This article introduces the billing policy for the cloud recording service provided by Agora.
Overview
Agora calculates the billing of all projects under your Agora account monthly.
Billing for the cloud recording service begins once you use Agora Cloud Recording to record and save audio calls, group video calls, or interactive video streaming made via the Agora RTC SDK on your cloud storage. On the first day of each month, Agora sends you the bill via email, and five days later deducts the payment from your account. For details, see Billing, fee deduction, and account suspension.
Composition
At the end of each month, Agora calculates the service minutes of video and audio used by your projects on a monthly basis and makes the following charges:
- Video charges: Apply when the recording server successfully records video in an RTC channel.
- Audio charges: Apply when the recording server does not record video in an RTC channel, regardless of whether the server records any audio.
Cost = video charges + audio charges = (video pricing × video service minutes) + (audio pricing × audio service minutes).
- If the recording server successfully records both audio and video at the same time, then Agora only charges for the video minutes.
- During a recording, the idle minutes are charged based on the audio pricing. The cost is the audio pricing × idle minutes.
Pricing
The pricing for audio and video are as follows:
| Service type | Pricing ($US/1,000 minutes) |
|---|---|
| Recording audio | $1.49 |
| Recording video |
|
Video aggregate resolution
Agora adds up the resolution of all the video streams recorded at the same time to get the aggregate resolution, which categorizes video as either HD or HD+:
- HD: The aggregate resolution is smaller than or equal to 921,600 (1280 × 720).
- HD+: The aggregate resolution is greater than 921,600 (1280 × 720).
Suppose that the recording server records the video of users A, B, C, and D in an RTC channel for 45 minutes. During the recording, the video resolution of the users changes, and the aggregate resolution is calculated as follows:
Phase 1
For the first 30 minutes, the recording server records the video of users A, B, and C. The video resolution of the users are as follows:
- Video from A: 640 × 360
- Video from B: 640 × 360
- Video from C: 640 × 360
The aggregate resolution: (640 × 360) + (640 × 360) + (640 × 360) = 691,200.
Since 691,200 is smaller than 921,600, the aggregate resolution for the first 30 minutes falls into the category of HD, and is charged $5.99/1,000 minutes.
Phase 2
For the last 15 minutes, the recording server records the video of users A, B, and D. The video resolution of the users are as follows:
- Video from A: 640 × 360
- Video from B: 240 × 180
- Video from D: 1280 × 720
The aggregate resolution: (640 × 360) + (240 × 180) + (1280 × 720) = 1,195,200.
Since 1,195,200 is greater than 921,600, the aggregate resolution for the last 15 minutes falls into the category of HD+, and is charged $22.49/1,000 minutes.
Service minutes
Service minutes (accurate to seconds) are calculated from the time when the recording starts to the time when the recording stops in a channel.
Service minutes comprise the following:
- Video minutes: The duration that the recording server records video in a channel.
- Audio minutes: The remaining duration after deducting the video minutes from the total duration when the recording server is in the channel, regardless of whether the recording server records any audio.
If you create a recording session and record multiple audio and video streams at the same time in a channel, the total service minutes per streams are not additive. For example:
- If a recording session records the video streams of both user A and user B for the same 10 minutes, the billing for the recording service is for 10 minutes of video.
- If a recording session records the audio stream of user A and the video stream of user B for the same 10 minutes, the billing for the recording service is also for 10 minutes of video.
If you create multiple recording sessions and record multiple audio and video streams at the same time in a channel, the total service minutes multiply by the number of recording sessions. For example:
- If you create two recording sessions to record the video streams of both user A and user B for the same 10 minutes, the billing for the recording service is for 10 minutes of video × 2.
- If you create two recording sessions to record the audio stream of user A and the video stream of user B for the same 10 minutes, the billing for the recording service is for 10 minutes of video × 2.
Examples
Use the following examples to better understand the billing policy for the Agora Cloud Recording service:
Video call with four users
Example 1
Scenario: Four users join the channel at the same time and have a video call for 1,000 minutes. One cloud recording session joins the channel and records only the audio streams of the four users.
Cost: The recording service generates only charges for the audio minutes.
Billing = Audio pricing × audio minutes/1,000 × the number of recording sessions = $1.49 × 1,000/1,000 × 1 = $1.49
Example 2
Scenario: Four users join the channel at the same time and have a video call for 1,000 minutes. Two cloud recording sessions join the channel and record only the audio streams of the four users.
Cost: The recording service generates only charges for the audio minutes.
Billing = Audio pricing × audio minutes/1,000 × the number of recording sessions = $1.49 × 1,000/1,000 × 2 = $2.98
Example 3
Scenario: Four users join the channel at the same time and have a video call for 1,000 minutes. One cloud recording session joins the channel and records the audio and video streams of the four users. The video resolution of each user is 640 × 360.
Cost: The recording service generates charges for the video minutes. The aggregate video resolution is 4 × (640 × 360) = 921,600, falling into the category of HD.
Billing = Video pricing × video minutes/1,000 × the number of recording sessions = $5.99 × 1,000/1,000 × 1 = $5.99
Voice call with five users
Scenario: Five users join the channel at the same time and have a video call for 1,000 minutes. One cloud recording session joins the channel and records the audio and video streams of the five users. The video resolution of each user is 640 × 360.
Cost: The recording service generates charges for the video minutes. The aggregate video resolution is 5 × (640 × 360) = 1,152,000, falling into the category of HD+.
Billing = Video pricing × video minutes/1,000 × the number of recording sessions= $22.49 × 1,000/1,000 × 1= $22.49
Considerations
Accuracy of service minutes
At the end of each month, Agora adds up the usage duration (in seconds) of audio, HD video, and HD+ video, and divides them by 60 to get the respective service minutes (rounded up to the next integer). For example, if the duration of audio service of the month is 59 seconds, then the audio service minutes is calculated as 1 minute; if the duration of video service is 61 seconds, then the video service minutes is calculated as 2 minutes. The error of service minutes for each month is within 1 minute.
Video resolution in the dual-stream scenario
When the user being recorded enables dual-stream mode, the recording service can receive only one stream at a time:
- If the recording server records the high-quality video stream, the aggregate video resolution is calculated based on the resolution of the high-quality video.
- If the recording server records the low-quality video stream, the aggregate video resolution is calculated based on the resolution of the video received by the server.
Resolution calibration
When calculating the aggregate resolution, Agora counts the resolution of 225,280 (640 × 352) as 640 × 360.
Q&A
Question: How does Agora charge if I use different recording modes?
Your recording fee has nothing to do with the recording mode you choose. Regardless of whether you use the individual mode or composite mode, your recording fee relates only to the number of the streams recorded, the recording time, and the aggregate recording resolutions. The number of the streams recorded does not affect the recording duration, but affects the aggregate recording resolution.
Question: How does Agora charge for HD and HD+ video?
Starting in January 2021, Agora further divided HD+ video into Full HD, 2K, and 2K+ video and set a more fine-grained pricing.
If you still use the previous pricing set for HD and HD+ video, see the following video categorization and unit price:
Pricing
The pricing for audio and video is as follows:
| Service type | Category | Pricing ($US/1,000 minutes) |
|---|---|---|
| Recording audio | N/A | 1.49 |
| Recording video | High-Definition (HD) | 5.99 |
| High-Definition Plus (HD+) | 22.49 |
Video aggregate resolution
Agora adds up the resolution of all the video streams recorded at the same time to get the aggregate resolution, which categorizes video as follows:
| Video category | Video aggregate resolution |
|---|---|
| High-Definition (HD) | Video aggregate resolution ≤ 921,600 (1280 × 720) |
| High-Definition Plus (HD+) | Video aggregate resolution ＞ 921,600 (1280 × 720) |
Relevant links
