Originally published at ffmpeg-micro.com

You've decided to use a video processing API instead of self-hosting FFmpeg. Good call. But now you're staring at five different pricing pages, and every service bills differently.

Some charge per minute of video processed. Others use a credit system where you need a spreadsheet to figure out how many credits a single transcode actually burns. And a few bundle encoding, storage, and delivery into separate line items that look cheap until your usage grows.

This post breaks down how FFmpeg Micro, Shotstack, Mux, Cloudinary, and AWS MediaConvert actually charge you, with real math for three workload sizes.

How Video Processing APIs Charge You

There are three pricing models in this space. Understanding them matters more than comparing sticker prices.

Per-minute plans allocate a monthly bucket of processing minutes. FFmpeg Micro, Shotstack, and AWS MediaConvert all use variations of this.…