PVOD platform for premium rentals in your own apps
A PVOD platform on Flicknexs sells premium titles per view with per-quality prices, rental windows, view counts and a scheduled release time.
Flicknexs sells premium video on demand per title with prices by quality, rental windows and view counts, released at a scheduled time inside your own website and apps and paid through your own gateways.
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Quick answer: A PVOD platform sells a premium title as a single rental, at a higher price and earlier than its subscription or broadcast release. Flicknexs handles this with per-title pay-per-view pricing by video quality, rental windows with a start, an expiry, an unseen-expiry and a view count, a scheduled publish time, and one purchase flow in your website and device apps.
Flicknexs provides pvod platform as part of its white-label OTT platform. Flicknexs sells premium video on demand per title with prices by quality, rental windows and view counts, released at a scheduled time inside your own website and apps and paid through your own gateways.
Why a PVOD platform is a windows problem, not a player problem
Premium video on demand exists because a new film or event is worth more in its first weeks than it will ever be again. The distributor wants to charge a premium price for that period, control exactly when the title becomes available, decide how long a buyer may keep it, and then move the title into a cheaper tier without re-uploading. Every one of those decisions is a window: a release window, a rental window, a viewing window, a price window. A platform that only knows how to sell a subscription cannot express them, and a platform that only knows a single rental price cannot express the premium.
Flicknexs expresses them per title. Every video carries its own access rule, and the pay-per-view rule includes a price per video quality, a rental window with a start and an expiry, a separate unseen-expiry for buyers who have not yet pressed play, and a view count. The title also carries a scheduled publish time, so the release happens at the minute you announced without anyone staying up to press a button. After the premium period you edit the same title to lower the price or move it into a plan. The purchase itself goes through the gateways you connect, with no commission taken.
Rental windows are timestamps, and the international standard for writing a timestamp without ambiguity is ISO 8601, the date and time format that puts year, month, day, hour, minute and offset in a fixed order. It matters more than it sounds for a PVOD platform, because a release announced for a Friday evening means a different moment in every market you sell into. Reading the ISO 8601 overview before you set your first release time will save you the support tickets that come from a buyer who thought the window opened an hour earlier than it did.
What the per-title pay-per-view rule gives a PVOD operator
Eight settings and behaviors in the Flicknexs admin and apps that make a premium rental work. All are in the platform code today.
Per-title pay-per-view
Each video, episode or live event can be sold on its own with a price, independent of plans.
Price by quality
Set a different pay-per-view price per video quality, for example a higher price for 1080p.
Rental start and expiry
A rental window with a start and an expiry defines how long a buyer keeps access after purchase.
Unseen-expiry
A separate deadline applies if the buyer has not started watching, independent of the rental expiry.
View count
Limit how many times a purchase can be played within the window.
Scheduled publish time
Set the exact date and time the title becomes visible and purchasable, with the page prepared in advance.
Free preview minutes
Give visitors a set number of free minutes before the purchase prompt appears.
Revenue reports by month
Pay-per-view revenue is reported by month alongside subscription revenue in analytics.
Source: Flicknexs platform documentation and architecture specification, 2026-09-03.
How a PVOD platform works on Flicknexs, window by window
A premium rental is a set of rules on one title. Here is what each rule does in the admin and what the buyer experiences in the player.
The pay-per-view rule lives on the title
Prices by quality make the premium tier
The rental window bounds access after purchase
Unseen-expiry and view counts close the two loopholes
Scheduled publish time makes the release a moment
The purchase is your gateway, not a store share
How to set up a PVOD release in the Flicknexs admin
Five steps for one premium title, in the order that avoids reworking the page after buyers have seen it.
- 1
Upload the master and check the transcoded ladder
Upload the film and let transcoding produce the adaptive ladder. The default ladder is 720p, 480p and 360p, and you can select a ladder up to 1440p per job if the premium tier needs a higher rendition. Play the result on the website and in a device app before you price anything, because you are about to charge per quality.
- 2
Set the pay-per-view rule and the price per quality
Open the title, choose pay-per-view in the access section, and enter the price per quality. Decide whether the standard and premium prices differ and by how much. Set the currency to match the plan currency your gateway expects. Save and confirm the purchase prompt shows both options in the player on a test account.
- 3
Enter the rental window, unseen-expiry and view count
Fill in the rental start and expiry, the unseen-expiry for buyers who never press play, and the view count. Match the rights holder contract exactly and keep a note of the values in your release document. Test with a short window, such as an hour, on a test account so you can watch the expiry behavior instead of waiting days.
- 4
Add free preview minutes and the scheduled publish time
Enter the number of free preview minutes, typically enough for the opening scene, and set the publish time to the announced release moment in the offset your audience expects. Prepare artwork, synopsis, cast and the trailer now. The title stays hidden until the publish time, so the page can be finished in daylight.
- 5
Test the purchase on every surface, then announce
On a test account, buy the title on the website through your gateway and, if you sell in the phone apps, through the store billing with the mapped product. Confirm access, expiry and the view count behave. Check the pay-per-view revenue report shows the test purchase. Then announce the release time publicly.
Limits, tradeoffs and what the PVOD platform does not do
These are the questions a rights holder or a finance lead will raise. The answers are exact.
Studio-grade encryption is not built in
The premium tier tops out at the transcoding ladder
No offline download for rentals
Store purchases follow store rules and store fees
Windows are set per title, by hand
A worked example: an independent film distributor with a premium window
A realistic operator: a distributor releasing one new feature a month on a premium rental, then moving each into its subscription catalog after the window.
Pre-launch checklist for a premium rental
Run this list on a test title with a short rental window before your first real release.
- The transcoded ladder includes the rendition you intend to sell at the premium price, and it plays on web and in one app.
- The pay-per-view rule is set with a price per quality, in the currency your gateway and plans expect.
- Rental start, expiry, unseen-expiry and view count match the rights holder contract and are written in your release sheet.
- Free preview minutes are set to a deliberate length, because the preview plays before any purchase check.
- The scheduled publish time is entered in the right offset and the title is invisible before it on the website and in the apps.
- A test purchase on the website through your gateway grants access, expires on schedule and honors the view count.
- If you sell in the phone apps, the store product is mapped to the title and a test store purchase grants access.
- Per-title geo-fencing matches the licensed territories for this release, on top of the platform default.
- The pay-per-view revenue report shows the test purchase in the right month with the right amount.
- The purchase page states that rentals stream inside the window and are not downloadable.
How PVOD fits the device apps and the rest of your revenue
A premium rental is a per-title rule, so it works everywhere the title appears and beside every other way you earn.
Which plan includes PVOD
Standard layers
Pricing & billing
Annual savings
Conclusion: what to do next
Already on Flicknexs
Choosing a platform
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Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about PVOD on Flicknexs.
Per-title pay-per-view with rental windows is part of every plan, so the cost is the plan. F2 Super includes 300 GB of storage and 20 TB of bandwidth yearly, and adds native Android and iOS mobile apps; see our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. There is no commission on rentals.
The pay-per-view rule on a title carries a rental start and an expiry, which bound how long a buyer keeps access after purchase, plus an unseen-expiry that applies if the buyer never presses play, and a view count that limits plays inside the window. The player refuses once any of them is exceeded.
Yes. The pay-per-view rule holds a price per video quality, so a title can carry a standard price and a higher price for the 1080p rendition from the same transcoded ladder. The buyer chooses at purchase and the player serves the matching renditions. The ladder is selectable up to 1440p per job.
Yes. Every title has a scheduled publish time. Prepare the page, prices and windows in advance, set the time in the offset your audience expects, and the title becomes visible and purchasable at that minute on the website and in every device app without a manual switch.
Edit the same title. Change its access rule from pay-per-view to a subscription plan, or lower the single price for a second rental phase. The file, artwork and analytics history stay attached, so a premium release moves into the catalog without a second upload.
Not in the platform code. Premium titles are protected by per-title access rules, signed playback URLs, geo-fencing and a logo watermark on every plan. Encryption with Widevine, FairPlay and PlayReady is arranged through the delivery layer on request as part of an enterprise plan, so scope it before signing a contract that requires it.
No. A rental streams inside its window on the website and in the device apps, and there is no offline download. The expiry, unseen-expiry and view count are enforced on every play for that reason. Say this plainly on the purchase page so buyers know before paying.
In the Android app a purchase goes through Google Play Billing with the product mapped to the title in the admin, verified against Google. In the iOS app it goes through Apple in-app purchase and is recorded from the app. The store fee is the fee published by that store; web purchases carry only your gateway fee.
Yes. Geo-fencing applies platform-wide and per title, with block or allow country lists. A premium release licensed for a few territories carries its own allow list on top of the platform default, and viewers elsewhere see a refusal. The country comes from an IP-geolocation lookup at playback.
Yes. Free preview minutes are set per title, per episode and per live stream. A visitor watches that many minutes, then meets the purchase prompt with the quality prices. The preview plays before any purchase check, so choose its length deliberately for a premium title.
Analytics reports pay-per-view revenue by month, separately from subscription revenue, and content analytics show plays and completion per title. Export the month for the title in question and settle from your gateway records. There is no per-title split engine, so the report is the input to your own accounting.
Yes. Series carry seasons and episodes, and each episode has its own access rule with pay-per-view prices, rental window and publish time. A premium season can release one episode a week on a schedule, each sold on its own, and then move into a plan when the season ends.