Apps for your viewers
- Streaming website
- iOS and Android apps, published under your store accounts
- Connected-TV apps (Fire TV, Apple TV, Roku, Samsung, LG) in the Scale build
Build your own OTT platform: live in 30 days, and the code is yours.
Apexnova builds your OTT platform end to end: web, iOS and Android apps, video pipeline, payments, CMS and analytics. A focused Launch build takes about 30 days for a one-time ₹4,50,000 (approximately $4,999). No revenue share and no per-subscriber fee.
You own the source code, the cloud and app-store accounts, and your subscriber data, so the platform keeps running without us. We built Pocket Films, Binj TV and WatchStar, all live in the app stores today.
~30 daysLaunch build
₹4,50,000One-time Launch fee
0%Revenue share
Your accountsCode, cloud and stores
Shipped by Apexnova
Streaming apps live in the stores today.
Built end to end by our team and owned by the client. Each case study covers the product decisions and the engineering behind them. All case studies
Subscription OTT appWatchStar
130k+ Downloads · 3.9★ Google Play rating
Read the case study
Microdrama appBinj TV
4.97★ Google Play rating · 1.28k Reviews · 200k+ Installs
Read the case study
01
What you get
A complete streaming business, built and handed over.
You bring the content and the brand. We build everything your viewers and your team touch, launch it in the app stores, and hand you the keys.
A CMS for your team
- Upload titles, artwork and metadata
- Schedule releases and set rights windows
- Publish or take down content yourself
Ways to earn
- Subscriptions, rentals or ads; one model at launch, more later
- App-store and web payments
- Offers, coupons and free trials
Video and analytics
- Encoding, protected playback and CDN delivery
- Dashboards for viewers, revenue and playback quality
- Monitoring and alerts from day one
What “yours” means
- The source code, in your repositories
- The cloud account, billed to you
- The App Store and Google Play listings, under your developer accounts
- Your subscriber, payment and viewing data, with export paths
- Your domains, so you can change vendors without changing your address
02
Price and timeline
One-time project fee. No rent, no revenue share.
Launch₹4,50,000approximately $4,999 · one-time project fee
Streaming website plus iOS and Android apps, VOD, one way to earn, CMS and analytics. Live in about 30 days once your content and accounts are ready.
ScaleUp to ₹10,00,000approximately $10,499 · one-time project fee
Everything in Launch plus connected-TV apps, live or FAST channels, ads and more payment options. Usually 8–12 weeks.
Our fee does not grow with your subscribers. Running the platform (cloud, CDN, DRM, payment providers) is billed by those providers directly to your accounts, by usage. See the monthly running-cost breakdown.
03
How it works
From first call to live in the app stores.
- 01
Free 30-minute strategy call
Tell us about your content, audience, devices and how you plan to earn. You talk to the team that builds it, not a sales rep.
- 02
Fixed scope and price
You get a written scope: what we build, which accounts you own, the timeline, and the monthly running cost to expect.
- 03
Launch in about 30 days
We build the website, mobile apps, CMS, payments and analytics, then submit to the App Store and Google Play under your accounts.
- 04
Grow from real data
Add TV apps, live channels, ads or new markets when your numbers say it's time, not before.
Thirty days covers a focused Launch build. App-store review, payment onboarding, DRM access and content readiness can add time; we name each dependency in the scope.
04
Build, rent or hire
Is owning your platform the right call?
Renting a hosted platform is the fastest way to test an idea. Owning one pays off once you have an audience, need your own features, or are tired of paying more as you grow. Our build vs buy OTT ROI model shows where the line falls.
| Model | Best fit | Main trade-off |
|---|---|---|
| Hosted / white-label | Validate a proposition quickly with limited differentiation and low operating capacity | Fast start; product, data access and unit economics remain bounded by the vendor |
| Custom assembled platform | A proven service that needs product control, integrations and portable economics | More upfront decisions and operational ownership; clearer long-term control |
| Everything in-house | Large teams with exceptional scale, regulation or proprietary infrastructure needs | Maximum control and maximum engineering/operations burden |
05
For your technical team
The detail your CTO will ask about.
Ownership, architecture and operations, in full. Open what you need.
The ownership test: if we disappeared, what could your team still run?
A custom OTT platform is not a white-label skin or a source-code zip. Managed cloud, CDN, payment and DRM services can still be used; the difference is that each dependency has a named owner, cost and exit path. We put the control matrix into the statement of work and acceptance process so handover is an implementation activity, not a promise saved for the final week.
- Source repositories, branch protection and dependency inventory
- Production cloud account, budgets, audit logs and administrator access
- Domains, DNS, TLS certificates and transactional email identities
- Apple, Google, Amazon, Roku, Samsung and LG seller accounts in scope
- Signing keys, provisioning assets and documented rotation/recovery
- Audience, catalogue, entitlement and analytics data with export paths
- DRM, CDN, payment and messaging contracts held by the right entity
- CI/CD, infrastructure definitions, dashboards, alerts and runbooks
Owned does not mean isolated
Your platform can use managed services and specialist providers. The contract is that they sit behind documented interfaces, production access stays visible, data can move, and the product does not become unmaintainable without one agency login.
Code alone is not operability
A repository without environments, secrets, schemas, release knowledge and incident context is not a handover. Acceptance includes a deployment or release exercise performed with the client-owned access path.
Platform architecture: media movement vs. product decisions
Video workflows move and protect large media objects. Product services decide what the viewer can discover, buy and play. Keeping those planes explicit lets each scale, fail and change on its own terms.
Content and business inputsMezzanine media · metadata · artwork · rights · pricing · schedules
Media data planeIngest · validate · encode · package · encrypt · origin · CDN · QoE
Product control planeCMS · catalogue · identity · entitlement · billing · search · analytics
Viewer applicationsWeb · iOS · Android · Apple TV · Fire TV · Roku · Samsung Tizen · LG webOS as scoped
AWS publishes a reference VOD design that separates ingest, processing and publishing and combines object storage, workflow orchestration, transcoding, metadata, optional packaging, monitoring and CDN delivery. We use that as evidence for the shape of a cloud video workflow—not as a claim that one vendor diagram is a finished OTT product. Identity, commerce, catalogue operations, applications, support and rights policy still need deliberate design.
| Boundary | What your platform owns | What may be managed |
|---|---|---|
| Media workflow | Profiles, job policy, asset state, outputs, failure handling and cost observability | Object storage, transcode, packager, queues and CDN infrastructure |
| Content security | Rights model, entitlement decision, provider adapter and audit trail | DRM license service, key service or watermarking provider |
| Commerce | Offer catalogue, entitlement truth, reconciliation and support workflow | Payment gateway and app-store transaction processing |
| Viewer experience | Design system, product journeys, player behavior, data and roadmap | Selected SDKs, analytics transport and crash-reporting services |
Build, buy or assemble: decided component by component
The highest-leverage platform owns differentiation and integration while buying commodity capabilities with difficult compliance, hardware or global-network economics.
Product advantage
Catalogue experience, editorial workflows, entitlement rules, distinctive monetization, audience journeys and data products usually deserve custom ownership when they drive the business.
Specialist infrastructure
Cloud encoding, global CDN, card processing, app-store payments, DRM licensing and communications often benefit from mature managed providers rather than an internal clone.
Controlled interfaces
Provider adapters, normalized events and a documented bill of materials keep the platform changeable. A managed component is a decision; a hidden dependency is risk.
Delivery sequence, in engineering terms
Parallel engineering helps only after contracts and priorities are stable. We stage the programme so the first release can acquire or recognize a viewer, authorize a title, play it reliably, record the outcome and support the account end to end.
- 00
Discovery and control map
Confirm audience, catalogue, rights, monetization, target regions and devices. Produce the architecture, service bill of materials, account ownership, data model, acceptance journeys, risks and rollout sequence.
- 01
Launch foundation
Build the selected web/mobile surfaces, CMS path, catalogue, identity, entitlement, VOD playback, payment model, basic analytics, environments and operational dashboards. A focused scope can target roughly 30 days when dependencies are ready.
- 02
Scale the device and revenue surface
Add connected-TV applications, live or FAST workflows, advertising, offline behavior, broader payment paths, device labs and store delivery. A Scale programme is generally planned across roughly 8–12 weeks.
- 03
Optimize from evidence
Use acquisition, engagement, QoE and cost data to improve encoding profiles, CDN policy, search, recommendations, retention and support. The roadmap follows observed constraints rather than a feature catalogue.
Operations after launch: product, playback, commerce and cost
An OTT service combines customer accounts, commerce, rights and a long media-delivery chain. Operational readiness means someone can see the failure, judge its impact, change the right component and explain the viewer outcome.
Product operations
Catalogue publication, artwork, rights windows, offer changes, content takedown, promotions and support tools need roles, approvals and audit history. The CMS is part of operations, not an internal demo.
Playback operations
Dashboards separate entitlement, manifest, DRM, CDN and player failures. Startup time and buffering are segmented by device, app version, ISP, region and content so a global average does not hide a broken cohort.
Commerce operations
Payment events, app-store notifications, refunds, grace states and entitlements reconcile into one account view. Support can answer why access changed without guessing between multiple systems.
Cost operations
Budgets and unit measures cover encoding minutes, stored renditions, origin requests, delivery volume, DRM licenses, notifications and third-party seats. Optimization begins with measured demand.
- Environment inventory and access/recovery owners
- Release, rollback and configuration-promotion runbooks
- Content publish and emergency takedown procedures
- Payment and entitlement reconciliation workflow
- Player/CDN/DRM incident triage and provider escalation
- Backup, restore, data export and retention checks
- Cost budgets, anomaly alerts and per-view unit metrics
- Known limitations, backlog and team enablement session
The operating bill is separate
- Cloud compute, database, storage, encoding and packaging usage
- CDN delivery and origin traffic
- DRM, payment, messaging, analytics and support providers
- Apple/Google commerce terms and developer programmes
- Physical device lab and external certification costs
- Ongoing product development and 24/7 operations if required
06
Buyer questions
Build-your-own OTT platform FAQ.
What does it mean to own an OTT platform?
Ownership should be testable. Your organization should control the source repositories, production cloud and data accounts, domains and certificates, app-store and developer accounts, signing assets, analytics access, vendor contracts, deployment pipeline and operational documentation. You should also have an exit path for any managed component.
Do we need to build every OTT component from scratch?
No. Owning the product does not require reimplementing encoding, CDN, payments or DRM. A sensible custom platform assembles managed infrastructure and specialist services behind interfaces your team controls, while custom-building the product logic and experiences that differentiate the business.
What is included in an OTT platform MVP?
A focused Launch scope can include responsive web plus iOS and Android apps, identity, catalogue, search, profiles, VOD playback, one monetization model, protected playback where required, basic CMS workflows, analytics and production operations. Live, advertising, connected TVs, offline downloads and advanced recommendations are separate scope decisions.
Can the platform support SVOD, AVOD, TVOD and FAST?
Yes, but launching all models at once is rarely the lowest-risk plan. Each adds distinct catalogue, rights, commerce, playback and reporting requirements. We define the first revenue loop, model the data so later modes are possible, and add the next mode when its operational owners are ready.
How long does it take to build an OTT platform?
A focused Launch platform for web and mobile can be planned around a roughly 30-day delivery window when content, brand, payment and service dependencies are ready. A Scale programme with connected-TV apps and broader integrations is normally planned across roughly 8–12 weeks. App-store review and third-party onboarding remain external dependencies.
How much does it cost to build an OTT platform?
Apexnova's published Launch package is ₹4,50,000 (approximately $4,999) and the Scale package is priced up to ₹10,00,000 (approximately $10,499) as one-time project fees. Cloud, CDN, DRM, payment, app-store and other third-party usage charges are separate and depend on the architecture and audience.
Will Apexnova charge a fee per subscriber?
The published Apexnova project packages are one-time implementation fees rather than per-subscriber software rent. The platform will still use third parties whose costs may follow users, transactions, bandwidth, licenses or usage. Those costs are identified in the bill of materials instead of being described as free.
Can our internal team operate and extend the platform?
That is the goal of the ownership model. Handover should include repositories, environments, infrastructure definitions, deployment instructions, secrets ownership, dashboards, alerts, runbooks, architecture decisions and a known backlog. The exact enablement and support period is agreed in scope.
Leave the call with a fixed scope, price and timeline.
Tell us about your content and audience. We'll tell you what to build first, what it costs to build and run, and how long it takes. We reply within one working day.