Video monetization
The video monetization platform for live events and on-demand video.
Put a paywall on live streams and hosted video, run pre-roll ads from your own VAST tag, or sell subscriptions through a branded OTT service. Buyers pay into your own Stripe account, so payouts are instant.
Built for sports rights holders, media businesses, event promoters, training providers, and membership organizations.
Trusted by sports and media businesses
Business outcomes
The workflow should create value, not more operational risk.
01Own the buyer relationship
Sell access on your own site and player, so the emails, sales records, and viewing history belong to your business instead of a social platform's algorithm.
02Get paid the moment a viewer buys
Paywall payments go straight into your connected Stripe account. Castr never holds your funds, and there is no monthly payout run to wait on.
03Earn past the live window
Broadcasts record automatically, so the replay can stay behind the same paywall and keep selling after the event ends.
Capabilities that matter
The building blocks of a video monetization strategy.
Video monetization means earning directly from viewers instead of waiting on a platform's ad share. Most video monetization platforms charge per subscriber. Castr charges a plan price plus a commission on sales, and every payment lands in an account you own.
Paywall for live and VOD
Gate a live stream or hosted video behind pay-per-view pricing, or use free registration to collect viewer emails before you charge. Included on every plan with a 9% commission on sales.
In-stream advertising
Play a pre-roll ad from an uploaded video or your own VAST ad tag, with skippable playback and a click-through URL. Standard plan and higher.
Subscriptions and one-time sales
Sell SVOD subscriptions and TVOD purchases through a branded OTT storefront on the Events plan, with a 5% commission on OTT sales.
Payment options
The paywall processes credit cards through Stripe. The OTT service connects 30+ pre-integrated payment gateways, including PayPal and Stripe, matched to your market.
Content protection
Password-protect any stream on every plan, restrict playback by domain or country on Premium and higher, and add multi-DRM (Widevine, FairPlay, PlayReady) as an add-on.
Sales and audience reporting
Review paywall transactions and refunds in the dashboard, track viewer geography and devices with 30 days of analytics retention on every plan, and get subscriber and revenue reporting on the Events plan.
Need the complete matrix? See capability availability and plan tiers in one place.
Compare plans and capabilities →How video monetization works
Three ways to monetize video, and where each one runs.
Pay-per-view, subscriptions, and advertising can run separately or together on the same branded player. Here is what each model requires and what it costs.
Monetization models
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Pay-per-view (TVOD)
Set a one-time price on a live stream or hosted video, and the paywall gates access until the viewer pays.
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Free registration
Skip the charge and collect viewer emails at the gate instead, which builds a list you can sell to later.
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Subscriptions (SVOD)
Charge recurring access to your catalog through a branded OTT storefront.
Events plan, with a 5% OTT commission.
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Advertising (AVOD)
Run a pre-roll from an uploaded video or your own VAST tag against free content. This is how OTT services monetize streaming app free tiers while subscriptions carry the paid catalog.
Standard plan and higher.
Payments and payouts
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Your Stripe account
Paywall buyers pay by credit card, and the money settles in your connected Stripe account through Stripe Connect rather than passing through Castr.
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Instant payouts
There is no payout schedule, threshold, or holding period, because Castr never holds the funds in the first place.
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Refunds on your terms
Issue refunds from the paywall transactions tab or your Stripe dashboard, and handle chargebacks through Stripe directly.
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30+ payment gateways
The OTT checkout connects pre-integrated gateways, including PayPal and Stripe, for markets where cards are not the default.
Events plan.
Protect and extend the revenue
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Sell from your own domain
Embed the paywalled player on any page to sell videos online without building a storefront, or use the hosted player page Castr generates.
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Replay revenue
The recording can sit behind the same gate as the live event, so viewers who missed the broadcast still buy access.
Save recordings to your library within the 3-day retention window.
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Access controls
Password protection on every plan, with domain and country restrictions on Premium and higher.
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DRM
Add Widevine, FairPlay, and PlayReady so premium titles cannot be ripped and re-streamed.
Add-on on every plan.
The built-in paywall sells pay-per-view and free registration. Subscription billing runs through the OTT service on the Events plan, not the standard paywall. Castr displays your ads but is not an ad network, so advertising revenue comes from your own sponsor or ad-server relationships.
See paywall and OTT commissions by planInside the paywall
Promo codes, access windows, and sharing controls built into the paywall.
Price is only the first setting on the gate. These are the paywall mechanics operators compare when they decide where to sell: how to discount, how long a purchase lasts, and what stops one buyer from streaming to everyone.
Price and promote
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Promo codes
Create discount codes for early birds, members, or a partner's audience without changing the listed price.
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Lifetime or limited-time access
Choose whether a purchase unlocks the content permanently or for a set window, which is how rental-style replays work.
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Free-access links
Give press, sponsors, or VIPs a link that bypasses checkout while everyone else pays.
Control how a purchase is used
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Concurrent-viewing limit
Cap how many devices can watch from one account at the same time, so a single purchase cannot be passed around as a group ticket.
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Shared access across paywalls
Let one purchase unlock other paywalled content you pick, which turns individual events into a season bundle.
These controls ship with the built-in paywall on every plan. For running a single ticketed event end to end, see the pay-per-view workflow.
See the pay-per-view event workflowSeen enough to test it? Start a 7-day trial with no credit card, or talk through your exact setup first.
Customer workflows
See how video teams put the platform to work.
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Read the storyOperator fit
Built for teams whose content people will pay to watch.
The strongest fit is an operator with an audience and something worth gating: a season of matches, a training library, a concert series. You bring the content and a Stripe account for payouts. Castr supplies the paywall, the player, the delivery, and a branded storefront when embeds are no longer enough.
Review your workflow with CastrStrong qualification signals
- Ticketed live events, seasons, and tournaments
- Paid replays and VOD libraries
- Training and membership content
- Branded OTT storefronts
Switching to Castr
Bring a paying audience to Castr without losing a sale.
You do not have to cut over blind. Run Castr in parallel with your current provider while you test, and let our video team confirm the fit before anything switches.
Run in parallel
Connect your Stripe account and put a test event behind the paywall while your current platform keeps selling. You can prove checkout, registration, and playback end to end before anything moves.
Map the workflow
Our team reviews your model, whether that is pay-per-view, ads, subscriptions, or a mix, then confirms what the built-in paywall covers and what belongs to the OTT service on the Events plan.
Cut over with support
Point buyers at the new checkout when you are ready. Payments land in your own Stripe account from the first sale, and 24/7 human support stays on hand through your first paid events.
Build the complete workflow
Connect this capability to the rest of your operation.
Pay-per-view
Sell tickets to a single live event with the built-in paywall.
Explore
White-label OTT
Launch a subscription storefront with branded apps.
Explore
Video hosting
The VOD library behind your paid replays.
Explore
Live streaming
Multi-CDN delivery behind every paid stream.
Explore
Plans and commissions
See paywall and OTT commissions by plan.
Explore
Castr OTT vs Uscreen
How Castr's commissions compare with per-subscriber platform fees.
Explore
Questions before you choose
Evaluate the workflow with confidence.
Feature and plan availability changes by tier. Use the full matrix for comparison, or let our team validate a complex setup.
How do I monetize video content?
Pick the model that matches how people watch. Put pay-per-view pricing on a live stream or hosted video through the built-in paywall, run pre-roll ads against free content, or sell subscriptions through a branded OTT service on the Events plan. Castr lets you monetize your videos with any of the three, or combine them, on a player embedded on your own site.
What do SVOD, TVOD, and AVOD mean?
SVOD is subscription video on demand: viewers pay a recurring fee for access to the catalog. TVOD is transactional: a one-time payment for one event or title, which is how the Castr paywall sells pay-per-view. AVOD is ad-based: viewers watch free and ads carry the revenue. On Castr, TVOD runs on every plan through the paywall, AVOD runs from the Standard plan up, and SVOD runs through the OTT service on Events.
How much does Castr take from each sale?
The paywall charges a flat 9% commission on every sale, the same rate on every plan. On a $100 ticket you keep $91, and Stripe's card processing fees are then deducted from your share. OTT sales on the Events plan carry a 5% commission. There are no per-viewer or per-subscriber platform fees.
How do payouts work?
Buyers pay by card into your own Stripe account through Stripe Connect, so the money is yours as soon as the transaction clears. Castr never holds your funds, and there is no payout threshold or monthly payment run to wait for.
Can I monetize live streams as well as videos?
Yes. Live stream monetization and VOD monetization run through the same paywall: sell access to the live event, then keep the automatic recording behind the same gate. Recordings are retained for three days, so save the replay to your video library within that window and it can keep selling. In-stream ads also work on both live streams and hosted video.
Should I use a video paywall or ads?
A video paywall fits content people will pay for directly: matches, courses, premieres. Ads fit free content with a sponsor behind it. Be clear about what Castr's advertising does, though. It displays a pre-roll you upload or serves your own VAST tag, and the revenue comes from your sponsor or ad-server deal. Castr is not an ad network and does not pay you per view, which is why gated access usually earns more for a niche audience.
Do I need my own Stripe account?
For the paywall, yes. You connect your own Stripe account before you create your first paywall, and every sale settles there. The OTT service on the Events plan is broader: it connects 30+ pre-integrated payment gateways, including PayPal and Stripe, so viewers can pay in markets where cards are not the default.
How are refunds handled?
By you, since the funds sit in your Stripe account rather than Castr's. Issue a refund from the paywall transactions tab in the Castr dashboard or directly from Stripe, and handle any chargeback dispute through Stripe as you would for any card payment you accept.
How is this different from YouTube video monetization?
YouTube video monetization pays a share of ad revenue once your channel qualifies for the partner program, and the rates and rules are YouTube's. With Castr you set the price and keep the sale, minus the 9% commission. If the question you keep coming back to is how to monetize my YouTube audience beyond ad share, the usual move is to keep free clips on YouTube and sell full events behind your own paywall.
Can Castr help us validate our current workflow?
Yes. Castr’s video team will walk through your current setup, from sources and destinations to audience scale, security, and monetization, and confirm the fit before you migrate.
Move from evaluation to your first paid viewer
Map Castr to the workflow your team runs today.
Walk through your content, pricing model, payment setup, and protection requirements with a video expert, and leave knowing whether the paywall or the OTT service fits.