Issue Nº.001 — Spring 2026
Cloud Transcoding Quarterly
Vol. 3 / Pricing

Pay for
what
encodes.

— The plan

The core is free and self-hosted forever. Every tier runs the same pipeline — you pay for fleet ceiling, from one worker to an unlimited floor.

01 — SoloSelf-hosted
$0
/ month — forever

One master, one worker. The full pipeline on your own hardware — no card, no clock, nothing held back.

Create a free account →
Unlimited jobs
1 worker · 1 master
Full preset library
Verification & forensics
Community support
Most popular
02 — TeamGrowing fleets
$29
/ month — from · three sizes

The same product with room to grow: pick the worker ceiling that matches the machines in the room.

Choose a size →
Team — 2 workers · $29/mo
Team 5 — 5 workers · $59/mo
Team 10 — 10 workers · $99/mo
Everything in Solo
Client Review add-on ready
Email support
03 — StudioFacilities
$249
/ month — from · three sizes

Facility-scale ceilings, a second master on the top sizes — and on Studio Plus, no worker cap at all.

Choose a size →
Studio 25 — 25 workers · $249/mo
Studio 50 — 50 workers · 2 masters · $479/mo
Studio Plus — unlimited workers · 3 masters · $999/mo
Everything in Team
Client Review add-on ready
Email support · Slack with a 3-hour SLA on Studio Plus

At $29 a month for two workers, Team costs about what one busy day of 4K output runs on a per-minute cloud meter — the math is below. Wrong size? 7-day money-back guarantee on the first month of any paid plan.

Payments are handled by Stripe — checkout and billing run on Stripe's hosted pages, and card details never touch TRNSCODE.

— The meter math

Flat fee vs.
the meter.

Cloud transcoding bills per minute of output, every month, forever. A worker ceiling is flat. Here is the same month, both ways.

Monthly outputPer-minute meterTRNSCODE flat
50 hours of 4K~$144/moTeam 10 — $99/mo
150 hours of 4K~$432/moStudio 25 — $249/mo
500 hours of 4K~$1,270/moStudio Plus — $999/mo, unlimited workers

Meter column: AWS Elemental MediaConvert's published on-demand rates (US East, Professional tier — $0.012 per normalized minute in the first bracket, volume brackets after it; 4K ≤30fps = 4× minutes), retrieved September 2026. That is the meter's floor: HEVC, high frame rates, multi-pass and quality modes multiply it — and next month the meter starts at zero again. The flat fee buys the same fleet every month, on hardware you already own.

— Which plan

Start from
the room.

Fleet-scale encoding used to be a hardware budget. Here it is the machines you already own and a monthly ceiling — count the boxes that sit idle, pick the size that fits.

A spare box under the desk

A freelance editor or creator with one machine to spare: the deadline export runs there while you keep cutting, verified before it ships. That is Solo — free forever, no card.

A suite with idle desktops

A small post team with two to ten machines between the bays — spare desktops, a retired tower, the assistant's box after hours. That is Team: $29 to $99 a month by worker ceiling.

A facility that sleeps at night

Twenty-five to fifty workstations that go dark at 7 PM can drain the day's queue before morning. That is Studio 25 or Studio 50 — $249 or $479 a month, with a second master on Studio 50.

A render farm that can't ingest

Blades render all night while one or two servers crawl through ingest for days. Put a worker on every blade and the whole rack encodes. That is Studio Plus — $999 a month, no worker cap, three masters, Slack support on a 3-hour SLA.

— À la carte

One add-on.

Everything else ships in every tier. The one thing sold separately is the review room.

Client Review — $29/mo

The review & approval platform on your own master: scrubbable previews, approve/reject gates with comments, and per-deliverable sign-off before anything ships. Added or removed à la carte from the account dashboard on any paid plan, billed with the subscription through Stripe.

Included everywhere

The preset library, verification and forensics, watch folders, NLE round-trip and localization delivery are not upsells — every tier, Solo included, runs the complete pipeline. The tiers differ by fleet ceiling alone.

— Compare

Seven sizes.
One product.

FeatureSoloTeamTeam 5Team 10Studio 25Studio 50Studio Plus
Monthly price$0$29$59$99$249$479$999
Workers125102550Unlimited
Master activations1111123
Unlimited jobsIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Full preset libraryIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Verification & forensicsIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Watch foldersIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
NLE round-tripIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Localization deliveryIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Client Review add-onNot included+$29/mo+$29/mo+$29/mo+$29/mo+$29/mo+$29/mo
SupportCommunityEmailEmailEmailEmailEmailSlack · 3-hour SLA
— Questions

Before you ask.

Is Solo really free?

Solo carries no fee, no time limit and no card. Create an account and it is provisioned automatically: one master, one worker, the full pipeline — presets, verification, watch folders — on hardware you own.

What am I actually paying for?

Fleet ceiling. Every tier runs the same product; the paid tiers raise how many workers can register — Studio Plus removes the cap entirely — and Studio 50 and Studio Plus allow a second master. Nothing else is held back.

What counts as a worker?

One worker daemon on one machine. A box with four GPUs is still one worker unless you run four daemons.

What is a master activation?

One installed master service bound to your account. Most tiers include one; Studio 50 includes two and Studio Plus three, for extra rooms or a standby coordinator.

Do you see my media?

No. TRNSCODE is self-hosted. Files never leave your network — there is no upload step and no cloud dependency. The only thing that talks to us is the license check.

What if a paid plan doesn't work out?

Evaluation is what Solo is for — the full pipeline, free forever, no card. If you then buy the wrong size, the first month of any new paid subscription carries a 7-day money-back guarantee: email info@trnscode.com from your account address within 7 days of the first charge and it is refunded and cancelled. Downgrades and cancellations are self-service any time after that.

Can I change plans later?

Any time, from your account dashboard — upgrades and changes go through Stripe's own checkout and billing portal, and card details never touch TRNSCODE. A running master picks the new ceiling up at its next license revalidation, or immediately with Re-validate now in the console.

— Start encoding

Point it at a folder.
Get your frames back.

Install the master, join a worker, submit a job. Self-hosted and free to run on hardware you already own.

Self-hosted · your hardware, your network