I'm creating a website where people can upload and watch videos. I'm expecting 1000 simultaneous viewers at all times (on average). The problem is that all the CDNs I've looked at charges about $0.06/GB. This means that 0,17 MB/s (720p) x 1000 users x 60 seconds x 60 minutes / 1024 = $36 an hour to host!
Am I missing something?
Over at CloudFlare you don't pay for the bandwith. Does this mean that I can get it really cheap at CloudFlare. Isn't that too good to be true?
Yes, you're missing the point that Cloudfare will only cache "static and small" files, with these extensions: https://support.cloudflare.com/hc/en-us/articles/200172516-What-file-extensions-does-CloudFlare-cache-for-static-content- as you can see, mp4 and similar are not on the list.
So, assuming most of the cost is bandwith, you will have the same, but a faster website as some resources will be served by cloudfare CDN.
It all depends on how many videos will you have, but usually a dedicated server will offer much more storage (and enough bandwith) for a fixed monthly fee. The problem is that 1000 simultaneous viewers is too much for a single server serving the files.