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Start here in 5 minutes
- Prereqs: Clarity on your target users, expected workload, and reliability/compliance requirements
- Time: 5 minutes
- Outcome: A go/no-go decision on operating a gateway and a concrete setup next step
- First action: Review the business model section, then open the gateway setup guide if you need direct routing and SLA control
Gateway Economics
Understanding how gateways earn money at the business layer, not the protocol layer.
The Core Business Model
Gateways in Livepeer do not earn fees at the protocol level. Orchestrators earn protocol fees; gateways earn at the business layer — the margin between what you charge customers and what you pay orchestrators.Top reasons now
- Capture margin: Price customer access above orchestrator cost.
- Control reliability: Own routing, retries, and SLA policy at the edge.
- Meet enterprise requirements: Add auth, rate limits, audit, and geography constraints.
- Differentiate your product: Ship gateway-specific APIs, presets, and support layers.
Why Operate a Gateway
1. Direct Product Control
1. Direct Product Control
Keep your ingestion, routing, failover, and delivery policy in one layer you own.
- Route traffic by latency, cost, or region
- Enforce your own SLA and quality thresholds
2. Service Monetization
2. Service Monetization
Charge for managed access and support above raw compute cost.
- Set your own pricing and packaging
- Bundle dashboards, analytics, and support
3. Reliability and Compliance
3. Reliability and Compliance
Enterprise and regulated workloads need policy controls that exist at the gateway layer.
- Add auth, rate limits, allowlists, and audit logs
- Enforce data residency and region restrictions
4. Product Differentiation
4. Product Differentiation
Build customer-facing features that are independent of orchestrator churn.
- Offer stable API contracts and versioning
- Add vertical presets and workflow templates
5. Ecosystem Influence and Optionality
5. Ecosystem Influence and Optionality
Owning demand flow gives you leverage as protocol incentives and workloads evolve.
- Shape routing best practices and reliability standards
- Expand from internal use to commercial gateway offerings
Who Is Running Gateways Today
| Operator | Type | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Livepeer Studio | Commercial product | Video streaming + VOD API for developers |
| Daydream | Commercial product | Real-time AI video platform for creators and builders |
| Cloud SPE | Treasury-funded public good | Free RTMP + AI gateways, ecosystem adoption |
| Self-hosted operators | Internal / private | Platforms routing their own video and AI workloads |
The Gateway Opportunity Space
As Livepeer’s AI inference network grows, gateway operators are positioned at the layer where:- Demand aggregation happens — applications connect to gateways, not directly to orchestrators
- Service differentiation is built — feature sets, pricing models, and SLAs are gateway-layer decisions
- Business relationships live — customers buy from gateway operators, not from the protocol
Think of it this way:
Orchestrators are factories. Gateways are the logistics companies, distributors, and branded products built on top. In mature infrastructure markets, the branded, customer-facing layer captures durable value even when the underlying execution is commoditised.