If you sell films there, the date that costs you money is not November. It is 21 September, when your storefront stops being able to take a payment.
Every date above is Vimeo's, from its seller FAQ and shutdown notice, read 25 July 2026.
Every link dies
Press kits, festival programmes, email signatures, every post you ever made. All of it points at nothing.
Your buyers lose the film
Everyone who bought or rented from you loses access. Vimeo is telling them to download what they can first.
Customers don't transfer
No migration path, no export of who they are. You can tell them where you went. That is the whole of it.
Your films are fine
The masters stay in your account on your storage plan. It is the shop closing, not the stock.
“Vimeo On Demand has seen reduced activity over the years, and we are redirecting resources to our core platform and Vimeo OTT.”
That is the published explanation. Here is what Vimeo's own numbers were doing over the same years.
Self-serve subscribers
▼ 18%
Down 11% in 2024 alone, and revenue with it.
Revenue per subscriber
▲ 5%
Fewer customers, each one paying more. That is a strategy, not a trend.
$1.38B
Paid for Vimeo by Bending Spoons, closed Nov 2025 — 84% below its 2021 peak
1,000+
Staff cut worldwide on 20 January 2026, two months after the deal
All
Of the video engineering team, eliminated in that round
$18.4B
Valuation at the owner's Nasdaq listing, 1 July 2026
Subscriber and ARPU figures from Vimeo's own quarterly reporting. Deal, layoff and listing figures as reported by CineD and TechCrunch.
Vimeo's recommended replacement is Vimeo OTT, which is Vimeo. The obvious alternative is Brightcove, which has the same owner. Neither is disqualified by that — but you should pick it knowing, not because it was the button in front of you.
The recommended door
Vimeo OTT
The shortest move, and the one Vimeo puts in front of you. Your library is already there.
Owned byBending Spoons
The obvious alternative
Brightcove
The enterprise name most people reach for next. Bought by the same firm, and cut in the same round.
Owned byBending Spoons
Everything else
Somewhere
else entirely
Rent from an independent vendor, build your own, or license a finished platform outright.
Owned byAnyone but them
One company — the one closing your storefront
The pattern is not a secret and it is not personal. Buy a known brand, cut the staff, raise the price, close what does not pay. WeTransfer lost 75% of its people within two months of being bought. The company listed on the Nasdaq on 1 July 2026 and said it wants a thousand more acquisitions.
Vimeo OTT's published starter rate is $1 per subscriber per month, plus 10% of one-time purchases. That is cheap while you are small and it is not a fixed price — it is a share of your success. Move the slider to your own audience.
Total cost over three years
The two bars cross at about 1,667 subscribers. Below that, rent. Above it, three years of rent has bought you nothing you keep.
At 1,000 subscribers, renting is still cheaper. Choose your landlord carefully and revisit this when you grow.
Vimeo OTT rate from its published pricing, read July 2026; excludes the 10% purchase fee and any app or bandwidth add-ons. Our $60,000 is the same figure we print on our platform page. Hosting and support are extra on both sides, and we will quote you ours in writing.
| Route | What it costs | Right for you if | What you hold after |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vimeo OTT | $1 / subscriber / month + 10% of purchases |
You want the shortest possible move and your library already lives at Vimeo. | Nothing — and the owner that just closed the last product. |
| Another rented platform | ~$19–$39 / month at entry far more with apps |
You want somebody else to run everything and you are content to rent. | Nothing, but a landlord you picked on purpose. |
| Build your own | $150,000–$500,000 plus upkeep |
Streaming is your actual business and you employ engineers. | A platform, roughly a year from now. |
| License a finished one | From $18,000 hosted or $60,000 for the code |
You have a real catalogue and want your own service without building it. | Your own branded service. On the source route, your own copy of the code. |
Entry pricing for rented platforms from vendors' own published rates, July 2026. Bottom row is ours.
Export your masters at the highest quality you have. Do it before November, not in it.
Save your sales records and your buyer list. They do not travel with you, and after 20 November you cannot go back for them.
Write to your buyers early. Being first with bad news is the difference between losing a customer and keeping one.
Do not wait for September. Any move takes weeks to set up, and every platform in this market is about to be busy with people who waited.
And if you have one film, or three: do not license a platform. Running a streaming service to sell three titles is like buying a supermarket to sell your jam. Put the work where an audience already is, keep a simple direct-sale page, and spend the difference on telling people it exists. If it is independent cinema, we would gladly talk about carrying it on Lucy TV — filmmakers keep 70% and their rights.
How Lucy TV worksLucy TV is built and operated by ICAN Film in Calgary — live on the web, iPhone, Android and Android TV, with its own operator console. We license that same platform to other companies under their brand, hosted by us or handed over as source code.
That is our interest in writing this and you should weigh it accordingly. It is also why our price is in the table above. If we are going to say this market hides its numbers, we can hardly hide ours.
Pictured — Lucy TV on Android TV, the same stack we license
