Video Storage (Legacy Plans)
Note: This article applies plans created before November 10, 2023. If you created your Vocal Video after this date, please see details on Video Processing here.
If you have a free account...
If you have a free Vocal Video account, video storage is free, and you can collect an unlimited number of responses to your video collectors. However, any unpublished responses and draft videos are automatically archived after 14 days. So, if you're on a free plan, the rest of this article isn't relevant to you. If you have a paid subscription, read on for an explanation of how video storage works.
If you have a paid subscription...
Every Vocal Video subscription includes a certain amount of free video storage:
- Solo: 3 hours included
- Team: 5 hours included
- Pro: 10 hours included
- Enterprise: custom storage limits
The included free storage covers the needs of most Vocal Video customers, but to keep costs fair across our customer base, we do charge for additional video storage.
If you have a Solo, Team, or Pro plan and you exceed your free storage, we bill $20/month for each additional hour of video storage. The additional storage is billed in hourly increments, not by the minute.
If you approach your free storage limit...
If you use up 80% or more of your free video storage, we'll notify you via email (the email goes to your account's billing contact). This gives you the opportunity to reduce your usage or upgrade to a plan with more free storage (and more features) before you incur any additional storage charges.
If you do exceed your free storage, we'll automatically charge the credit card associated with your account. Any such charges are prorated based on the time remaining in your current billing cycle. There will be no interruption in service and you will be able to continue to collect responses.
For example: If you're on a Team Annual subscription and you exceed 5 hours of video storage when you're 6 months through your annual billing cycle, you'll be charged $120 in the current billing cycle ($20/month * 6 months) and $240 for the next annual billing cycle.
Annual vs Quarterly billing
If you incur charges for additional video storage while on an annual plan, you will be billed at the annual rate ($20/month * 12 months = $240), but your charge will be prorated based on your subscription's renewal rate.
If you incur charges on a quarterly plan, you'll be billed at the quarterly rate ($20/month * 3 months = $60), but your charge will be prorated based on your subscription's renewal rate.
How video storage is calculated
We count the unique minutes of video footage stored in your Vocal Video account. This means that published videos, raw video responses, video greetings in your collectors, and any external video that you upload are included in your video storage total. This can always be viewed in the top right of your dashboard when you log into Vocal Video.
Draft videos are not counted since they use minimal storage space. Sample content that is pre-loaded into your account is also not counted against your storage total.
How to reduce video storage
Here are some quick tips to reduce your video storage. Step by step instructions on how to delete videos and responses can be found here.
- Delete responses you don't plan on publishing. (Please note, you’ll need to delete any draft videos that incorporate these responses before deleting the responses themselves.)
- Delete published videos you aren't using.
- Remove video greetings from old collectors
- Remove unused external uploaded video clips
- Upgrade to a plan with more free storage (and more features)
Storage charges are adjusted at the start of every billing cycle, so if you reduce your video storage to a lower tier, your storage charges will reset when your subscription renews.
Why do we charge for video storage in the first place?
Vocal Video is not ad-supported in any way. We will never put ads in, on, or anywhere near your videos. We believe that this enables you to realize a much higher return on investment from your videos, as viewers are not immediately drawn away from your site.
It's not inexpensive for us to store your video content in such a way that we can provide fast HD streaming to any viewer across the globe. (This also includes making our video editor as fast as possible.)
Some of our customers use a little video storage, some use a lot. Without any additional charges for those that use a lot of video storage, we would need to raise subscription charges across the board. We feel that our approach is the most equitable option.
If you have feedback on our video storage, feel free to contact us.