Cheapest video API as delivered minutes grow
Stored minutes and bitrate held at your current inputs β only monthly delivered minutes change per row. Watch Mux's free-delivery tier hold the lead at low volume, then Bunny Stream's GB-based bandwidth pricing pull ahead at scale.
| Delivered min / mo | Mux | Cloudflare Stream | Bunny Stream | Cheapest |
|---|
Per-minute billing vs GB-based billing
Mux charges $0.0024 per minute stored per month, plus $0.0008 per minute delivered β but the first 100,000 delivery minutes every month are free, and encoding/ingest is always free. That free tier makes Mux hard to beat for low-to-medium traffic apps. Cloudflare Stream charges $5 per 1,000 minutes stored ($0.005/min) and $1 per 1,000 minutes delivered ($0.001/min), with no free delivery allowance beyond free encoding β simple, predictable, but rarely the cheapest option at any volume in this comparison. Bunny Stream charges storage from $0.01/GB/month and delivery bandwidth from $0.005/GB, with free encoding and no per-minute fee at all β since it bills data volume rather than duration, its cost depends on your average bitrate, which this calculator converts from your minute inputs.
These are representative pricing shapes based on each vendor's publicly documented pricing as of August 2026 (Mux: $0.0024/min storage, $0.0008/min delivery, 100K free delivery minutes/month; Cloudflare Stream: $5/1,000 min stored, $1/1,000 min delivered; Bunny Stream: from $0.01/GB storage, from $0.005/GB bandwidth) β not live vendor quotes. Bunny's rates can drop further at volume, and all three vendors periodically revise pricing. Always confirm current numbers on each vendor's pricing page before budgeting a production project.
How this calculator works
The Mux vs Cloudflare Stream vs Bunny Stream Cost Calculator compares three video API billing shapes at your stored minutes, monthly delivered (watched) minutes and average bitrate. Mux bills storage at $0.0024 per minute per month plus delivery at $0.0008 per minute, but the first 100,000 delivery minutes each month are free, so its formula is storedMin Γ 0.0024 + max(0, deliveredMin β 100000) Γ 0.0008. Cloudflare Stream bills storage at $5 per 1,000 minutes and delivery at $1 per 1,000 minutes with no free allowance: (storedMin/1000) Γ 5 + (deliveredMin/1000) Γ 1. Bunny Stream bills by data volume instead of duration β storage from $0.01/GB and bandwidth from $0.005/GB β so the calculator first converts your minute inputs to GB using your average bitrate (GB = minutes Γ bitrateMbps Γ 60 / 8 / 1000) before applying storageGB Γ 0.01 + deliveryGB Γ 0.005. Because Bunny's cost depends on bitrate while Mux and Cloudflare's do not, raising the bitrate input only moves Bunny's estimate.
These are representative pricing shapes based on each vendor's publicly documented pricing as of August 2026 (Mux's $0.0024/min storage, $0.0008/min delivery and 100K free delivery minutes; Cloudflare Stream's $5/1,000 min storage and $1/1,000 min delivery; Bunny Stream's from-$0.01/GB storage and from-$0.005/GB bandwidth), not live vendor quotes β all three revise pricing periodically, Bunny's bandwidth rate can drop further at volume tiers, and Cloudflare offers custom volume pricing above self-serve rates. Always confirm current numbers directly with the vendor before budgeting a production project.
Frequently asked questions
Is Mux, Cloudflare Stream or Bunny Stream cheapest?
It depends on your delivered-minutes volume. Mux gives 100,000 free delivery minutes every month, so for low-traffic apps under that threshold Mux is often cheapest even though its per-minute storage and delivery rates are higher than the alternatives. Once you cross a few hundred thousand delivered minutes a month, Bunny Stream usually wins because it bills bandwidth by the GB (from $0.005/GB) instead of per minute, and GB-based pricing scales more slowly than per-minute pricing at higher bitrates. Cloudflare Stream rarely wins outright β it has no free delivery tier and its $1 per 1,000 minutes delivered plus $5 per 1,000 minutes stored is usually the most expensive of the three at both low and high volume, though its simplicity and Cloudflare network integration are the trade-off.
Why do these three vendors bill so differently?
Mux and Cloudflare Stream both bill by video duration β minutes stored per month and minutes delivered (watched) β because that maps cleanly to their managed encoding pipelines. Bunny Stream instead bills by data volume β GB stored and GB transferred β because it is built on Bunny's CDN infrastructure where bandwidth is the native unit. Duration-based pricing is easier to estimate from a content calendar, while GB-based pricing depends on resolution and bitrate, so the same catalog costs more at 4K than at 480p on a GB-billed vendor but costs the same on a minute-billed one.
How does bitrate affect the comparison?
Bitrate is irrelevant to Mux and Cloudflare Stream pricing β they charge the same per minute whether you stream 480p or 4K. It matters a great deal for Bunny Stream, since GB consumed scales directly with bitrate: a 4K catalog at 15 Mbps consumes roughly 3x the GB of the same catalog delivered at 5 Mbps, tripling Bunny's bill while leaving Mux and Cloudflare unchanged. This calculator lets you set an average bitrate assumption to convert your stored and delivered minutes into GB for the Bunny Stream estimate.
Does Mux's 100,000 free delivery minutes reset monthly?
Yes, per Mux's published pricing, the 100,000 free monthly delivery minutes are a recurring monthly allowance, not a one-time credit β every billing month starts fresh. Encoding (ingest) is also always free on Mux, so the free tier effectively covers unlimited uploads plus 100K minutes of viewer playback before any delivery charge applies. Storage is billed from minute one regardless of the free delivery tier, starting at $0.0024 per minute per month.
Is encoding free on all three platforms?
Yes β ingest and encoding are free on Mux, Cloudflare Stream and Bunny Stream as of 2026. All three earn their revenue on storage and delivery/bandwidth instead, which is why this calculator focuses entirely on stored minutes and delivered minutes rather than a per-encode fee.