What factors does Podia consider when selecting a hosted video provider?

Len: When we compare the leading services here -- we're not looking at a lot of emerging upstarts -- at that level cost is really the primary factor for us. We have relatively standard needs. We need stability, security, performance, video quality, flexibility of video quality so that creators can serve people with varying internet speeds, an API that lets us make the platform a seamless part of Podia. Roughly speaking, any of the top platforms can serve those needs. So for us, it's a question of which platform that does all of these things makes the most sense from a cost perspective? The answer to that may change over time, depending on the volume and depending on how we're doing it.

Several of the platforms -- at least all that we've looked at -- use different variables for pricing, and that's not by accident. The two I can speak to with the most familiarity are Cloudflare and Wistia. Cloudflare, for example, will charge primarily based on minutes watched, while the bulk of our Wistia charges are based on video stored. The result is that you just have to do a lot of math and modeling and guesswork to understand how the provider you choose is going to impact your underlying costs.