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Two Revenue Streams

An Orchestrator’s total earnings combine two streams that are structurally independent.

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Service Fees (ETH)

Service fees are paid by Gateways via probabilistic micropayment (PM) tickets. Each job segment or inference request carries a ticket with a face value and a win probability. When a ticket “wins” (determined cryptographically), the Orchestrator redeems it on the TicketBroker contract on Arbitrum for the face value in ETH. The expected value of a ticket equals its face value multiplied by the win probability. Over a large number of tickets, actual earnings converge to the expected value.

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Pricing units

Fee income per job is determined by the price the Orchestrator charges and the volume it processes: Setting prices too high means Gateways will not select the Orchestrator (their -maxPricePerUnit ceiling acts as a filter). Setting prices too low reduces earnings per job. The network forms a market price - use livepeer_cli to survey current rates before setting your own.

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Fee distribution

The Orchestrator’s fee cut determines what share of collected fees goes to the Orchestrator versus the shared fee pool distributed to Delegators.
Fee cut split
Total fee ticket value = Orchestrator fee cut + Delegator fee pool
For example, at a fee cut of 5%: the Orchestrator keeps 5% of ticket value; 95% goes to the fee pool distributed proportionally among Delegators.

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Inflation Rewards (LPT)

The Livepeer protocol mints new LPT each round to incentivise participation. Orchestrators in the active set earn a share of this inflation proportional to their total bonded stake.

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The reward call

To claim LPT rewards for a round, the Orchestrator (or an automated process) must call the reward function on the BondingManager contract once per round. Missing a reward call means forgoing that round’s LPT rewards entirely. Skipping a round permanently forfeits that round’s reward. Most production Orchestrators automate reward calling. The go-livepeer node supports this automatically. See for configuration details.

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Reward distribution

The Orchestrator’s reward cut determines what share of the round’s LPT goes to the Orchestrator versus Delegators:
Reward cut split
Total round reward = Orchestrator reward cut + Delegator reward pool
A reward cut of 25% means the Orchestrator keeps 25% of the LPT earned; 75% is distributed to Delegators in proportion to their bonded stake.

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Active set requirement

Only the top 100 Orchestrators by total bonded stake (self-stake + delegated stake) are in the active set in any given round. Only active set members receive inflation rewards and can receive Gateway jobs. Stake below the threshold for active set membership means no earnings from either stream. The active set threshold varies with network participation. Monitor your rank on the Livepeer Explorer to ensure you remain in the active set.

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Orchestrator Costs

Earnings must be weighed against operational costs. Orchestrator costs fall into three categories:
Gateways fund the jobs; Orchestrators earn the service fees. The operator cost structure is infrastructure and staking.

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Payment Flow End-to-End

This is the complete flow from Gateway payment through Orchestrator receipt to Delegator distribution.

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Operator Models

Orchestrators operate for different reasons. The earnings model looks different depending on context.
Existing GPU hardware can turn spare capacity into ETH service fees and LPT rewards through Livepeer Orchestrator workloads.The incremental cost is electricity and a small slice of GPU time. The marginal earnings are service fees (proportional to workload volume) plus LPT rewards (proportional to stake).This model favours operators with high-end consumer or prosumer GPUs (RTX 3090, 4090, A100, H100) and reliable connectivity. The solo-operator path is documented in the .
Commercial Orchestrators serving application workloads (Daydream, Livepeer Studio, custom AI products) operate differently from solo GPU miners.Revenue comes primarily from service fees. The key metrics are throughput, latency, and reliability - not stake size. Pricing strategy matters more, and direct relationships with high-volume Gateways are common.This model requires understanding Gateway selection mechanics in depth. See for the factors Gateways weigh.
Pool operators run the Orchestrator process and LPT staking infrastructure, then accept GPU workers from contributors who want to earn without managing the on-chain complexity.Revenue for pool operators typically comes from a fee charged to workers (percentage of their earnings) or from running some of the GPUs in the pool themselves.This model combines the earnings from running GPU compute with revenue from managing the protocol layer on behalf of workers.
An Orchestrator that holds substantial self-stake but operates at low capacity or joins a pool earns primarily from inflation rewards, with service fees staying secondary.High reward cut retains more LPT per round. Low reward cut attracts more delegated stake, which increases the Orchestrator’s share of the total round reward.This model is most relevant for large LPT holders evaluating whether to self-operate versus delegating to an existing Orchestrator.

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Configuring Prices

Orchestrators set three categories of pricing parameter at startup or via livepeer_cli:

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Base price

Base pricing flags
# Price per pixel per second for video transcoding
-pricePerUnit=1000

# Enable automatic price adjustment based on network conditions
-autoAdjustPrice=true

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AI capability pricing

AI capability pricing flag
# Per-pipeline, per-model AI pricing (JSON file path)
-pricePerCapability=/path/to/ai-prices.json
Example ai-prices.json:
Example ai-prices.json
{
  "capabilities_prices": [
    {
      "pipeline": "text-to-image",
      "model_id": "stabilityai/stable-diffusion-3-medium-diffusers",
      "price_per_unit": 4768371,
      "pixels_per_unit": 1
    },
    {
      "pipeline": "audio-to-text",
      "model_id": "openai/whisper-large-v3",
      "price_per_unit": 15000,
      "pixels_per_unit": 1
    }
  ]
}

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Per-Gateway pricing

Per-Gateway pricing
# Set a different price for a specific Gateway address
-pricePerGateway='{"0xGatewayAddress": 800}'
Per-Gateway pricing allows commercial Orchestrators to negotiate rates with high-volume Gateways independently of the base network price. See for competitive pricing guidance and current network rate benchmarks.

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Attracting Delegators

Delegated stake increases an Orchestrator’s share of inflation rewards and improves its active set ranking. Attracting and retaining Delegators is therefore an economic lever for Orchestrators. Delegators evaluate Orchestrators on:
  • Reward cut - lower reward cut means more LPT to Delegators per round
  • Fee cut - lower fee cut means more ETH to Delegators from service fees
  • Reliability - missed reward calls mean Delegators receive no rewards for that round
  • Reputation - track record of uptime, performance, and community engagement
  • Stake already committed - larger self-stake signals greater operator commitment
The Livepeer Explorer shows all active Orchestrators and their current cut settings, stake, and recent reward-calling history. Delegators use this to compare options. See for operator strategies.

Orchestrator Role

What Orchestrators are and how the role has evolved.

Orchestrator Capabilities

Workload types and how Gateways select Orchestrators.

Pricing Strategy

How to set competitive prices for video and AI workloads.

Gateway Business Model

The buy-side view - how Gateways pay and what they maximise.
Last modified on March 16, 2026