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For a PC streaming directly to YouTube, your upload data is not automatically a cloud egress charge. YouTube receives the encoder’s live ingest and transcodes it for viewers. Your recurring PC-side cost is electricity: measure the computer’s average wall draw, then multiply by its hours running and your local electricity rate.
Does YouTube charge you for cloud egress?
Not for viewer delivery in the direct PC-to-YouTube setup described here. YouTube’s live-streaming guidance says an encoder sends a stream to YouTube’s ingest, where YouTube transcodes it into formats for viewers. The PC’s upload volume is data sent to YouTube; it is not, by itself, a cloud egress bill charged to you. YouTube’s live encoder guidance explains the ingest and transcoding workflow.
Cloud egress can be a cost when you operate a different architecture—for example, cloud encoding and packaging combined with a cloud origin or content delivery network (CDN) that serves video to viewers. The bill then depends on that provider’s services, traffic, region, and configuration. AWS’s example below is one such modeled architecture, not a bill estimate for a PC sending a stream directly to YouTube.
How to calculate the PC’s 24/7 electricity cost
Use the PC’s measured average power at the wall, not its streaming bitrate. The calculation is:
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Electricity cost = average watts ÷ 1,000 × operating hours × electricity price per kWh
- Measure the computer’s average wall draw while it is doing the actual streaming workload. A plug-in watt meter can help; include any equipment whose electricity you want to count.
- Multiply the average watts by the hours it runs, then divide by 1,000 to convert watt-hours to kilowatt-hours.
- Multiply the resulting kilowatt-hours by your applicable marginal electricity price per kWh. Use your own rate, since prices vary by location and plan.
Illustrative annual example
A PC drawing an assumed average of 100 W for 24 hours a day over 365 days uses 876 kWh: 100 ÷ 1,000 × 8,760. At the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2025 average residential price of $0.173/kWh, that would cost about $151.55 for the year. This is arithmetic under stated assumptions, not a measured result for a particular PC. The EIA reports substantial geographic variation, so the U.S. average is only a benchmark. EIA electricity data
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Why your PC’s draw must be measured
There is no universal wattage for a streaming PC. Total wall draw can change with the CPU or GPU, encoder workload, other running tasks, displays and peripherals, and power-management settings. Video bitrate does not establish how many watts the computer consumes. If you have no meter reading, calculate a range using clearly labeled assumed wattages rather than presenting one as typical.
How much data does a 24/7 stream send?
For an approximate decimal-gigabyte estimate, use:
Data sent (GB) ≈ bitrate (Mbps) × 0.45 × operating hours
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For a full 365 days, this is approximately bitrate in Mbps × 10,800 GB, or bitrate × 10.8 TB. A constant 6 Mbps stream therefore sends about 64.8 TB in a year; a constant 14 Mbps stream sends about 151.2 TB. These are calculated amounts sent to YouTube, before protocol overhead or downtime—not cloud egress charges for viewer delivery.
For context, YouTube’s current H.264 ingest guidance lists 8 Mbps for 720p at 60 fps, 14 Mbps for 1080p at 30 fps, and 17 Mbps for 1080p at 60 fps. The appropriate setting depends on the stream’s resolution, frame rate, and codec; consult YouTube’s bitrate guidance rather than treating one bitrate as universal.
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When cloud egress belongs in the comparison
Count cloud viewer-delivery charges only when your setup actually uses cloud services to distribute the video to viewers. Do not apply a cloud CDN’s egress model to a PC’s direct YouTube ingest simply because the PC uploads a large volume of data.
For scale, AWS’s published example estimates a one-hour event with about 1,000 viewers at $69.74 total, including $67.24 for CloudFront distribution. It assumes AWS encoding and packaging, specified bitrate and traffic assumptions, U.S. East pricing, and that viewers consume the highest bitrate. It illustrates a cloud-hosted delivery stack; it is not a general AWS tariff or an estimate for direct PC-to-YouTube streaming. AWS live-streaming solution guide
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Compare costs on the same basis
- Match the period: compare monthly costs with monthly costs, or annual with annual.
- Label the architecture: distinguish direct PC-to-YouTube ingest from a creator-operated cloud encoding, packaging, origin, or delivery stack.
- Use measured power: base the electricity calculation on average wall draw during the real workload, not bitrate or an unverified generic PC wattage.
- Use your electricity rate: the EIA’s 2025 U.S. residential average was 17.30¢/kWh. Its 2025 all-customer-category figures ranged from 8.20¢/kWh in North Dakota to 35.72¢/kWh in Hawaii; those state figures are not residential-only rates. EIA electricity data
- Keep data volume separate: estimate upload volume from bitrate and uptime, but do not call that amount a cloud egress bill unless your architecture and provider actually charge for viewer delivery.
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