Microsoft details upcoming pricing model for encoding with Azure Media Services

Microsoft today announced some new pricing changes coming to Azure Media Services’ encoding features. In a new blog post today, the company announced a new pricing model for on-demand encoding of media with Azure Media Services which will go live next year — exactly on the 1st of January. In the new pricing model, the company will calculate usage based on the total duration of media files produced by the encoder when using the Standard and Premium encoder. And if you use the Media Reserved Units, you’ll be charged based on the active usage of MRUs once the new pricing model goes live next year.

Based on customer demand and feedback, starting January 1, 2017, we will implement a new pricing model for on-demand encoding of media with Azure Media Services. For the Standard Encoder and Premium Encoder, we will be calculating usage based on the total duration of the media files produced as output by the encoder. Further, for Media Reserved Units, we are lowering the rate, and making a change to calculate usage on a per-minute basis. In this post, I’ll be walking you through some examples to show how the new pricing models work.

Microsoft has detailed the upcoming changes with a couple of examples, which you can find here. Additionally, you can find the current pricing for Azure Media Services here.