A worked example
Vimeo OTT vs Uncompressed On Demand.
One seller, one month, every line shown.
Take a seller with 100 buyers a month at USD 12 a film and 20 hours of film uploaded. On Vimeo OTT Starter the fees on those sales come to USD 170 a month, before a one-time USD 149 upload block. Here, Pro plus On Demand comes to USD 78 a month with nothing charged per sale. Every assumption is stated below so you can change it.
Video hosting for filmmakers · 5 GB free · Paid plans from USD 9/month
By uncompressed.io · Updated September 2026
Uncompressed On Demand
Sell your films for $39 a month, 0% commission.
- Sell streaming, downloads, or both, at your own price per film.
- Buyers pay into your own payment account. We never touch the money and take nothing from any sale.
- Your own shop page at yourname.uncompressed.io/on-demand, with a free preview whose length you choose.
- Buyers need no account: they pay and the film opens from their receipt, on any device.
- Films play as you exported them, with 20,000 viewing hours a month included.
The assumptions
Four numbers,
change any of them and the table changes.
100 buyers a month
Each buys one film once, as a one-time purchase to stream. No subscriptions, so Vimeo OTT's USD 1 per subscriber a month does not apply.
USD 12 a film
One price. On Vimeo OTT Starter each buy costs 10 percent + 0.50, merchant fee included. Here the sale is charged on your own payment account and we take nothing.
20 hours uploaded
A catalogue of about ten feature-length films. On Vimeo OTT that needs the 25-hour block; here it needs room in your plan's ready-to-play storage.
2 hours watched per buyer
Each buyer watches the film once, 200 viewing hours in all. Viewing hours only count here, against the 20,000 included with the add-on.
USD 170
a month to Vimeo OTT
fees on 100 sales at USD 12, before the upload block
USD 78
a month here
Pro USD 39 plus On Demand USD 39, nothing per sale
46
sales a month
where Pro plus On Demand starts costing less than OTT's per-sale fee at USD 12
Line by line
Vimeo OTT Starter and uncompressed.io,
on the same month of sales.
Vimeo OTT figures from help.vimeo.com and vimeo.com/ott/pricing, read 28 September 2026. uncompressed.io prices from the pricing page, USD before tax. The uncompressed.io column excludes your own provider's card processing fee, which applies to every sale; Vimeo's per-sale fee includes its merchant fee. Storage arithmetic: Mbps × 3,600 ÷ 8 ÷ 1,000 = GB an hour, at 20 Mbps for 1080p and 40 Mbps for 4K.
Why the 1080p and 4K rows differ
Change the volume
The percentage moves,
the flat fee does not.
Platform fees only, at USD 12 a film. Vimeo OTT's upload block and your own provider's card fee sit outside this table.
The break-even is arithmetic, not opinion. At USD 12 a film, OTT Starter’s fee is USD 1.70 a sale. The On Demand add-on alone costs less than that fee from 23 sales a month; Pro plus the add-on, which is what a seller with no other hosting would pay, costs less from 46. Below those volumes a percentage store is the cheaper choice, and the honest advice is to use one until your sales pass them.
Raise the price and the crossover comes sooner, because 10 percent of a bigger number is a bigger fee. Lower it and the crossover moves out. Nothing on the uncompressed.io side moves with the price or the count.
Conclusion
One sentence.
At 100 sales a month of a USD 12 film, Vimeo OTT Starter costs USD 170 a month in fees before its upload block and Pro plus On Demand costs USD 78 a month with nothing per sale, so the flat fee costs less from about 46 sales a month and the gap widens with every sale after that.
What this example does not decide
Questions
Frequently asked
Does Vimeo OTT's 2.5 percent + 0.30 merchant fee also apply to one-time purchases?
Not as a separate line. Vimeo's pricing breakdown, read 28 September 2026, lists the 2.5 percent + 0.30 merchant fee beside the subscription fee and states that for buy and rent products the merchant fee is included in the revenue share and fixed fee. So the OTT column here counts 10 percent + 0.50 per buy and nothing more per sale.
Are Vimeo OTT's upload hours a monthly charge?
Vimeo's page describes the blocks as purchased as needed, so this example counts the 25-hour block once, at USD 149. If you keep adding films you buy more blocks; the example does not.
What is left out of the uncompressed.io column?
Your own payment provider's card processing fee on each sale, which Vimeo bundles into its 10 percent + 0.50 and which we cannot quote because the account is yours. Sales tax or VAT, which is the seller's responsibility on either platform. And storage beyond the plan: the example fits Pro at 1080p; a 4K catalogue of the same length needs Max.
What if I sell fewer copies than this?
Then a percentage store is cheaper, and you should use one. At USD 12 a film, Vimeo OTT Starter's per-sale fee costs less than the On Demand add-on alone below 23 sales a month, and less than Pro plus the add-on below 46. Someone selling a few copies a year should not pay a monthly fee anywhere.
Nothing per sale, at any volume.
Uncompressed On Demand is USD 39 a month or USD 429 a year on top of any plan, with 20,000 viewing hours a month included. Each sale is charged on your own payment account; your provider's card fees still apply.
Sources
- 1.Vimeo OTT pricing breakdown, Vimeo Help Center: USD 1 per subscriber a month plus 2.5 percent + 0.30 merchant fees on subscriptions; 10 percent + 0.50 per buy or rent, merchant fee included; upload blocks USD 99 / 149 / 199 for 10 / 25 / 50 hours, purchased as needed (official, read 28 September 2026)
- 2.Vimeo OTT pricing page: Starter at USD 1 per subscriber a month and 10 percent of one-time purchases, bandwidth included (official, read 28 September 2026)
- 3.Vimeo On Demand shutdown notice: sellers pointed to Vimeo OTT (official, read 28 September 2026)
- 4.uncompressed.io pricing: plans, storage and the On Demand add-on (product page)
- 5.uncompressed.io export settings: 16 to 32 Mbps for 1080p and 40 to 80 Mbps for 4K, the ranges the storage arithmetic uses (product page)