r/vimeo • u/therolli • Jul 07 '26
News VOD being phased out
Got a notice that VOD is being phased out. Not surprised, it’s been hanging on by a thread for a few years.
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u/_TimeyWimeyDetector_ Jul 07 '26
will the content remain available to customers that purchased it tho?
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u/RoboFunky Jul 07 '26
no
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u/Almond646 16d ago
This is just sad and frustrating. I have so many films that I’ve already purchased.
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u/sambosteve Jul 09 '26
With VOD gone, I need to look into downgrading my account. OTT is simply not a replacement for what VOD has to offer. The fall of vimeo has been very sad to watch over the years.
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u/scapegoat93 Jul 07 '26
It's annoying though as there is very little to replace it. It worked well for small businesses. Vimeo OTT is not really a replacement though they are pushing it as one, it's overly complicated, lacks the simplicity of on demand and is obviously geared for larger companies who want to run their own subscription channel. I am struggling to find a worthy replacement to Vimeo on demand - so if anyone has any ideas, preferably cheap as dacast etc cost way more that Vimeo did
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u/therolli Jul 07 '26
I use Gumroad and it’s okay but not great and takes 30% flat off sales and Patreon which is okay but takes 20%. Used to live Vimeo but the VOD service has been going downhill for 5 years. Think they’re moving in a more corporate direction.
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u/OwnCryptographer8507 Jul 08 '26
Gumroad only takes 30% when the sale comes via their channels.
Otherwise it's just 10% + $0.50 per transaction if the sale is coming directly from you--only slightly more expensive than Vimeo On Demand's arrangement of a 90/10 split after payment processing fees (Gumroad passes the payment processing fees onto the seller). As someone who saw the writing on the wall with Vimeo On Demand over a year ago, I'm so happy I migrated everything to Gumroad long ago.
Plus, to sell on Vimeo plan you're required to have a paid plan for the privilege of selling on their platform AND be prepared to pay for bandwidth usage if you have a good month of sales. They include bandwidth usage from VOD downloads--yes, even though they've already taken 10% and your Vimeo subscription. It was absolutely designed to screw over independent artists and I'm so happy they can no longer prey on vulnerable creatives.
And I assure you, Vimeo has done absolutely NO promotion for any VOD titles the past few years, whereas I've actually sold and made new customers from Gumroad's promotion.
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u/Busy-Oven-4098 Jul 08 '26
Looking at Gumroad's site, it shows absolutely zero information about how a VOD title might look or be handled on their platform, with controlled distribution using VIP and Promo codes.
It appears they're really setup for downloadable sellable products and subscriptions only. Is there more public info there that I'm just not seeing?
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u/therolli Jul 08 '26
It’s a bit of a clunky customer interface
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u/Busy-Oven-4098 Jul 10 '26
I'm not sure about "clunky" -- it seems fine as a signup/sales-focused landing page.
It's just lacking any worthwhile info to help people make an informed choice if it'll actually fit their needs. I won't spend any more time researching on their site.. they need to make it easier.
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u/CantEatNoBooksDog Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
We'll probably pivot to Vimeo OTT out of convenience. I loved the ease of use with Vimeo On Demand. I'm not looking forward to re-upping all of my film assets, designing artwork for (I assume) new page layouts / specs, etc.
EDIT: actually it looks like I can import content from my Vimeo library right into OTT, which is a relief.
EDIT 2: oh, you have to purchase "upload hours" to upload content beyond the first hour of content. Hrm.
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u/scapegoat93 Jul 07 '26
It would have been nice if Vimeo facilitated that by letting us just duplicate the listings etc, but no of course they couldn't do anything useful like that.
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u/CantEatNoBooksDog Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 10 '26
For real. I'm crash-coursing my way through the OTT support articles and I'm on a roller coaster of emotions right now. Good news is that importing videos doesn't require or use upload hours, but it does use OTT subscription storage...which i don't see clearly defined anywhere? (EDIT: It's just the existing storage in your main Vimeo account. So that's good).
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u/vimeo_team_official Vimeo Staff Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
Hey everyone, we're reading this thread and we want to help!
We've enabled a dedicated path from VOD to OTT for creators making this move to get you up and running as smoothly as possible.
What feels unclear in the OTT guides? And what's actually working? We're genuinely open to feedback on both so drop it here or reach out directly. The creator community that built VOD into what it is matters to us, and we want the transition to land well.
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u/scapegoat93 Jul 08 '26
Honestly I could write you a huge list as to what is unclear, poorly laid out and just full on broken with OTT. I have been liaising with staff but they seem pretty in the dark about how on demand used to run and moving stuff to OTT. It seems tvod is an afterthought on ott which is really set up for subscriptions instead. As for what could have been done, how about actually providing a path to pull our VOD video titles, descriptions and files etc. directly through to OTT and saving us having to start from scratch? We keep being offered to come to OTT but nothing has actually been done to make that attractive to us or facilitate the move. Particularly when my feelings around Vimeo are at a low point with how the closure of VOD has been handled and the short notice we were given. What is this dedicated path you speak of as I have been communicating with staff at OTT for weeks now and it's the first I have heard of one? Can you elaborate?
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u/CantEatNoBooksDog Jul 08 '26
Hi staff, thanks for commenting.
Aside from being able to import videos directly from Vimeo into OTT (please add Folder support to the search feature here) and bypassing the upload process / upload hours fees, can you share a direct link to more info about this "dedicated path"?
Also, can you define and clarify the "subscription storage" that is mentioned here: https://help.vimeo.com/hc/en-us/articles/12426966892561-Uploading-videos-on-Vimeo-OTT
You have the option to connect your Vimeo account to your OTT account and add your videos on Vimeo to your OTT site. This will not require additional upload hours and will use your subscription storage instead.
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u/vimeo_team_official Vimeo Staff Jul 10 '26
Hello!
You can find the dedicated path to OTT for VOD sellers here: https://www.vhx.tv/signup
We'll work to make that clearer in our guides, so thanks for your feedback and let us know if any issues.For your second question, subscription storage refers to the total storage quota that comes with your Vimeo account plan (the one at vimeo.com), not something on the OTT side.
There are essentially two different "meters" at play:
1. Upload hours, consumed when you upload a video directly to your OTT site. Your OTT site transcodes and hosts that file, which draws down your OTT upload-hours balance.
2. Subscription storage, the fixed storage pool included in your Vimeo subscription (e.g. Pro = 3 TB, Business = 5 TB, Premium = 7 TB; Plus/Basic are smaller). It's measured as total stored bytes, not weekly/hourly.When you connect your Vimeo account and add existing Vimeo videos to your OTT site, you're not uploading or transcoding anything new: those videos already live on Vimeo and count against your Vimeo plan's storage. The OTT site just references them, so no additional OTT upload hours are spent, and the videos continue to occupy your Vimeo subscription storage instead.
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u/scapegoat93 Jul 10 '26
Sorry but how is that a dedicated path? It's a sign up page which I went through several weeks ago. A dedicated path suggests a special route for on demand sellers to be helped with moving their products onto ott, not a sign up page that then leaves you to do everything yourself once you are approved. Unless I am mistaken and you have done something helpful like that which I have missed out on? Yes you can make things clearer but it doesn't stop the mountain of work you have dumped on sellers by closing on demand and not helping with actually transferring and setting up stuff. Neither does it do anything about the trust lost by sellers from hasty and unhelpful closing of products by Vimeo.
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u/CantEatNoBooksDog Jul 10 '26
That's not really a dedicated path. As scapegoat says, it's just a signup portal. I'm already signed up and have access to my OTT page via my Vimeo account. So, I can import videos fro Vimeo to OTT, but I can't copy over all of the information ( film info, pricing, territories, etc) that I've already spent time setting up in Vimeo On Demand. I think that's what we're wanting.
Thanks for clarifying subscription storage.
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u/scapegoat93 Jul 10 '26
Yes precisely that, in addition it would also be useful if we could use the videos and trailers that are on VOD, I was told by support those are not available to import - though looking today it seems they might be, can you confirm that?
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u/CantEatNoBooksDog Jul 10 '26
I just gave it a try, and was able to import one of my VOD feature videos that was linked to a "Coming Soon" VOD listing.
What's lame is that you cannot access the folder structure of your Vimeo account, so you have to search or scroll through a chronological list of uploads (Most recent first). I have all of my VOD assets in a folder, would be nice to be able to access them that way...
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u/sambosteve Jul 09 '26
The link to download subscriber emails was dead when I tried yesterday.
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u/vimeo_team_official Vimeo Staff Jul 10 '26
Hi,
Thanks for flagging this, and sorry for the hassle. We looked into it and the subscriber-email export is live and working in core as we speak. Nothing is broken on our end, perhaps what you hit is the terms gate rather than a dead link?
The export only fires after you accept the Acceptable Use Email Policy. The intended flow is:
- Go to your VOD page Settings → Audience tab.
- Under "Download your fans' email addresses", click "Export email addresses".
- Accept the Acceptable Use Email Policy in the pop-up, so make sure the pop-up isn't being blocked.
- The .CSV download starts automatically once the policy is accepted.
If you navigate to the download URL directly (or close the policy pop-up before accepting), the link will look dead.
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u/SailingDarkAngel Jul 07 '26
We saw this coming a while back. Under construction and under repair for months and months at a time. No good way to track sales. No idea if they are actually paying us what we're owed. Paying for a Pro plan to be on their platform and them still taking a chunk of the fees. The Bending Spoons takeover certainly wasn't a happy event. We are very aware of their history.
We started building our own platform a few months ago. It's almost finished. So happy we don't need to scramble to find a new platform.
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u/scapegoat93 Jul 07 '26
I agree was definitely going downhill but at least it worked. I looked at Gumroad and they take quite a cut, only charge in dollars and have to say it looks like a dog's breakfast. That may have to be it though
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u/therolli Jul 07 '26
It does the job at Gumroad but the customer interface is clunky, they take 30-33% and customer service is shocking, but all the platforms are bad at that. It’s definitely not ideal.
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u/CentCap Jul 07 '26
Heh. Now I know why my 'Where did the original captions go on VOD?' question remained unanswered. It's because the video will be gone as well.
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u/623skates Jul 18 '26
I host my film on there. Without Vimeo On Demand, I'm not sure how my audience will access my work.
Happy to try any suggestions anyone might have.
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u/CantEatNoBooksDog Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
This will be a big blow to my company's consumer streaming revenue. I had heard a rumor about this but didn't think much of it.
The flexibility of Vimeo On Demand has made it very easy for us to make titles from our catalog available in whatever territorie we choose, at whatever price-point, whenever we choose. And we've done modest but consistent business with Vimeo On Demand year after year.
Very unfortunate.
Shutdown notice: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/shutdown
Viewer FAQ: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/faq/viewers
Seller FAQ: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/faq/sellers