Costs follow their cause
Watching causes streaming and a card charge, so the buyer pays those. Hosting a film causes storage, so the filmmaker pays that. Nothing is smeared into hidden margins.
Posted rates, in the open
Streaming is $2 per 1,000 minutes, charged once per rental and covering two full streams in the rental window. Storage is billed to filmmakers at our infrastructure cost. Card processing (currently 2.9% + $0.30) is itemized, never hidden in a price.
80% to the filmmaker, always
DirectCut keeps a flat 20% of the rental price and nothing else is deducted from the filmmaker's share. Because buyers cover streaming and processing at checkout and storage is pre-paid, 80% can be nice and clean.
Buyer, filmmaker, DirectCut.
- $2.99 rental (the filmmaker's price)
- + $0.18 streaming (90 minutes @ $2 per 1000 minutes)
- + $0.40 payment processing (currently 2.9% + $0.30 by card)
- = $3.57 total
Every rental includes two full streams inside your rental window. Fees are itemized so they can shrink. In the future, we may offer opt-in ads to reduce your cost. Let us know if that's appealing. We can also reduce payment processing fees at scale. Help us reach that scale to save you money!
- $2.99 your price
- − $0.60 (DirectCut's 20%)
- = $2.39 to you, every rental
- $5.40 storage (90 min × 12 months at our infrastructure cost)
- + $0.47 payment processing
- = $5.87 once per year
3 rentals a year covers it. Streaming and card fees are the buyer's, never deducted from your 80%.
- $0.60 platform cut (20% of your price)
- + $0.09 streaming margin if watched once (break-even if both included streams are used)
Because buyers cover streaming and processing, our 20% carries no hidden costs: it pays for hosting overhead and building the platform. No venture math, no ads in your film, no data resale.
Protection is included
Storage and streaming prices include content protection. Films never sit at a public URL. Playback works only through signed links minted after a viewer pays, those links expire within hours and never outlive the rental, downloads are disabled, and playback is domain-locked to directcut.co. It's the same signed-stream protection model used by the major independent distribution platforms.
If your film demands DRM protection, let's talk. We'll absolutely consider adding as scale permits.