Monetization for OTT Platforms & Streaming Services
Subscription billing, concurrent session control, and usage-based charging. All running behind your streaming platform without your viewers ever noticing.
What OTT Monetization Involves
Streaming platforms have billing requirements that go well beyond a simple monthly charge. Concurrent session limits, plan-based access tiers, and real-time usage tracking all need to work in sync.
Monetization for OTT Platforms (or streaming services) means handling subscription billing, managing concurrent logins, and measuring and rating the data being streamed upstream or downstream by the provider. It is more than just collecting a monthly fee.
OTT plans often use innovative package structures where each tier controls the number of concurrent users, or a premium package unlocks more access, more content, or additional viewing and listening rights. The billing engine needs to understand and enforce these rules. Not just collect payment.
OTT platforms require an enterprise-scale billing and charging engine. One that is powerful enough to handle millions of concurrent sessions, flexible enough to model complex plan structures, and easy enough to integrate without a lengthy implementation project.
How EarnBill Works Behind the Scenes for OTT
EarnBill fits naturally into the OTT billing landscape. Handling the revenue layer so your platform team can focus on content and experience
The diagram below shows how EarnBill's OTT billing solution works behind the scenes. From live sessions coming in through the ISP to streaming usage being rated, concurrent access being controlled, and revenue being collected automatically.
An OTT streaming platform can be handling thousands or millions of live sessions at any given moment. EarnBill works as a backend billing engine for the OTT platform. Tracking subscription billing, one-time and recurring payments, user concurrency, and charging for actual usage per user session, all running in parallel with the streaming experience.
The OTT platform writes usage data from live streaming to a file and processes it through EarnBill's rating engine. The platform can also use EarnBill's usage API to check in real time whether a session should be authorised to continue streaming. Which is how concurrent login limits are enforced per plan, per account.
EarnBill's OTT Billing Features
The specific capabilities that make EarnBill a strong fit as an OTT monetization engine
OTT Subscription Billing
EarnBill tracks and charges the plan subscription fees for the OTT platform on a recurring basis. Its recurring billing and subscription management capabilities are purpose-built for the OTT monetization model. Handling plan changes, renewals, and cancellations automatically.
One-Time and Recurring Payments
EarnBill provides a secure payment service with support for multiple payment gateways across different countries. Letting each OTT platform choose the gateway that works best for their subscriber base. Secure, accurate payment processing builds the user trust that leads to stored payment instruments and predictable revenue collection.
Payment collectionTracking User Concurrency
Many OTT platforms allow a set number of concurrent streams per account. More on higher-tier plans. EarnBill helps enforce these limits by tracking active streaming sessions and flagging any additional sessions that exceed the plan's allowance, halting streaming on the extra device automatically.
Usage Billing for Streaming
EarnBill's Rating Engine receives usage data about upstream and downstream streaming consumption. While most video platforms rely on subscription billing alone, some streaming services charge a low per-unit fee for data consumed. EarnBill's billing mediation feature supports these usage billing cases with a reliable, high-availability architecture designed for large subscriber bases.
Billing mediationEarnBill is a powerful, scalable, flexible, and customizable billing platform. Ideally suited as an OTT billing solution, or as the billing engine embedded inside a larger OTT monetization platform.
EarnBill in Action: Streaming at Scale
A real-world implementation of EarnBill as a rating and billing engine for a streaming provider
EarnBill's billing and rating engine has been deployed for an internet radio hosting company. Handling subscriber billing, usage-based rating, and automated payment collection for a live streaming platform with a large and growing listener base.
Read the internet radio streaming case studyReady to Transform Your OTT Monetization?
Join leading OTT platforms who trust EarnBill for monetization