In this guide we’ll go over how to set and configure pricing to charge for transcoding advertised to gateways off-chain.

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Setting WEI Price

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Choose a Price

To charge for transcoding orchestrators set a price per pixel denominated in Wei (1 ETH = 1e18 Wei), advertised to gateways off-chain. To get support for setting a price that will allow you to receive work on the network, contact us on our Discord channel.

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Configure Automatic Price Adjustments

The default behavior of orchestrators is to automatically adjust their advertised price per pixel based on the estimated overhead for redeeming a ticket. The overhead for redeeming a ticket is the estimated transaction cost of the redemption transaction divided by the face value of the ticket represented as a percentage. For example, given a base price per pixel of 1000 wei:
  • If the overhead is 1%, the advertised price would be 1010 wei
  • If the overhead is 20%, the advertised price would be 1200 wei
  • If the overhead is 50%, the advertised price is 1500 wei
The motivation for this automatic price adjustment mechanism is to allow orchestrators to dynamically adjust their price to compensate for higher overheads for ticket redemptions when gas prices are high. Orchestrators can disable this mechanism and advertise a constant price by setting the -autoAdjustPrice=false flag.

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Set a Price With livepeer_cli

You can set the base price per pixel using the livepeer_cli:
  1. Run livepeer_cli
  2. Enter the number corresponding to the Set orchestrator config option
  3. You will get prompted to enter values for several fields.
If you only want to set the price, you can continue using the existing default values.
  1. You will get prompted for the price per pixel:
  2. Set the number of pixels in a single unit of work you will charge for.
For example: 
   Enter a transcoding base price in wei per pixels
   eg. 1 wei / 10 pixels = 0,1 wei per pixel
   Enter the number of pixels that make up a single unit (default: 1 pixel):
The Default setting option (1) is typically used.
  1. Set the price (in wei) that you will charge per unit of work: 
    Enter the price for 1 pixel in Wei (required):
  2. To verify the price was updated, check the log from your node.

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Setting fiat-denominated price

With the release of go-livepeer version 0.8.0, we are introducing a feature to allow specifying the transcoding price per pixel in USD. This is a backward-compatible change, which still supports setting the price in Wei but now gives the option of using custom currencies instead, with USD being the default. The feature works by integrating with a Chainlink Price Feed to fetch the quote of the given currency and periodically update the transcoding price on the running node. This is meant to be performed both in Bs and Os, keeping the price over the network consistent over time.

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Configuration

To set a price in USD, one just needs to add the USD suffix to the value provided in the -pricePerUnit flag sent to the livepeer binary. If the currency suffix is missing, it will default to Wei to keep backward-compatibility. Given the price per pixel in USD is going to be a really low number, the recommendation is to also set the -pixelsPerUnit flag so a more human-friendly number can be specified on the price per unit. The -pixelsPerUnit acts as a denominator on the -pricePerUnit and the recommendation is to keep it constant over time, updating only the price per unit as seen fit. e.g.:
  • To set a price of $4.10 E -13
-pixelsPerUnit 1e12 \
-pricePerUnit 0.41USD
  • To set a price of $6.65 E -14
-pixelsPerUnit 1e12 \
-pricePerUnit 0.0665USD
Notice that the -pixelsPerUnit flag supports the exponential notation, so it’s easier to understand the value being set. The -pricePerUnit does not support it though, so a standard decimal notation must be used. This is also an incentive to use the -pixelsPerUnit value in order to keep the -pricePerUnit as an easily readable value. This feature is also supported by gateways, with the -pixelsPerUnit flag staying the same, while the -maxPricePerUnit should be set instead for the max price. The currency is specified in the same format.

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Advanced

The livepeer binary is automatically configured with the ETH/USD price feed in the Arbitrum mainnet. If you are running the node on a different network or would like to use a different currency to peg the price to, you should configure the -priceFeedAddr with the address of the corresponding price feed. You can search for existing price feed addresses on Chainlink website. Notice that the price feed must have both ETH and your desired currency in the quote pair. You should then specify the price per unit with the currency suffix corresponding to the currency provided by the price feed. e.g.
  • To use USD as the price currency in Ethereum mainnet:
-priceFeedAddr 0x5f4eC3Df9cbd43714FE2740f5E3616155c5b8419 \
-pricePerUnit 1USD
  • To use BTC as the price currency on Arbitrum mainnet:
-priceFeedAddr 0xc5a90A6d7e4Af242dA238FFe279e9f2BA0c64B2e \
-pricePerUnit 1BTC
The -pixelsPerUnit flag is independent of this. Also keep in mind that while custom currencies are supported, Livepeer Studio will be pegging their -maxPricePerPixel to USD so the recommendation is to also keep the default USD configuration on your node to stay in sync with the rest of the network.