Billing Details

Traffic and Bandwidth

LVB is billed according to the downstream traffic/bandwidth generated during video streams.

LVB provides two billing modes: bill-by-traffic and bill-by-bandwidth, both of which are daily pay-as-you-go. You can choose the billing mode that best suits your needs. The default mode for new users is bill-by-traffic.

Bill-by-Traffic

LVB bill-by-traffic utilizes tiered pricing with a daily billing cycle. See the table below for rates:

The conversion scale for traffic/bandwidth is 1000; for example, 1 TB = 1,000 GB.

Billing description:

• Billable item: downstream traffic generated by LVB video streams in Mainland China.
• Billing mode: pay-as-you-go.
• Billing cycle: daily billing cycle. Traffic fees for the day will be deducted at 10 AM the next day. See the billing statement for details.
• Billing rules: fees are calculated by multiplying the accumulated traffic on a calendar day by the unit price in the corresponding tier.
• Calculation formula:
  • Consumed traffic = LVB bitrate / 8 * duration * average number of viewers.
  • Traffic fees = consumed traffic * unit price per GB in the tier corresponding to the accumulated downstream traffic on the day.

Billing example:

• Suppose a LVB session lasts for two hours at a bitrate of 1 Mbps (which is the sum of audio bitrate and video bitrate; if you enable transcoding and set a specific bitrate, the value set is only the video bitrate, and you need to add the audio bitrate when calculating the traffic) and has 100 viewers, the traffic consumed will approximately be:
  1 (Mbps) / 8 * 7200 (s) * 100 (viewers) = 90,000 (MB) = 90 GB.
• Suppose this LVB session was held on January 1, 2019, the LVB traffic fees you need to pay on January 2 are as follows:
  Daily traffic fees = 0.0459 (USD/GB) * 90 (GB) = 4.131 USD.

Bill-by-Bandwidth

LVB bill-by-bandwidth utilizes tiered pricing billed by the daily peak bandwidth with a daily billing cycle. See the table below for rates:

The conversion scale for traffic/bandwidth is 1000; for example, 1 TB = 1,000 GB.

Billing description:

• Billable item: downstream bandwidth generated by LVB video streams in Mainland China.
• Billing mode: pay-as-you-go.
• Billing cycle: daily billing cycle. Bandwidth fees for the day will be deducted at 10 AM the next day. Please see the billing statement for details.
• Billing rules: fees are calculated by multiplying the peak bandwidth on a calendar day by the unit price in the corresponding tier.

Billing example:

• Suppose a LVB session lasts for one hour at a bitrate of 500 Kbps (which is the sum of audio bitrate and video bitrate; if you enable transcoding and set a specific bitrate, the value set is only the video bitrate, and you need to add the audio bitrate when calculating the bandwidth) and has 100 viewers, the bandwidth consumed will approximately be:
  500 (Kbps) * 100 = 50000 (Kbps) = 50 Mbps.
• Suppose this LVB session was held on January 1, 2019, the LVB bandwidth fees you need to pay on January 2 are as follows:
  Daily bandwidth fees = 0.1129 (USD/Mbps/Day) * 50 (Mbps) = 5.645 USD.

If you have a large-scale live streaming business and the consumption of Tencent Cloud resources has exceeded or is expected to exceed 10,000 USD, a daily billing mode may not meet your needs. Please contact the Tencent Cloud sales team or submit a ticket to discuss your options.

Global Acceleration

The global traffic and bandwidth statistics in LVB record the downstream traffic and bandwidth generated by connecting users and global acceleration origin servers. LVB provides two billing modes: bill-by-traffic and bill-by-bandwidth, both of which are daily pay-as-you-go. The default mode for new users is bill-by-traffic.

Global bill-by-traffic

Global LVB bill-by-traffic utilizes tiered pricing with a daily billing cycle. See the table below for rates:

The conversion scale for traffic/bandwidth is 1000; for example, 1 TB = 1,000 GB.

Billing description:

• Billable item: downstream traffic generated by LVB video streams outside Mainland China.
• Billing mode: pay-as-you-go.
• Billing cycle: daily billing cycle. Traffic fees for the day will be deducted at 10 AM the next day. See the billing statement for details.
• Billing rules: fees are calculated by multiplying the accumulated traffic on a calendar day by the unit price in the corresponding tier.

Billing example:
Suppose you held a global LVB session on January 1, 2019 and generated 1 TB of downstream traffic, the LVB traffic fees you need to pay on January 2, 2019 are as follows:
Daily traffic fees = 0.759 (USD/GB) * 1000 (GB) = 75.9 USD.

Global bill-by-bandwidth

Global LVB bill-by-bandwidth utilizes tiered pricing billed by the daily peak bandwidth with a daily billing cycle. See the table below for rates:

Billing description:

• Billable item: downstream bandwidth generated by LVB video streams outside Mainland China.
• Billing mode: pay-as-you-go.
• Billing cycle: daily billing cycle. Bandwidth fees for the day will be deducted at 10 AM the next day. Please see the billing statement for details.
• Billing rules: fees are calculated by multiplying the peak bandwidth on a calendar day by the unit price in the corresponding tier.

Billing example:
Suppose you held a global LVB session on January 1, 2019 and generated 600 Mbps of downstream bandwidth, the LVB bandwidth fees you need to pay on January 2 are as follows:
Daily bandwidth fees = 0.2118 (USD/Mbps) * 600 (Mbps) = 127.08 USD.

LVB Transcoding

LVB provides standard transcoding and top speed codec transcoding services which are billed according to the encoding method used, live stream resolution (i.e., live stream video image size), and transcoding duration. The transcoding feature is disabled by default and can be enabled via the LVB Console or TencentCloud API if needed.
If you use the watermarking or stream mixing feature, transcoding fees will also be incurred, and the resolution will be the same as the resolution of the watermarked live stream. The prices of standard transcoding and top speed codec transcoding are as follows:

Standard transcoding

• For example, if the width is 1280 and the height is 480, the video will be recorded as 720p. The greater value is always taken to be the width.
• Transcoding fees = price * transcoding duration. If no transcoding service is used, no fees will be incurred.

Billing description:

• Billable item: duration of LVB transcoding (or the duration of stream mix or the watermarked live stream if the stream mix or watermark feature is enabled).
• Billing mode: pay-as-you-go.
• Billing cycle: daily billing cycle. The fees for the day will be deducted at 10 AM the next day. For users on a monthly billing cycle, this month's transcoding bill will be generated between the 1st and 5th day of the next month.
• Billing rules: fees are calculated by multiplying the transcoding duration of different codecs and resolutions on a calendar day by the corresponding unit price.

Billing example:
Suppose you use the LVB transcoding and watermarking service on January 1, 2019, where live stream A is transcoded to H.264_720P for one hour and live stream B is watermarked at 480p for 30 minutes, the LVB transcoding fees you need to pay on January 2, 2019 are as follows:
Daily LVB transcoding fees = 0.0057 (USD/minute) * 60 (minutes) + 0.0028 (USD/minute) * 30 (minutes) = 0.426 USD.

Top speed codec transcoding

• Transcoding fees = price * transcoding duration.

Billing description:

• Billable item: duration of live stream transcoded to top speed codec.
• Billing mode: pay-as-you-go.
• Billing cycle: daily billing cycle. The fees for a day will be deducted at 10 AM the next day. For users on a monthly billing cycle, this month's transcoding bill will be generated between the 1st and 5th day of the next month.
• Billing rules: fees are calculated by multiplying the top speed codec transcoding duration on a calendar day based on the top speed codec resolution by the corresponding unit price.

Billing example:
Suppose you use the top speed codec transcoding service on January 1, 2019, where live stream A is transcoded to top speed codec H264_720P for one hour and live stream B is transcoded to top speed codec H264_480P for 30 minutes, the LVB top speed codec transcoding fees you need to pay on January 2, 2019 are as follows:
Daily LVB top speed codec transcoding fees = 0.0222 (USD/minute) * 60 (minutes) + 0.0116 (USD/minute) * 30 (minutes) = 1.68 USD.

If you have a large-scale live streaming business and the daily billing mode cannot meet your needs, please contact the Tencent Cloud sales team or submit a ticket to discuss your options.

LVB Recording

LVB can record and store live streams in VOD, which will incur VOD fees. The recording feature is disabled by default and can be enabled in the console or through TencentCloud API. This is a paid feature and fees are calculated based on the peak number of concurrent LVB recording channels in the current month. Detailed prices are as follows:

Billing description:

• Billable item: number of LVB recording channels.
• Billing mode: pay-as-you-go.
• Billing cycle: monthly billing cycle. The current month's bill will be generated between the 1st and 5th day of the next month. See the billing statement for details.
• Billing rules: fees are calculated by multiplying the peak number of concurrent LVB recording channels in a calendar month by the unit price. One recording file is counted as one channel of recording stream. For example, if MP4 and HLS files are recorded for the same stream ID, they will be counted as two channels of recording streams.

Billing example:
A recording template is configured for domain names A and B in the LVB Console with 1 recording file format for the former and 2 formats for the latter. Domain name A has 11 LVB pushes on January 12, 2020 and has 10 pushes on other days. Domain name B has 1 LVB push on January 24, 2020.

• The number of peak recording channels on January 12, 2020 is 11. The calculation formula is: 11 channels for domain name A * 1 format + 0 channels for domain name B * 2 formats = 11 channels.
• The number of peak recording channels on January 24, 2020 is 12. The calculation formula is: 10 channels for domain name A * 1 format + 1 channel for domain name B * 2 formats = 12 channels.
• The maximum number of concurrent LVB push channels for this month is 12, and the LVB recording fees you need to pay for January 2020 are as follows:
  LVB recording fees for January = 5.2941 (USD/channel/month) * 12 channels = 63.5292 USD.

The recorded video files are stored in the VOD Console by default. After enabling the recording feature, please make sure that your VOD service is functioning; if it has not been activated or has been suspended due to account arrears, LVB recording will not be available, no recording files will be generated, and no recording fees will be incurred.

LVB Screencapturing

LVB can take screenshots of live streams. The screencapturing feature is disabled by default and can be enabled in the console or through TencentCloud API. The generated screenshots are stored in COS and will incur COS storage fees. For more information, please see COS Pricing. The first 1,000 screenshots are offered for free every month. Any additional screenshots taken will incur fees. The bill will be calculated according to the total number of screenshots taken for the month. See the following table for rates:

Billing description:

• Billable item: number of LVB screenshots.
• Billing mode: pay-as-you-go.
• Billing cycle: monthly billing cycle. The current month's bill will be generated between the 1st and 5th day of the next month. See the billing statement for details.
• Billing rules: fees are calculated by multiplying the total number of screenshots taken in a calendar month by the unit price.

Billing example:
Suppose you use the LVB screencapturing service from January 1 to February 1, 2019, and a total of 168,000 screenshots are taken in the month, the LVB screencapturing fees you need to pay on February 2, 2019 are as follows:
LVB screencapturing fees for January = 0.176 (USD/thousand screenshots) * (168 - 1) thousand screenshots = 2.9392 USD.

Intelligent Porn Detection

LVB can intelligently detect pornographic information in live streams. The porn detection feature is disabled by default and can be enabled in the console. Use of this feature will incur porn detection fees and screencapturing fees. The first 1,000 porn detection screenshots are offered for free every month. Any additional screenshots taken will incur fees. The bill will be calculated according to the total number of porn detection screenshots taken for the month. See the following table for rates: