# How much does it cost to self-host Jitsi Meet?

> A self-hosted Jitsi server for a small team costs about $18 to $33 a month on AWS for compute, plus bandwidth. Recording adds about $63 a month for a dedicated recorder and local transcription needs a server around $125 a month. The larger hidden cost is engineering time for setup and upkeep, which a managed or one-click setup removes.

Source: https://jitsi.help/guides/jitsi-self-hosting-cost/
Updated: September 26, 2026
Publisher: Jitsi Help (https://jitsi.help/)

"Jitsi is free" is true about the software and misleading about running it. The honest answer has four parts: compute, bandwidth, add-ons, and your time.

## Compute

Rounded on-demand prices for AWS ap-south-1 (Mumbai) as of August 2026. Other regions and providers differ, and prices change.

| Server | Suits | Approx. / month |
|---|---|---|
| t3.small, 2 vCPU / 2 GB | Testing, up to about 20 participants | $18 |
| t3.medium, 2 vCPU / 4 GB | Most small teams, up to about 50 | $33 |
| t3.large, 2 vCPU / 8 GB | About 100, or recording on the same box | $63 |
| t3.xlarge, 4 vCPU / 16 GB | Local transcription with Vosk | $125 |

Reserved instances or savings plans cut these by roughly a third to a half if the server runs all year.

## Bandwidth

Video is the variable cost. Estimate it from usage:

```text
GB per month ≈ meeting hours × participants × average Mbps per participant × 0.45
```

The 0.45 converts Mbps over an hour to gigabytes (3600 seconds ÷ 8 bits ÷ 1000). With 40 meeting hours a month, 8 people and 1.5 Mbps each on average, that is about 40 × 8 × 1.5 × 0.45 ≈ 216 GB of traffic leaving the server.

Cloud providers charge for data leaving their network, AWS per GB after a free allowance, while many VPS providers include several terabytes. Two-person calls go peer to peer and cost nothing on the server.

## Add-ons

| Add-on | Extra cost |
|---|---|
| Recording (Jibri) | A dedicated recorder, about $63 to $136 a month, or a bigger shared server |
| Recording storage | S3 storage, a few cents per GB per month |
| Transcription (Vosk) | A 16 GB server, about $125 a month, instead of a 4 GB one |
| Transcription (Google) | Per-minute speech API fees instead of a bigger server |

## Your time

This is the cost most comparisons skip. A first production install, including DNS, SSL, firewall, authentication and a working recording path, typically takes an experienced engineer a day or two. Then there are upgrades, certificate renewals, security patches and the occasional "video is black for everyone" incident.

If an engineer costs $50 an hour, one lost day equals years of a small server's compute bill.

## Worked examples

**A 10 person team, no recording.** One t3.medium, $33, plus about 100 to 200 GB of traffic. Roughly $40 to $55 a month on AWS.

**A training company, weekly recorded sessions.** A t3.medium for meetings plus a c5.large recorder that runs during sessions, and S3 storage. Roughly $100 to $120 a month.

**Telehealth with transcripts.** A t3.xlarge for Jitsi with Vosk plus recording. Roughly $125 to $200 a month, with no audio leaving your own account.

## Compared with per-user pricing

Hosted services like 8x8's Jitsi as a Service charge per monthly active user, with extra per-minute fees for recording and transcription. That is simple for small or spiky usage. Once hundreds of people meet every month, self-hosting usually costs less, because the server bill does not grow with each user. See [JaaS vs self-hosted Jitsi](/compare/jaas-vs-self-hosted-jitsi/).

## Cutting the time cost

Our platform deploys a correctly sized server into your own AWS account in one click. AWS bills you directly at the prices above; optional features like recording, transcription, branding and JWT are one-time licenses per server. You get self-hosting prices without the setup days.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is Jitsi Meet free?

The software is free and open source, and meet.jit.si is a free public instance. Running your own server is not free: you pay for the server, its bandwidth and the time to operate it. There are no license or per-user fees for self-hosting.

### What is the cheapest way to run Jitsi?

A small VPS with 2 vCPU and 4 GB of RAM and a generous bandwidth allowance, set up with Docker. That can cost under $15 a month from budget providers. The trade-off is fewer regions, less control over networking and usually no easy S3 recording storage.

### How does self-hosting compare with 8x8 JaaS pricing?

JaaS charges by monthly active users, with a free developer tier and paid tiers starting around $99 a month for a few hundred users, plus per-minute fees for recording and transcription. Self-hosting has no per-user fees, so it gets cheaper per user as usage grows, but you run the servers.


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Jitsi Help is an independent service. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by 8x8, Inc. or the Jitsi project. Jitsi and Jitsi Meet are trademarks of 8x8, Inc., used here only to describe the software we host and support.