Live streaming gear has come a long way — but so have the price tags attached. Expensive doesn’t always mean better, and “affordable” doesn’t necessarily mean cutting corners. In this post, we’ll show you how to avoid the trap of thinking you need to spend a fortune to get the best streaming hardware on the market.
The Price Creep Problem in Streaming
Our Encoder Pricing Story
But Don't I Get More if I Pay More?
Final Thoughts
Let’s talk about inflation. Whether you’re middle aged with a spouse, mortgage, and three kids, an empty nester eyeing retirement, or fresh out of school in your first apartment, we’ve all felt the pinch of unpredictable economic spikes. And while we tend to notice inflation most at the gas pump and grocery store, it’s alive and well in the world of tech, video, and live streaming, too.
Here are a few “fun” U.S. inflation facts:
Just like death and taxes, inflation is pretty much inevitable. We can’t predict when the next big jump will hit, but over a 5, 10, or 15-year span, it’s safe to assume your dollar will steadily lose buying power.
Now, apply that same trend to pro-level streaming gear. A live production device that cost you around $2,000 a few years ago now has a price tag north of $3,000. That’s a big spike — and if you’re shopping for a full kit with a video switcher, multiple cameras, tripods, cables, and a hardware encoder, that 35% increase in price will hit hard.
It's easy to feel like $3,000+ is the "new normal" for professional streaming encoders. For example, here’s the current pricing in 2025 for a few popular options:
Is this just the new standard we all have to accept — that quality streaming hardware starts at $3,000? It might seem that way… but there’s more to the story.
Our founders named the company BoxCast in 2013 because our first product was literally a small box about the size and texture of a hockey puck. You’d connect audio, video, internet, and power to it, and then broadcast to the website of your choosing. We called this first hardware encoder the BoxCaster, and it sold for $200.
The original BoxCaster had HDMI and RCA Composite inputs, streamed at 720p/30fps, and used H.264 compression over an Ethernet connection. While we released firmware updates to make it even better, years of feedback from our growing customer base showed us it was time for a major leap forward. So, in 2014, we launched our second encoder—a completely transformed version of the BoxCaster, priced at $399. Think of this progress like the evolution of Charmander to Charmeleon.
Gone was the solid black polyurethane casing of the original. This new unit featured transparent plastic with glowing white and green LEDs, making it easy to see your network and stream status. The redesigned encoder now offered 1080p HD, added Wi-Fi connectivity, and could be controlled from our new iOS Broadcaster app.
Beyond the hardware, our platform allowed this encoder to stream not just to a website, but to social destinations like Facebook Live, YouTube, and Twitch. It eventually supported our proprietary streaming protocol, BoxCast Flow, which helps streams maintain perfect quality even on challenging networks.
As awesome as our early advancements were, we began receiving more and more requests from professional broadcast organizations who needed an encoder with SDI support, higher frame rates, and better compression. So in 2018, we launched a completely new product: the Pro.
The Pro supported HDMI 2.0 and 12G-SDI video inputs, XLR and ¼" audio inputs, HEVC H.265 compression, and could stream at up to 60fps. It also featured a large touchscreen that acted as a confidence monitor and gave you real-time status on your network, audio, and video. Additionally, a multicolored light ring surrounded the unit for status monitoring from a distance.
Our costs for this professional-level encoder increased dramatically. We designed, iterated on, and perfected it all in-house to meet the needs of the customers who asked for it. Even with that, we sold the Pro for $3,495 — much closer to our cost than the industry standard.
The Pro was a successful product, but our team wasn’t satisfied. We wanted to offer even better technology at a much lower price. So in 2023, after a lot of time and effort, we launched our best encoder yet. The Spark initially debuted with an HDMI version priced at $999, and a few months later, the SDI version launched for $1,299.
It sounds wild, but with a lot of work, we were able to pack in better technology at a fraction of the cost. The Spark kept 1080p60 HEVC streaming, added an even better touchscreen, a microSD card slot for local backup recording, and a customizable LED ring that looks cool and gives you status at a glance. Our platform also allows Spark to send broadcasts to destinations like Apple TV, Roku, and mobile apps.
The bottom line is this: many hardware companies aim for a 50–60% profit margin and tend to raise prices over time. We’ve taken a different approach, selling our encoders much closer to cost so more streams can get up and running without breaking the bank. We’ve even engineered our hardware to deliver more functionality for less cost, bucking the trend. We simply don’t believe organizations should have to spend thousands of dollars on an encoder just to get everything on their wishlist.
Let’s say you do have the budget for a pricey encoder. Is it safe to assume you’ll get more for your money? Let’s put that theory to the test with a head-to-head comparison.
We’ll compare the Resi E1200, which retails for $3,249, to the BoxCast Spark SDI, which comes in at $1,299. That makes the Resi encoder roughly two and a half times more expensive. With that in mind, here’s how they stack up::
In this comparison, the less expensive encoder actually checks way more feature boxes. More money doesn’t always mean more features — and in some cases, it means paying a lot more for a lot less.
Yes, things have gotten more expensive in the past few years. While many streaming encoder companies have raised their prices and kept them there, we’re focused on bucking that trend. We believe that streaming with excellence shouldn't require an organization to reshuffle its budget or save up just to spend more on a single encoder than the average person spends on an engagement ring. It simply doesn’t have to be that way.
What ultimately matters is your viewers — the people on the other side of the stream — and the impact your content can have on them. Our goal is to help you do that with top-tier technology at a reasonable cost. Because at the end of the day, your audience is what streaming is all about.
So stream smarter, not pricier.
Check out what Spark has to offer.
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