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ApsaraVideo Live:Billing of Real-Time Streaming (RTS)

Last Updated:Feb 28, 2026

Real-Time Streaming (RTS) is billed by downstream traffic on a pay-as-you-go basis. Fees are calculated daily using progressive tiered pricing per region.

Note

Purchase subscription resource plans to offset traffic usage at a discounted rate.

How RTS billing relates to standard streaming

A single domain name can serve both standard streaming and RTS playback.

  • Standard streaming and RTS usage are billed independently. Traffic from the two services is never aggregated.

  • By default, both services share the same billing method (either pay-by-traffic or pay-by-peak-bandwidth), but their unit prices differ.

  • For the latest prices, see the ApsaraVideo Live pricing page.

Traffic pricing

Prices are in USD per GB. A progressive tiered model applies: within each calendar month, traffic in a given tier is billed at that tier's unit price. Usage across different regions is not aggregated.

Traffic tier

Chinese mainland (CN)

North America (NA)

Europe (EU)

Asia-Pacific 1 (AP1)

Asia-Pacific 2 (AP2)

Asia-Pacific 3 (AP3)

Middle East and Africa (MEAA)

South America (SA)

Saudi Arabia (Riyadh)

0 -- 10 TB

0.084

0.140

0.140

0.162

0.216

0.192

0.400

0.400

0.195

10 -- 50 TB

0.080

0.140

0.140

0.162

0.216

0.192

0.400

0.400

0.195

50 -- 100 TB

0.074

0.120

0.120

0.124

0.188

0.166

0.360

0.360

0.149

100 TB -- 1 PB

0.064

0.060

0.060

0.106

0.158

0.140

0.300

0.280

0.127

Over 1 PB

0.052

0.050

0.050

0.096

0.144

0.128

0.280

0.260

0.115

Region definitions

Region Countries and regions
North America (NA) United States, Canada
Europe (EU) Ukraine, United Kingdom, France, Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Germany
Asia-Pacific 1 (AP1) China (Hong Kong), Macao (China), Taiwan (China), Japan, and Southeast Asian countries and regions excluding Vietnam and Indonesia
Asia-Pacific 2 (AP2) Indonesia, South Korea, Vietnam
Asia-Pacific 3 (AP3) Australia, New Zealand
Middle East and Africa (MEAA) South Africa, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait
South America (SA) Brazil
Saudi Arabia (Riyadh) Saudi Arabia

Billing rules

Item Details
Metered usage Total daily downstream playback traffic, measured in GB (1 TB = 1,024 GB).
Pricing model Progressive tiered pricing per region. The accumulation period is one calendar month. When your monthly usage reaches a higher tier, traffic within that tier is billed at the corresponding unit price. Usage from different regions cannot be combined.
Billing cycle Daily. A bill for the previous day's usage is generated within one hour after 00:00 the following day. Fees are automatically deducted from your account balance. If a resource plan is available, usage is offset by the resource plan first.
Payment options Pay-as-you-go or subscription resource plans.

Billing example

Scenario: On June 1, a live stream in the Chinese mainland runs for 2 hours at 500 Kbps. During the stream, 1,000 viewers watch for 1 hour and another 1,000 viewers watch for the full 2 hours.

Step 1 -- Calculate total traffic:

Traffic = Bitrate / 8 x Total viewer-seconds

       = 500 Kbps / 8
         x (1,000 viewers x 3,600 s  +  1,000 viewers x 7,200 s)

       = 62.5 KB/s x 10,800,000 viewer-seconds

       = 675,000,000 KB

       = 675 GB (approximately)

Step 2 -- Look up the unit price:

675 GB falls within the 0 -- 10 TB tier for the Chinese mainland: USD 0.084/GB.

Step 3 -- Calculate the bill:

675 GB x USD 0.084/GB = USD 56.70

The bill is generated within one hour after 00:00 on June 2.