13 Best OTT Platforms of 2024 (Services Ranked and Reviewed)
With the increasing growth of OTT platforms, many creators are seizing this opportunity to monetize their video content or build their OTT broadcasting services.
Whether you intend on bringing exposure to many small creators and profit to you, or you plan to offer on-demand fitness, business, singing online classes, and live streams, OTT services will help you deliver and monetize your content.
We have ranked and reviewed the best OTT platforms to help you monetize your content and launch OTT apps based on their features, accessibility, pricing, support, and applicability to your specific requirements.
Read on, and discover the best and the most cost-effective OTT platforms in 2022.
What is an OTT Platform?
An OTT platform is a media service offered through a software solution for streaming video and audio content directly from the internet.
The term itself stands for Over-The-Top, implying that the content provider is going over the top of existing internet services, allowing the users to consume television and film content over the internet at the request and according to the requirements of each consumer.
Instead of locking consumers to one service provider and being restricted to whichever solutions are available in your area, an OTT platform provides you with multiple options like Smart TVs, Roku, computers, tablets, mobile phones, or gaming consoles to view content.
You are also allowed to access multiple distributors for specialized programs and view channels through app switching for more control over the content you choose to purchase.
OTT platforms break through the limitations of the single operator set top box (STB) technology with content delivered only upon request.
Best OTT Platforms for Video Monetization
1. Uscreen
#1 OTT Platform for Monetization of High-Quality Videos.
A leading OTT platform for launching and managing video streaming apps, Uscreen facilitates efficient video content management and outstanding user experience for TV and smartphones.
Enabling you to monetize and distribute your videos on demand (VODs) and as live video content with a global audience, Uscreen will provide you with a 4K UHD video experience across all platforms.
You can personalize your app and align it with your branding image and colors and utilize the customizable VoD templates to create a stunning online presence.
Categorizing, uploading in bulk, adding filters, and removing any parts of the content is easy, and the HTML5 video player is responsive and functional across all devices.
Not only can you stream your content in an on-demand video catalog, but you can schedule events in advance and generate excitement with a countdown overlay.
Uscreen equips you with complete flexibility when it comes to monetization, allowing you to offer subscriptions or one-time purchases, rentals, PPVs, bundles, lifetime access, and free trials.
Pricing
The Basic plan is $49 per month when billed annually and $99 monthly.
Pros
- HTML5 full HD online video player
- Customizable VoD templates with flexible branding options
- Free giveaway funnels, lead generation tools, landing page builder, subscription upselling, and other marketing tools
- Live chat, comments with likes, custom avatar profiles
- Stream your content through an on-demand video catalog or schedule in advance
- Monetize by offering subscriptions, bundles, pay-per-views, rentals, free trials
- 100% channel encryption
- Launch branded OTT apps on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Roku
- Decrease chum rate by 35%
Being one of the fastest OTT services with an average release time of 30-60 days, Uscreen will equip you with the tools for your audience to stream your content on their mobile and TV devices, as you stream on-demand and live and receive insightful analytics on your audience preferences.
2. Setplex
State-of-the-Art OTT Platform with Flexible OTT / IPTV Solutions.
Allowing you to deliver your content on any device, Setplex enables you to manage your output on-cloud or on-premise, understand the viewing habits, revenue, and subscription details through audience analytics, and utilize a multi-CDN strategy to deliver your content worldwide.
Setplex supports multiple levels of protection and authentication, including Widewine, FairPlay, & PlayReady, and allows you to ingest your content from any source and transcode it in any format.
The software will stream a high-quality video experience across iOS, Android, SmartTV, mobiles, tablets, computers, and all major applications, while the added middleware integration lets you edit your user interface, content, main menu, and more.
Setplex has created the most powerful and fully-featured STB on the market, with SPA-210 HD being specifically designed for deployment in IPTV/OTT and VOD infrastructures.
Pricing
To get your quote, you will need to fill out a form.
Pros
- Encoding/transcoding
- Multi-screen apps
- Distribute interactive content and broadcast over satellite
- Live channel delivery for linear channels and events
- Customizable menus for personalized entertainment libraries
- Store unlimited hours of HD programming that you can rewind, pause and fast-forward
- Monetize your content through SVOD, PPV, TVOD, AVOD channels
- Stream simultaneously on up to 3 device
- Launch your OTT platform in 24 hours
Setplex will enable you to deliver multi-feature services in 4K resolutions via a global CDN, ingest your content from any source and transcode to any format, with multiple layers of content protection to deliver a superior user experience.
3. Muvi
Best OTT Platform for Audio and Video Streaming along with Selling Physical Goods.
Focusing on the full-stack multimedia approach, Muvi covers video on demand, video hosting, audio hosting, and live streaming, alongside Muvi Kart that allows you to sell physical products to complement your other channels.
This way, you can sell apparel, books, or other content-related merchandise, while setting the shipping prices by country, monitoring order status, and providing free products at checkout.
You can live-stream anything from TV channels, sports, news, and so on, launch a multi-screen OTT platform with CMS, billing, mobile & TV apps solutions, launch an audio/music streaming service and your live broadcast radio channel.
The comprehensive analytics will help you identify how different types of content are performing, calculating revenue, user behavior, bandwidth usage, and allowing you to analyze available devices, users' viewing locations, and engagement levels.
Pricing
The Standard pricing plan will cost you $399 per month.
Pros
- Monetize audio and video content in one place
- No limit on the number of videos you can upload
- Add related content to the video library to improve your viewers' experiences
- Comprehensive email, SEO, social media marketing suite
- Monetize through SVOD, PPV, AVOD channels
- Combine ads with non-subscriber content, utilize coupons, set different prices for specific episodes
- Multi-currency support
One of the rare OTT platforms that allows you to monetize audio and video content in one place, Muvi will also enable you to create mobile apps for iOS & Android, as well as Smart TV, and you will be able to control everything from a single CMS without coding.
4. Brightcove Beacon
Reliable OTT Platform with Flexible Layouts and Versatile Monetization Options.
Brightcove's Beacon will allow you to monetize live and on-demand videos through flexible subscriptions, ad-supported, one-time purchases, bundled packages, and transactional pay models.
Apart from the monetization tools and custom video player landing pages, Brightcove Beacon provides a wide range of advanced content management functions like a playlist and carousel curation.
The video marketing functionality in Brightcove will let you engage prospects through product demos and stories where your brand is presented in a captivating manner.
Revealing a new product and sharing news is of crucial significance for the brand, which is why Brightcove has created a live streaming functionality to help you present your ideas with unrivaled quality, and support before, during, and after the event.
Brightcove's video analytics let you dive into your engagement data at an individual level, understand how the viewers are engaging with your content across every device, test the same content across different locations on your site, and export snapshots of your report graphics.
Pricing
To get your pricing for any of its plans, you will need to contact Brightcove's team.
Pros
- Global video delivery
- Adaptive bitrate HD video streaming
- Multi-platform DRM, license & policy management
- Transform internal and external events into personalized video experiences through Virtual Events
- HTML5 video player templates and automatic device detection
- Create custom metadata for unique identifiers in the video library and set up smart playlists
- API-based syndication
- Restrict access by geography or IP address
- Advanced profile analytics
Brightcove Beacon will help you deliver a consistently high-quality user experience to users across all devices, customize different content packages for different viewers, monetize your content through SVOD, AVOD, AuthVOD, and Freemium channels while delivering Flash and HTML5 playback analytics for comprehensive insights into audience behavior.
5. Dacast
Best OTT Solution for Live Streaming and VoD Broadcasting across All Platforms and Mobile Devices.
Merging the VoD and live streaming solutions, Dacast allows you to securely distribute video content across the world, create professional workflows with live stream recording, transcode videos, stream in multi-bitrate, white-label and brand, monetize smoothly through SVOD, AVOD, TVOD for unlimited viewers and live channels.
The HTML5 video player can be white-labeled, and you can produce high-quality streams through broader HLS support that covers a wide range of devices and firewalls and provides embedded closed captions, synchronized playback of multiple streams, and good advertising standards support.
With transcoding tools, you can convert any video content into the format best suited for streaming while utilizing the APIs to create custom automated workflows or even embedding your live streams on your website and recording it as VoD.
Dacast's unique China video hosting capability provides you with access to over 1.4 billion potential viewers with multiple points of presence across Mainland China.
Pricing
The Starter plan is $39 per month.
Pros
- Embed the HTML5 video player on your website, and in your mobile and Smart TV app
- Host music, podcasts, and other non-video content
- Create mobile apps easily through iOS and Android SDKs
- Transcode the videos to all devices and deliver your VODs in China
- Stream videos securely through top-tier CDNs
- Display your live streams in expo video galleries and monetize with ad integration or a secure paywall
- Facebook streaming
- Let your viewers navigate through your videos easily with chapter markers
- Pre-schedule your content and batch-upload your videos
- China video hosting
With all plans equipping you with unlimited live events, ad-free HD streaming, custom branding, and more, Dacast comes fully password-protected and enables you to distribute content in high quality with no geographical restrictions.
6. IBM Watson Media
Scalable OTT Software for Monetization of Live Streaming Events.
The robust OTT IBM platform enables you to manage live streaming material and video on demand while reaching every device through a multi-CDN setup, enhancing content accessibility through automated, AI-driven closed captioning and transcoding for mobile devices and Smart TVs, with various bandwidth connection speeds.
Your internet connection is the backbone of a solid OTT streaming service and the internet speeds can greatly influence the performance of your streaming services, which is why it is a good idea to explore your internet speed and the best high-speed internet providers on the market before purchasing an OTT platform.
APIs and various customization options will allow you to generate a unique branding model, and you can utilize SDKs, APIs, and managed services for white-labeling experiences for subscribers and viewers.
You can manage playback from a multiple CDN setup that optimizes the user experience based on performance, while the CMS online video editor lets you extract unwanted segments and manage the automatic, AI-driven closed captions.
The OTT live event coverage functionality allows you to offer live captions or multiple audio tracks that can play over Smart TVs, mobile devices, and more.
Maintain a library of high-quality content that includes workflows for managing metadata, content discovery, closed captions automatic generation, and so on.
Pricing
The Silver plan starts at $99.00 per month.
Pros
- Transcode video content
- Reach a wide range of bandwidth speeds through adaptive bitrate delivery
- Automated video publishing and AI-powered closed captioning
- TVOD, SVOD, AVOD revenue models
- White-labeling of subscribers' experiences through SDKs, APIs, and managed services
- OTT live event coverage for live captions and multiple audio tracks
- Maintain a library of high-quality OTT content such as TV shows and other video assets
- Trigger automatic looped playback of live video streaming
- Record your live streaming video privately and schedule it to air at a specific time
After you utilize the 30-day free trial and experience the benefits of IBM's playback, ingestion, recording, and monetization capabilities, you can choose a plan like Silver to deliver you 100 viewer hours for 5. channels and 1TB of video storage.
7. Pivotshare
Best OTT Platform for Generating Recurring Revenue and Greater Exposure through Collaboration.
Pivotshare is a VoD/OTT platform that utilizes calculated collaboration to reach more viewers and monetize OTT video content.
After you have created your profile and uploaded your video content, you can invite friends and allow others to apply to contribute their content, set your transactional pricing and package your videos, search through collaboration-enabled channels and apply, and ultimately grow in exposure by putting your videos on more channels.
You can sell your content and take 70% of all revenue under a single publisher, or you can collaborate with others and allow the PlayRank algorithm to calculate the distribution of earnings for all publishers involved.
If you start the channel, you will keep 10% of all revenue, and if you have contributed content and the channel is sold as a rental or a download, you will receive 60% of the purchase price, with 60% of all subscription income then split up among contributing creators.
Pricing
Working on a revenues-split pricing model with no initial fees or ongoing costs, Pivotshare takes 30% commission of all earned revenue for sole publishers while the collaboration model provides the channel owners 10% commission with 60% distributed to other publishers through the PlayRank algorithm.
Pros
- Comprehensive branded channel customization
- Combine audiences and expand your brand
- Subscription, coupon, free trial monetization
- Set chapters and sections to help viewers easily navigate through your video library
- Calculate publisher value based on the amount of time their videos were played, shared on social media, received traffic through PlayRank
- Share through in-stream video previews and action buttons
- Include attachments with videos as additional content
- Set video trailers through separate files
- Stored credit cards and repeat billing
The ability to collaborate with established content creators makes Pivotshare ideal for beginners, as the software runs on a subscription-based model that ensures a continuous revenue stream.
8. Wowza
Premium OTT Software for Live Event Streaming and Building Streaming Applications.
Delivering reliable solutions for every industry, Wowza is an OTT platform that lets you create highly customized streaming workflows through third-party integrations, APIs, and other advanced features.
You can stream live events with minimal setup and numerous custom applications, manage and monitor your video production remotely through the cloud encoding functionality with frame-accurate start times, graphics, and slates,
The software allows you to stream 360-degree videos in 4K, deliver real-time communication directly from the browser through WebRTC, and capture, encode and stream live videos.
Wowza's streaming engine can help you record streams automatically, with the recordings accessible via the Wowza Streaming Engine Manager user interface, the Wowza Streaming Engine REST service, and the LiveStreamRecord HTTP provider.
Pricing
Wowza Streaming Cloud plan is $85 per month.
Pros
- Adaptive bitrate streaming for all devices on all internet speeds
- Ingest source WebRTC audio and video content and transcode WebRTC to other streaming protocols
- Cloud encoding for reliable streams in the best picture quality globally
- Token authentication, encryption of incoming and outgoing streams, and DRM
- Embeddable IP camera streams in mobile and web apps for streaming online without encoder
- Manage and monitor your video production through live encoding
- Integrations for closed captioning for live and VoD streams
- InPlayer Paywall integration
Wowza will cover cloud transcoding, live streaming and VoD, all-device streaming with an HTML5 video player while providing all the white-labeling, API, reliable customer support, video CMS, ultra HD, branding functionalities in a full-service OTT package that helps you refine video delivery and quality.
9. Accedo
End-to-End OTT Platform with an Extensive Marketplace for Brands of All Sizes.
Through Accedo‘s Premium VoD, you can gain access to a media-grade video pipeline connected to a range of premium native applications.
Once you select your subscription, ad, or transaction-driven monetization method, you can create playlists leveraging the market-leading video CMS Brightcove Video Cloud, elevate your video experience in real-time with a frictionless visual editor, and absorb real-time analytics to dynamically adapt your service to the customers' needs.
You can manage customized video app experiences across all screens and media platforms, publish, manage, and maintain a range of phone, tablet, and connected TV apps through native code and device features.
Accedo allows you to test video applications in real-time and fine-tune everything that needs to be optimized, build templated apps, and configurable video experiences that align with your brand through a Visual Composer toolset.
Pricing
To get your pricing, you will need to get in touch with Accedo's team.
Pros
- Publish, manage, and maintain a full suite of phone, tablet, and connected TV apps
- Ad, subscription, and transaction-driven monetization
- Customized live streaming experiences and distribution across VoD platforms
- Build templated apps and configurable video experiences that match your brand through Visual Composer
- Create or update designs or navigations across video app experiences in the powerful editor
- Real-time service analytics
- Extensive marketplace of third-party apps for the Accedo One cloud platform
Flexible enough to be efficient for small, medium, and large brands, Accedo will equip you with customized live streaming experiences and allow you to publish and delegate a full range of phone, tablet, and connected TV apps.
10. Kaltura
Open-Source OTT Platform for Collaboration, Streaming, Training, Marketing, and Sales.
Apart from streaming live content and pitching through video messages, Kaltura is an OTT platform that enables you to host meetings, virtual classrooms, webinars, along with operating as a learning management system (LMS) and live TV solution for service providers and broadcasters.
Kaltura will power live and VoD experiences, delivering HD video playback, digital whiteboard and shared notes for meetings, branded virtual rooms with advanced moderation controls, townhalls with over 100K audiences, a branded media hub for sharing videos, meeting recordings, and live events.
Through Kaltura Pitch, you can send a video and track all viewer activity, utilizing it for sales pitching, internal communication, or executive messaging and integrate with analytics to elevate your marketing, track share frequency and content engagement.
You can easily discover content through search and fast lookups, managing movies, news, clips, episodes, EPGs, and recordings while scheduling content recordings through a cDVR scheduler.
Pricing
To receive your pricing, you will need to contact Kaltura's team.
Pros
- Support ranges from small online meetings to large townhalls
- SSO, HD video playback, digital whiteboard, shared notes, chat for meetings
- Content management playlist, breakout rooms, interactive live quizzing and HD video sharing
- Send personalized video messages via email
- Branded iOS and Android native mobile app with channel subscriptions
- MediaSpace Video Portal for videos, meeting recordings, and live events with search, auto transcription, creation, and editing tools
- Marketing and sales support through real-time collaboration spaces, live broadcasting, podcasting
- Capture multi-screen recordings synchronized with PowerPoint presentations
An all-in-one open-source streaming solution Kaltura is ideal for hosting large libraries of content and delivering it through branded video players, all while enabling you to host everything from small meetings to large townhalls and equipping you with communication, podcasting, LMS, pitch video messaging tools.
11. JW Player Live
End-to-End Solution for Compelling Video Experiences across All Screens in Partnership with Float Left.
JW Player Live will help you drive content discovery with custom designs optimized for maximized viewing, in-app search, and mobile notifications.
The scalable delivery APIs allow you to deliver content across OTT apps from the same backend while managing, publishing, monetizing, and analyzing your content across web and apps with seamless workflows.
Claiming to have the fastest HTML5 video player on the web, JW Player Live will let you deliver buffer-free experiences through HLS and DASH adaptive streaming, and you can stream 360 videos across devices as well.
You can upload, manage, and deliver video across streams, ingesting anywhere with watch folders and accelerated uploads, enriching your engagement rates through transcoding and video management, with multiple CDNs and 99.99% uptime.
JW's award-winning live streaming solution enables you to go live from anywhere in less than 30 seconds, with full-event DVR, continuous archiving, and 24/7 channels to turn VoD into live content.
If you want to upload a larger amount of videos than the hosting and streaming limitations of the Starter plan are, you can reduce the filesizes of the videos you upload by browsing the best free video compressors.
Pricing
The Starter plan is $10 per month.
Pros
- Adjust colors, speed, thumbnails, and more through CSS customization and APIs
- Ad integrations, broad standards support, and innovative engagement products for more plays and higher CPMs
- Built-in support for SpotX, Google DFP, Google IMA, AdX, and FreeWheel
- Go live in 30 seconds and broadcast replays in under 1 minute
- Insert the most relevant videos from the library into any post through article matching
- Fastest HTML5 player in the industry
- Repurpose live and VoD videos for extended content lifecycle
- Instant live events for 12-hours event streams, full event DVR, and ad support
- Continuous archiving of live events for instant live-to-VoD content
JW Player Live claims to have the fastest HTML5 video player in the industry while providing custom solutions to launch scalable OTT apps within weeks and an award-winning live streaming functionality that allows publishers, fitness trainers, online course hosts, and more to go live within 30 seconds.
12. Yondo
All-in-One OTT Solution for Selling Live Online Sessions, Webinars, and Online Group Classes.
Yondo will enable you to sell videos, online group classes, webinars, and live one-to-one video consultations online easily, after you have selected one of the fitness, consulting, teaching, medical, or other industries.
You can offer your videos for free, pay-to-view, or as your online streaming service, and offer free and pay-to-attend webinars for up to 1,000 attendees.
Book and perform live 1-to-1 consultations through your branded video, phone, or in-office sessions, and utilize a full suite of eCommerce solutions containing automated emails, payment gateways, website templates, booking calendar, plugins, integrations, and more.
Uploading videos to your VoD library is a simple drag-and-drop process, or you can utilize the Dropbox integration (or the Dropbox alternatives), after which you can embellish your videos with CTAs that have captivating titles, vibrant messages, and a customized branded image.
Pricing
The Starter plan is $69 per month.
Pros
- Sell videos, live courses, webinars, one-to-one consultations
- Offer free and pay-to-attend webinars for up to 1,000 attendees
- Online video courses and playlists, webinar recordings, live clickable CTAs, automated branded emails
- Share files and documents as attachments on your videos
- Create preview videos
- Auto send your clients their live 1-to-1 video session recordings
- Select from a range of prebuilt online stores and platforms built for your industry
- Full eCommerce suite
- Dropbox, HubSpot, Mailchimp, Slack integrations
- Live experience player
Accessible for small, medium, and large brands, Yondo focuses on providing professionals from fitness, consulting, medical, teaching, and other industries with live video session and on-demand video streaming tools necessary for you to profit from live online sessions, group classes, and VoDs on their website.
13. Vimeo OTT
Best OTT Solution for Live Streaming Your Videos at 1080p.
In Vimeo OTT, you will be able to customize everything according to your branding image and live stream your videos at 1080p seamlessly while keeping all your live and on-demand videos secured in one location through an auto-archiving capability.
You can launch branded apps on iOS, tvOS, Android TV, Amazon Fire, Roku, Android, Xbox, and Samsung Tizen devices, and you can access mobile SDKs and Vimeo's APIs.
To elevate the level of professionalism of your live streaming events, you can utilize live polls, audience chat, Q&As, and graphical overlays, along with user and location analytics and engagement graphs.
You can protect your videos from piracy with DRM while allowing access to over 10. trusted people to manage your video content on Vimeo.
Pricing
The Starter plan will cost you $1 per subscriber per month.
Pros
- Monetize through subscriptions and transactions
- Live stream while auto-archiving all your content
- Customize your video CMS through APIs
- Create third-party video streaming apps with custom APIs
- Global content delivery and adaptive bitrate streaming
- Provide access to over 10. users to manage your video content
- Run simultaneous streams in the Enterprise plan
- Leverage live polls, audience chat, Q&As, and graphical overlay for high-quality streams
- Embed background videos on the website
After you go through their 30-day free trial, Vimeo OTT can equip you with video customization, app-launching, monetization, and live streaming functions that will enable you to expose your content in the highest quality through captivating branding consistently.
Features to Look For in an OTT Platform
1. Content Management System
To import, manage, and curate content effectively, you will need adequate CMS functionality, which includes several capabilities.
Metadata management
Easy ingestion and uploading (FTP, MRSS feed) will save you a lot of time, and you will be much more efficient modifying, adding, or deleting meta tags for videos across all platforms within the software, just like Brightcove Beacon allows you to create custom metadata for unique identifiers in a video library.
Distribution and geographical settings
For satisfactory distribution, you will need to connect your social media accounts, just like Dacast allows Facebook streaming and breaks down the geographical barriers by delivering videos to China.
Adaptive streaming
Like Wowza‘s ultra HD functionality or Kaltura‘s HD video playback and sharing capabilities, you will need software that will deliver the videos in the highest usable quality for each user.
Setplex, for example, allows you to store unlimited hours of HD programming, with SPA-210 HD specifically designed for IPTV/OTT and VoD infrastructures.
2. Publishing
Instead of just providing APIs and spending large sums of extra money for developing the apps, you can find software that will equip you with ready-to-use templates and options to customize and adapt the themes to your branding.
Uscreen enables you to facilitate a stunning online presence with access to app personalization, along with branding tools and customizable VoD templates.
IBM Watson Media will enable you to apply APIs and different customization options to generate a recognizable branding model while also allowing you to utilize APIs, SDKs, and managed services for white-labeling experiences for viewers.
3. Monetization
If you plan to run ad-supported VoD, it should go without saying you should choose a platform like Accedo with an in-built ad server where you can set up, prioritize, and manage campaigns.
The best option would be for you to go for the software that supports SVOD, TVOD, AVOD monetization models, as well as valuable additions such as free trials, coupon management, merchandise & promo offers.
4. Video player
A few things to consider when selecting an OTT platform with an efficient video player
- How are the playback, resume, rewind, fast-forward options?
- Is there WebSRT and WebVTT subtitle support?
- Does the software support VoD and live streaming, adaptive bitrate and audio and manual bitrate switching?
- Is the tool compatible with VAST, VPAID tags, Google IMA, Facebook audience network tags?
- Is the video player customizable to add a logo, change colors, or rearrange the set-up?
FAQ
OTT services include any type of video or streaming media that provide viewer access to movies or TV shows by disposing the media directly to the internet.
Services like Disney, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and Netflix are video OTT services that provide users with a range of programming options, which include a licensed library of TV shows and movies, as well as original content.
Subscription Video on Demand (SVoD) is a monetization method in which the customers pay subscription fees to view content, and you can see examples of this method in Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Sony Live.
Advertising Video on Demand (AVoD) is a monetization model in which the viewers are allowed to consume material for free, but they must view adverts and banner advertising that are usually unskippable (DailyMotion, YouTube, etc.).
Transactional Video on Demand (TVoD) is a pay-per-view-based monetization model, in which the users pay for permanent access to a piece of content or access a piece of content for a limited time at a smaller fee.
This will vary significantly on a case-by-case basis, but an OTT hosting platform could cost you anywhere from under $100 per month to over $1000 per month.
There are cheaper options out there, with two of them being on this list, Dacast for $39 and JW Player Live as affordable as $10 per month.
You will find the majority of tools on this list falling in the $60 to $100 range, which is not too expensive at all, and you can even find some alternative pricing models such as Pivotshare‘s revenues-split pricing model.
An OTT platform will stream any video content directly from the internet on PCs, mobiles, connected TVs, and other types of devices, allowing the viewers to choose the type of content they want to consume when they want to consume it.
Connected TV, also called Smart TV, is a television device connected to the internet, through which you can stream programs that you find on the internet.
So, the difference is that OTT is a delivery mechanism through which content is placed in front of the user regardless of the device type they use, and connected TV is one type of device that can be used for streaming such content.
The biggest difference is in the network, with OTT content being delivered over an open network, the internet, while IPTV content is delivered through a closed, proprietary network such as LAN or WAN.
The second-largest difference is the content viewers usually consume, with OTT commonly offering content over u0022freemiumu0022 subscription services and IPTV being much closer to traditional television subscriptions.
OTT is considered to be more economical and flexible, as well as useful when connecting with remote team members and allowing your team to access corporate content while balancing quality and bandwidth.
IPTV provides a much higher quality of service and is useful in office environments for sharing news and weather reports in common areas while enabling monitoring and quality control.
An OTT media service is any online content provider that includes streaming media as a standalone product.
While the term is commonly used for VoD platforms, it can refer to audio streaming, messaging services, or internet-based voice calling solutions.
OTT platforms allow users to stream live video content over the internet, but the content can not be accessed after the live stream is over.
In contrast, VoD platforms include pre-recorded and downloaded content.
While you don't need a subscription to a pay-TV service, you may need a subscription to an OTT service depending on the platform.
You can access almost every OTT service via your computer, phone, tablet, smart TV, or a gaming console, with the sign-up process being quite straightforward to navigate.
It is possible and easy to start your OTT platform without any coding or professional IT assistance and without spending too much money.
With the growth of zero-coding, fully-featured OTT platforms like Muvi, content creators and media distributors have been presented with the opportunity to launch streaming services on their own at cost-effective pricing.
As described in OTT platform blogs such as Muvi, you will need to complete the sign-up process and submit the company details to deploy your streaming website.
After creating your Muvi Store, you can preview your website, after which you can choose to get a paid subscription for launching a more comprehensive, feature-rich OTT platform.
Depending on what configurations you want and how much you can invest, you can upgrade to your favorite monthly plan to access any premium consulting, project management, or other features.
Now, you can configure and customize your OTT platform without coding, by selecting appropriate content categories, content formats, and content types.
Given that you understand the content structure you are aiming for, the content configuration should be quite easy after this.
You just need to select a template from a marketplace, add a logo, banner, and other neat customizations through the advanced visual designer capabilities.
The next steps include adding content and content information and previewing it, which usually doesn't take more than a couple of minutes.
Now, you can set up your monetization model and choose between AVoD, TVoD, SVoD, or even free content and discount coupons.
As far as all the technicalities that go into creating your OTT platform go, you are all set.
Which OTT Platform Should I Choose?
If you are someone who prioritizes a full HD HTML5 online video player, customizable VoD templates, and flexible free giveaway funnels, subscription upselling, bundles, PPVs, rentals, and free trials monetization while ensuring your branded OTT apps are launched on all major platforms, and the chum rates are decreased significantly, your best choice may be opting for Uscreen.
If you are on a tighter budget, you could surprisingly purchase an OTT subscription with the fastest HTML5 video player in the industry in JW Player Live for as low as $10 per month.
If 150GB of hosting and 500GB of streaming is enough for your requirements, you could benefit from a scalable JW OTT solution with award-winning live streaming functionality, built-in support for SpotX, Google DFP, Google IMA, AdX, FreeWheel, and much more to help you launch OTT apps within weeks and deliver compelling video experiences.
For more enterprise-grade capabilities, you can try the open-source OTT platform for collaboration, streaming, training, marketing, and sales Kaltura, which is ideal if you want to host large libraries of content and manage everything from small meetings to large townhalls.
Being the first tool enlisted, we choose Uscreen as the best overall OTT platform with a wide range of innovative capabilities and accessibility to teams of all sizes.
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Martin Luenendonk
Martin loves entrepreneurship and has helped dozens of entrepreneurs by validating the business idea, finding scalable customer acquisition channels, and building a data-driven organization. During his time working in investment banking, tech startups, and industry-leading companies he gained extensive knowledge in using different software tools to optimize business processes.
This insights and his love for researching SaaS products enables him to provide in-depth, fact-based software reviews to enable software buyers make better decisions.