Realtime and video call pricing: per message, per minute or per connection

When you compare realtime services for your app, the price per unit tells you little. What decides the bill is what the service counts: every message, every minute in a call, or every device connected at once. The same app can cost very different amounts under each, and it can grow in ways you did not plan for.

This post explains the three ways services usually count, works through one app under each of them, and lists what to check in any price list before you build on it.

Counting messages

Many realtime services bill by the message. It sounds simple, until you look at what counts as one. Usually a message is counted once when it is sent and once more for every device it is delivered to.

Take a chat app with 1,000 people online. Each sends one message a minute into a room of 10 people:

• 1,000 messages are sent each minute,
• each is delivered to 10 devices, so 10,000 deliveries,
• 11,000 counted messages a minute, about 475 million in a month of 30 days.

That is before the rest of what makes a chat feel live. Typing indicators, read receipts, who is online and who joined a room are messages too, and an app that shows them can send several of them for every message a person writes.

The model fits apps that send rarely to few people. It gets hard to predict as soon as people talk in groups, because the count grows with how much they talk and how many listen, not with how many users you have.

Counting minutes

Video call services often bill by the participant minute: every person in a call counts for every minute they are in it.

• A call of two people for 30 minutes is 60 participant minutes.
• A meeting of 8 people for an hour is 480.
• A class of 30 for an hour is 1,800.

It is easy to follow for calls, but it adds up quickly once calls are long or group calls are big. Look out for what else is counted beside the minutes: some services count the traffic of their relays separately, or count the minutes of a call between two people that runs through a relay differently from one that connects directly. Recording, more resolution or more people on video can each change the price of a minute.

Counting connections

The third way bills by concurrent connections: how many browsers and devices are connected at the same moment, at most. What they send is not counted.

Back to the chat of 1,000 people online. With a connection count, its price is the price of 1,000 connections: its messages, typing indicators and read receipts are not what is counted. If the app grows to 10,000 users a month but still has about 1,000 online at once, the price stays where it was.

What you need to know is how many people are online at the same time, which is usually far fewer than your monthly users, and which your analytics already show. A good service also lets the tabs of one browser share one connection, so a person with three tabs open counts once.

What to check in any price list

Whichever model a service uses, these are the questions that decide the bill:

• What counts as a message? Each delivery, or only what is sent? Are typing indicators, presence and read receipts counted?
• Are calls between two people included? And when a call goes through a relay because a firewall blocks the direct path, does it cost more?
• How are group calls counted? By the minute of each person, by the minute of each person on video, or included up to a size?
• What happens past the plan? Is the app cut off, slowed down, or billed for the extra, and how far?
• Is history included? A page that reconnects should get what it missed, and keeping it should not be a second bill.
• Is the price published? A price you can read on the page is a price you can plan with.

How WordPlus Cloud counts

WordPlus Cloud for Apps is priced by concurrent connections, starting from 1,000, billed monthly or yearly: from $11.99 a month for 1,000 connections billed yearly, or $14.99 billed monthly. Messages are never part of the price.

• Calls between two people are included, relayed or not, on every path a call can take.
• Group calls and live streams are included up to a size. With 1,000 connections, up to 32 people on video at once in group calls and 50 viewers at once in live streams take nothing, and each further 1,000 connections add 12 people on video and 20 viewers.
• Above that, credits by the minute. A credit is a minute of one person on video in a group call, or of one viewer of a live stream, a person on audio counting half. Your plan adds 5,000 credits a month for each 1,000 connections, and packs add more, from $10 for 50,000 credits.
• Room history for reconnects is included, so a page that comes back gets what it missed.

The chat of 1,000 people online from above is $11.99 a month billed yearly, its messages not counted and its calls between two people included.

For a WordPress site it is one price per site, with no limits on members or messages: see WordPlus Cloud for WordPress.

See the apps pricing, or what WordPlus Cloud does for apps. Questions about your integration? Write to us.