

Workflow modifiers

Some Mux Robots workflows have additional modifiers that can be tuned to refine the output of the workflow, which impacts the cost of that workflow:

Ask questions — you can choose how many questions are being asked per job.

Moderate — you can adjust the image sampling interval.

Mux Video resources

Some Mux Robots workflows depend on Mux Video resources, such as Shots or a static rendition. When a workflow relies on one of these, you may incur additional Mux Video costs, billed independently from your Mux Robots unit usage.

Find scenes — uses the Shots primitive, billed at $0.001 per input minute.

Generate premium captions — uses an audio-only static rendition to process the asset's audio. If the asset doesn't already have one, the workflow creates a temporary rendition and deletes it when the job completes, so there's only a small Mux Video cost incurred. See static rendition pricing.

Mux Robots pricing

Mux Robots workflows are priced in units.

Units account for resource usage across multiple dimensions. They are generally accrued based on the duration of the asset and the complexity of the Mux Robots workflow. Units are not 1:1 in value for any particular AI model, as Mux Robots runs on a variety of multi-modal AI models.

In the Mux dashboard, you can see how many units an individual function consumes after it's run, as well as your overall Mux Robots usage.

On your Mux invoice, you will see your aggregate Mux Robots usage in units, as well as the conversion to dollars.

The first 100,000 units each month are free, after that 1,000 units is equal to $0.01.

Pricing levers and add-ons

Mux offers a few ways to suit your pricing to your use case: pricing levers you can pull to move our standard encoding, storage, and delivery pricing up and down, and add-ons you can use to do more with your assets.

Video quality level

The first pricing lever you should consider is video quality level. Whether you should pick basic, plus, or premium video quality depends on your streaming needs. Read more in the Input section.

Resolution-based pricing

Resolution-based pricing tiers are determined by the number of pixels in the video, calculated by multiplying height by width. Tiers apply to encoding, storage, and delivery. An asset may be delivered in multiple resolutions, in which case it will be billed based on minutes delivered in each resolution. Resolution-based discounts are automatically applied.

You can control what resolution gets played with playback modifiers.

2K and 4K resolutions are available for on-demand assets only.

Volume discounts

Automatic volume discounts in these tables apply to usage within each tier and pricing category. They are separate from prepaid credits and custom contract rates.

You have a total of 300,000 stored minutes. They're broken down into the following:

• 5,000 basic minutes at 720p
• 55,000 basic minutes at 1080p
• 100,000 plus minutes at 1080p
• 140,000 plus minutes at 4K

Audio-only

All on-demand audio-only assets and alternate audio tracks are calculated at 1/10th the cost of 720p basic video for storage and delivery, and 1/10th the cost of 720p plus video for input, no matter quality level assigned to that asset.

When an asset is set to the basic quality level, input is free for both audio-only and video assets.

Your free first 100,000 minutes delivered each month include video and audio minutes.

Auto-generated live captions

6,000 minutes per month free. $0.024 per minute after.

Live simulcasting

$0.020 per minute per simulcast target.

Multi-track audio

The primary audio track uploaded with your video file will be included with the encoding, storage, and delivery cost as part of your video. Any additional audio tracks uploaded will be charged at the audio-only rates for encoding, storage, and delivery.

Shots

$0.001 per input minute.

Shots is a Mux Video primitive that detects simple visual boundaries in a video. Shots produces a manifest of the timestamps of the shot boundaries along with a preview image of that shot.

Static renditions (MP4s)

Static renditions are a paid add-on feature.

Static renditions come in two types: standard and advanced. Standard static renditions are free to generate, while advanced static renditions are charged per minute of preparation.

Digital Rights Management (DRM)

DRM is an add-on feature to Mux Video, with a $100/month access fee + $0.003 "per license", and discounts available for high volumes. For more details on DRM licenses, see our DRM pricing documentation.

FAQs

What's the difference between the pay as you go plan and pre-pay credits?

When you pre-pay for credits you get Mux usage at a discounted rate. For example, with Launch credits you get $100 of monthly usage for $20 a month or Scale credits, $1000 of monthly usage for $500 a month.

If pricing is per minute, what happens if I upload a 30-second video?

You pay for the exact number of seconds of video. We don't have a minimum or round to the nearest minute.

Do I pay for every quality/bitrate that is delivered?

No - if you encode a two-minute video, you pay for two minutes, even if Mux Video delivers that same video in 8 different formats or qualities.

Is support included in my price?

Our engineers provide hands-on support via email and chat for everyone. We also offer support packages with Slack and phone support.

How does Mux Data fit in?

As a Mux Video customer, monitoring your views with Mux Data is included at no additional charge as long as the videos are hosted on Mux. You have access to all data features available on the Data Pay As You Go Plan.

Do you offer non-profit discounts?

We offer one-time credits for non-profit customers to help them start using Mux.

Do you offer custom, contract pricing?

Yes! We do have custom plans that are well-suited for scaling and enterprise customers. These plans begin at $3,000/month.

Do you charge for MP4 downloads?

Yes, see the Static Renditions (MP4s) section for more information.

Does Low-Latency Live Streaming cost extra?

Nope! At Mux, all live streamed video, whether it's standard or low latency, have the same pricing.

Estimating Mux Video costs Report on Mux costs