By Dacast Editorial Team | Reviewed by Jon Whitehead, COO at Dacast | Updated May 2026<\/em><\/p>\n Finding the right VOD hosting platform to fit your needs is a tall task. With so many options on the market today, getting the right balance of ease of use and all the bells and whistles you want to make sure you\u2019re putting out professional-looking content can be difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n Thankfully, because there are so many options available, you have a lot of possibilities when searching for a platform to meet your business needs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Whether you want to find a platform that allows you to charge your viewers a monthly subscription or you want to run advertisements on your videos, there\u2019s a platform that can give you what you want. Before you waste your time trying out a collection of platforms that won\u2019t help you work the way you want to, narrow down the list of must-have features for your VOD platform and use that list to select a platform.<\/span><\/p>\n Video on demand (VOD)<\/a> is a video delivery model that allows viewers to access content at any time, on any device, without being tied to a scheduled broadcast. Users select the content they want, watch it on their preferred device, and can pause, rewind, or return to it later.<\/span><\/p>\n VOD hosting<\/a> allows you to distribute the content you create on your own terms, with full control over access, monetization, and branding.<\/span><\/p>\n The videos you create are essential to your livelihood, and you need the right platform to <\/span>distribute and monetize your content<\/span><\/a>. VOD hosting makes all your video content, from an educational seminar to a recorded conference, fitness classes to instructional videos, available to your viewers anywhere, any time, and on any device.<\/span><\/p>\n The platform you choose gives your users the easiest access to view your content on their terms, improving your reach and impact.<\/span><\/p>\n VOD platforms<\/a> are more than just on-demand viewing of entertainment content like you find with Netflix or Hulu. They offer broadcasters and content-creators from a whole range of industries an opportunity to showcase their offerings using over-the-top OTT video delivery<\/a> technology.<\/span><\/p>\n Some common uses for VOD platforms include:<\/span><\/p>\n The industry standard for professional VOD evaluation has expanded since 2020. A platform that covers only the basics : player, transcoding, and a paywall, is no longer sufficient for most business use cases. Here are the 8 features that separate professional-grade platforms from entry-level tools.<\/span><\/p>\n Keeping all your videos organized and properly tagged is crucial to getting them seen by the right viewers at the right time.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The right video CMS<\/a> allows you to <\/span>tag your videos with categories and subcategories<\/span> for easy searching, allowing your viewers to search for exactly the subject or video they\u2019re looking to find. Tagging also helps build smart playlists, which recommend to the user content that\u2019s related to the videos they\u2019ve already watched.<\/span><\/p>\n This feature helps keep users watching your content longer, magnifying your content\u2019s impact and audience.<\/span><\/p>\n Different methods of viewing videos require different file sizes. What works great on a desktop computer won\u2019t always work well for a mobile device, and vice versa.<\/span><\/p>\n With VOD transcoding<\/a>, your professional-grade on-demand content platform allows your users to automatically view videos at the highest quality that will perform best for their internet connection. This enables those videos to perform their best on a variety of devices without you having to manually create each file type.<\/span><\/p>\n Just create one group of encoder settings<\/a> and the transcoder does the rest, giving your users the most optimized file type for the device they\u2019re using to view your content.<\/span><\/p>\n Just create one set of encoder settings and the transcoder does the rest. Look for platforms that support multi-bitrate transcoding with adaptive bitrate (ABR) delivery, which dynamically adjusts quality during playback based on available bandwidth.<\/span><\/p>\n If video is central to your revenue model, you need a platform with a monetization method that matches your business. The three main models are:<\/span><\/p>\n SVOD monetization<\/a> operates in a similar manner to traditional television packages: Consumers pay a subscription fee and they can watch as much content as they want. Modern <\/span>streaming solutions<\/span><\/a>\u00a0that operate on the SVOD model include Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+, where users pay a set price per month to consume as much content as they desire.<\/span><\/p>\n This model gives viewers a level of flexibility that many appreciate, allowing them to scale their subscription plans up or down based on their individual anticipated usage.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n If you notice you aren\u2019t using your <\/span>channel subscription<\/span> as much as you anticipated, for example, you can simply cancel the subscription without paying an early termination fee. This offers greater flexibility and choice for users but does pose some challenges to content creators who may feel more pressure to provide valuable content to \u201cprove\u201d their worth to those subscribers.<\/span><\/p>\n Dacast, for example, offers an <\/span>integrated paywall<\/span><\/a> that suits a variety of subscription-based needs, such as offering access to content with an event ticket or on a monthly basis. This paywall allows you to offer video previews to help you get more subscriptions, provide unlimited coupon codes, and more to help this monetization model meet your individual needs.<\/span><\/p>\n With TVOD, users pay a set price per piece or series of content, and then they receive access to view that content. TVOD is the industry standard for pay-per-view streaming<\/a>. There are two subcategories of TVOD content\u2014electronic sell-through (EST), where you pay once and gain permanent access to the content, and download to rent (DTR), where you pay to get access for a limited amount of time.<\/span><\/p>\n A mainstream example of the TVOD monetization model is Amazon Prime Video. Users are able to pay a fee to purchase permanent access to a piece of content, and that content can be downloaded or watched through the Amazon Prime account where the content was purchased.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For a smaller fee, users can rent that same piece of content, and they gain access to it for either a limited period of time or a limited amount of views, whichever comes first.<\/span><\/p>\n This model often provides access to more recent content, operating similar to a modern-day video rental store. TVOD offers higher revenues to content creators, as users pay for each piece of content individually.<\/span><\/p>\n AVOD differs from TVOD and SVOD in one major way: access to AVOD content<\/a> is free to consumers. However, in exchange for free access to content, users have to sit through advertisements. The best modern example of AVOD is YouTube, which inserts advertisements at different intervals in videos that provide revenue for both the platform and its creators.<\/span><\/p>\n The drawback to AVOD is that it often provides lower revenues for creators, as advertising is usually paid on a per-view or impression basis at very low rates. However, the model is highly attractive to consumers who can access nearly unlimited content for free but just have to put up with advertisements every so often.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Once you\u2019ve chosen your monetization model, see our practical guide to <\/span>building passive income with VOD<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Not all content on your platform needs to be monetised. Internal training videos, for example, should be kept separate and access-controlled independently of your public-facing content.<\/span><\/p>\n Platforms such as YouTube provide a ready-made distribution system, but at the cost of platform branding, algorithmic dependency, and limited control over the viewer experience.<\/span><\/p>\n A white-label video player<\/a> removes third-party branding from the player itself, allowing you to display your own logo and colours. It also allows you to embed the player directly on your website and maintain consistent branding across every viewer touchpoint.<\/span><\/p>\n When evaluating white-label players<\/a>, also check for: custom domain support, branded playback pages, embedding controls (domain restriction), and mobile player performance.<\/span><\/p>\n Protecting your video content from upload<\/a> to playback is essential, particularly if you are monetising it.<\/span><\/p>\n Core security features<\/a> to look for include HTTPS delivery, password protection, and domain and IP restriction. These prevent your content from being embedded on unauthorised sites or targeted by spammers.<\/span><\/p>\n For higher-value content, look for platforms that support AES-128 encryption and multi-DRM (Widevine, PlayReady, FairPlay). DRM prevents unauthorised download and redistribution, which is a meaningful risk for paid courses, PPV events, and premium archives. According to the Digital TV Research institute, online video piracy costs the industry an estimated $9.1 billion annually. DRM is not optional for professional broadcasters.<\/span><\/p>\nTable of Contents<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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What is VOD?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"video](\"https:\/\/www.dacast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/video-on-demand-vod-platform-1024x660.jpg\")
What is the Purpose of VOD Hosting?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Types of VOD Platforms<\/strong><\/h2>\n
![\"ott](\"https:\/\/www.dacast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/what-is-a-vod-platform-1024x683.jpg\")
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The 8 Key Features of a VOD Platform<\/b><\/h2>\n
1. Video CMS<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"video](\"https:\/\/www.dacast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/vod-platforms-1024x683.jpg\")
2. VOD Transcoding<\/strong><\/h3>\n
3. Video Monetization<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"video](\"https:\/\/www.dacast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/live-recording-monetization-1024x508.jpg\")
SVOD \u2013 Subscription Video on Demand<\/strong><\/h4>\n
TVOD \u2013 Transactional Video on Demand<\/strong><\/h4>\n
AVOD \u2013 Advertising-Based Video on Demand<\/strong><\/h4>\n
4. White-Label Video Player<\/strong><\/h3>\n
5. Video Security and DRM<\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"video](\"https:\/\/www.dacast.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/transcode-video-on-an-online-video-platform-1024x683.jpg\")
6. CDN and Global Delivery<\/b><\/h3>\n