Free FFmpeg API tiers and where they stop
Compare 6 free FFmpeg API tiers by what they let you run before paying: runtime caps, input size caps, card checks and trimmed output. Checked 2026-09-26.
Abdelrahman Essawy 6 MIN READRendobar has the free FFmpeg API tier I would start on, because it lets you build something real before paying: $5 of credits with no card, jobs up to an hour long, and the same credits run captions, timelines and image generation as well as your own FFmpeg commands. The other five either want a card, stop a command at one minute, cap input size, trim the output, allow three calls a month, or end after three days. The limits decide this more than the size of the allowance, so the tables below lead with them.
Rendobar’s free tier is one of the six and I built it. Every competitor limit below was read off the vendor’s live pricing page on 2026-09-26. Paid plans and what they cost on a real workload are in FFmpeg API pricing compared. This post covers only what you get before paying, and the best FFmpeg API comparison weighs everything else.
The six free tiers and their ceilings
| Service | Free allowance | Card | Ceilings that bind first |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rendi | 50 GB processed a month, input plus output | Yes, a refundable $5 verification charge | 1 minute per command, 4 vCPUs, 4 commands a minute |
| Rendobar | $5 of credits, one time | No | 1 hour per job, 500 MB input files, 1 job at a time, outputs kept 7 days |
| FFmpeg Micro | 200 tokens, one time, about 33 minutes of input | No | 100 MB input files, preset endpoints instead of raw commands |
| Transloadit | 5 GB a month | No | Output images are watermarked, audio and video are trimmed |
| ffmpegapi.net | 3 API calls a month | No | Task endpoints instead of raw commands |
| RenderIO | None, a 3-day trial of Starter | Not stated on the pricing page | 1 minute per command during the trial |
ffmpegapi.net’s own FAQ still says the free plan is 10 calls a month. Its pricing table says 3, and the table is what the table above uses.
Which free tier can run your job
The allowance is rarely what stops a job. A ceiling is. Here are three typical first jobs against the published limits:
| Job | Rendi | Rendobar | FFmpeg Micro | Transloadit | ffmpegapi.net | RenderIO trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Trim a 5-second clip | Yes | Yes | Yes | Trimmed output | Yes, 1 of 3 calls | Yes |
| Transcode a 300 MB upload | Only if it finishes in 1 minute | Yes | No, over 100 MB | Trimmed output | Not published | Only if it finishes in 1 minute |
| A transcode that runs 10 minutes | No | Yes | Runtime cap not published | Trimmed output | Not published | No |
Runtime is the limit that stops people first, and it never appears in the headline allowance. Rendi and RenderIO both stop a command at one minute. Rendobar’s free plan allows an hour per job, the only free runtime here that fits the ten-minute row, and its $9 Pro plan raises that to 9 hours.
Rendobar: $5 of credits, no card
The grant is $5, one time, and it does not reset or lapse at the end of a month. How far it goes depends on the job. The median FFmpeg-command job on Rendobar since 2026-08-01, nearly all on the 5-second 720p clip behind the site’s FFmpeg measurements, cost a median of $0.0025 and a mean of $0.0027, so $5 covers roughly 1,850 of them. Captions and image generation cost more per job, and cost scales with compute time, so a long 4K transcode uses the grant many times faster.
It is a working tier, not a demo. You send the FFmpeg command you already tested, unchanged, and the same credits run the other job types too, animated captions, JSON timelines through compose, compression to a target size, ffprobe and image generation. Output can go straight to your own S3, R2 or Supabase bucket on the free plan, and the SDK, the CLI, the MCP server, the n8n node and the Activepieces piece all work on it. The ceilings are one job at a time, 500 MB input files and outputs kept for 7 days.
Rendi: the largest allowance, behind a card
Rendi counts input and output bytes against its monthly allowance. On that same clip, a job moves 343.9 KB in and a median 387.8 KB out, 731.7 KB together. At that size the allowance covers roughly 67,000 jobs a month (counting a GB as a billion bytes), and the 4-commands-a-minute rate limit allows far more than that. For short clips it is effectively unlimited.
What it costs you is a verified card, charged $5 and refunded once the card validates, and the command cap. If your files are small, every command finishes inside a minute, and a card on file is fine, Rendi’s free tier outlasts every other one here. That includes ours. The Rendobar vs Rendi comparison covers the paid side.
FFmpeg Micro: a one-time grant metered on input length
FFmpeg Micro charges 1 token per 10 seconds of input, metered per second, and gives 200 tokens on signup with no card, about 33 minutes of source, once. Metering on input length means a stream copy and a two-pass encode of the same file cost the same, which favours heavy work on short sources. The catches are the 100 MB input cap and the preset endpoints: an existing FFmpeg command has to be translated into its API before it runs.
Three that are free in name
Transloadit’s Community tier gives 5 GB a month with no card, but its pricing page says output images are watermarked and audio and video are trimmed. You can prove a pipeline works on it. You cannot ship what it produces.
ffmpegapi.net gives 3 calls a month, and a guest API key on its homepage for trying the tools without signing up. Three calls is three jobs, a demo, not a tier.
RenderIO has no permanent free tier. Its Starter plan opens with a 3-day trial with full API access, then bills $12 a month for 500 commands. Three days is enough to test and not enough to build on.
Credits or a monthly allowance
Rendi, Transloadit and ffmpegapi.net reset monthly, so an idle month loses its allowance and a busy one hits the cap. Rendobar and FFmpeg Micro grant once, so nothing is lost in a quiet month and nothing refills in a busy one. Steady work fits the monthly shape. Bursty work fits the grant.
I would start on Rendobar’s $5. It needs no card, it runs the command you already have for as long as a real transcode takes, and nothing you build on it has to be rewritten when you move to paid credits. If you need to ship what the free tier produces, rule out Transloadit’s first.