What Video Hosting Really Costs in 2026: ReedTV vs Cloudflare Stream, Bunny, Vimeo and Wistia
When you compare video hosts, the headline price is only half the story. The other half is what happens when people actually watch your videos. Most platforms charge for that — per minute delivered, per gigabyte of bandwidth, or by capping your monthly bandwidth and asking you to upgrade. A video that takes off can turn a $5 bill into a $1,000 one.
ReedTV works differently: you pay for the minutes of video you store, and views are free. $5 a month gets you 1,000 minutes of video, whether it's watched once or a million times. Here's how that compares, using each provider's public pricing as of October 2026.
The setup
To keep it fair, we priced the same thing everywhere: a library of 1,000 minutes of video, watched 100,000 minutes a month (a solid creator audience) and 1,000,000 minutes a month (a big one). For hosts that bill by bandwidth, we assumed about 2 GB per hour of 1080p viewing — roughly 3.3 TB per 100,000 minutes watched.
| Host | How you're charged | 100,000 min watched | 1,000,000 min watched |
|---|---|---|---|
| ReedTV Starter | $5/mo for 1,000 min stored; views free | $5 | $5 |
| Cloudflare Stream | $5 per 1,000 min stored + $1 per 1,000 min delivered | $105 | $1,005 |
| Bunny Stream | Storage + $0.005–$0.06 per GB delivered | ≈ $17–$34 | ≈ $167–$334 |
| Vimeo Starter | $12/mo yearly ($20 monthly); 2 TB bandwidth/mo | Over the cap | Over the cap |
| Wistia Business | $79/mo yearly; 1 TB bandwidth/mo, then overage | $79 + ~2.3 TB overage | $79 + ~32 TB overage |
Cloudflare Stream: cheap to store, pay for every minute watched
Cloudflare Stream charges $5 per 1,000 minutes stored plus $1 per 1,000 minutes delivered. Storage matches ReedTV exactly — but delivery is metered, so 100,000 minutes watched adds $100, and a million adds $1,000. Stream also tops out at 1080p, so there's no 2K or 4K playback. (Cloudflare Stream pricing)
Bunny Stream: low per-GB rates, still a meter
Bunny is genuinely inexpensive and pay-as-you-go: storage from $0.01 per GB, delivery from $0.005 per GB on its Volume network or $0.01–$0.06 per GB on its Standard network depending on region, with a $1 monthly minimum. It's a great fit for developers who want raw infrastructure — but your bill still grows with every viewer, and 4K needs Premium Encoding at $0.15 per minute. (Bunny Stream pricing, CDN pricing, Premium Encoding)
Vimeo: flat price, bandwidth cap
Vimeo's self-serve plans are Starter ($12/mo billed yearly, $20 monthly), Standard ($25 / $41) and Advanced ($75 / $125). They include generous storage and 4K, but every self-serve plan shares a 2 TB per month bandwidth limit. Our 100,000-minute example already needs about 3.3 TB, which puts you into a conversation about Enterprise pricing. (Vimeo pricing)
Wistia: marketing suite, 1 TB of bandwidth
Wistia's Business plan is $79/mo billed yearly with 250 GB of storage and 1 TB of bandwidth per month; bandwidth beyond that is billed as overage, or you can prepay add-ons (1 TB for $150/mo). Wistia bundles lead capture and marketing analytics, which is worth it for some businesses — but for a creator who mostly needs to host and embed, it's a lot to pay for bandwidth. (Wistia pricing, Wistia bandwidth)
ReedTV: storage-only pricing
- Starter — $5/mo: 1,000 minutes of video, unlimited views.
- Pro — $15/mo: 3,000 minutes of video, unlimited views.
- Need more room? Extra storage is $8 per 1,000 minutes, and you set a spending cap so it can never surprise you.
- No delivery fees. No per-view charge, no per-GB charge, no bandwidth cap.
- 2K & 4K when you want it. Every video plays in up to 1080p. Ultra HD is an optional per-video add-on — $0.10 per minute once for 4K (which includes a 2K version), plus $0.01 per minute per month while it's on.
On top of that you get inline Patreon embeds, domain restrictions, live streaming, AI captions, analytics, and a customizable player on every plan.
When another host might cost less
We'd rather be straight with you: if your videos get very few views, pay-as-you-go hosts can come in under $5 — Bunny's minimum is $1 a month, and Wistia has a free plan with 25 GB of storage and 200 GB of bandwidth. ReedTV's advantage grows with your audience: the more your videos are watched, the more you save, because your price doesn't move.
Prices are from each provider's public pricing pages as checked in October 2026 and may change; check their sites for current details. Bandwidth-based estimates assume about 2 GB per hour of 1080p viewing; real usage varies with bitrate and resolution. Bunny's range covers its Volume network and its Standard network in North America & Europe.