> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.encord.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Egress Costs

Egress costs refer to the fees incurred when data transfers out of a cloud provider's storage to another location. For example, to a user's browser or a processing server. When using Encord, egress costs arise when media files are accessed for annotation, display, or computation.

To minimize these costs, Encord optimizes data transfers by:

* Allowing users to register media with metadata and embeddings, avoiding unnecessary file ingestion.
* Performing searches on metadata instead of the actual media files.
* Streaming only the visible portions of videos and thumbnails.
* Utilizing local caching to prevent repeated data transfers during annotation.

<Tip>
  Local caching prevents repeated egress costs when revisiting the same section of a video during annotation.
</Tip>

| **Scenario**                     | **Egress Cost Impact**                                                                                                                                                                    |
| -------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Data Registration**            | No egress cost if users provide media metadata and embeddings, as files are not ingested. If metadata is not provided then Encord downloads the data once for processing.                 |
| **Searching**                    | Searches are performed on metadata stored in Encord's servers, incurring no egress cost.                                                                                                  |
| **Search Results**               | Data is streamed only for thumbnails in view; for videos, only visible frames are loaded.                                                                                                 |
| **Video Annotation**             | Egress costs apply only to the section of the video being viewed/annotated, with some buffering allowance. Local caching prevents repeated egress costs when revisiting the same section. |
| **Index/Active Display**         | Minimal egress cost, as filtering is based on precomputed metrics/embeddings.                                                                                                             |
| **Visual Curation in Active**    | Small data transfer since only selected frames are displayed.                                                                                                                             |
| **Metric/Embedding Computation** | If processed on Encord's side, egress cost equals the data size. Needs confirmation on frame ingestion. No egress cost if users provide media metadata and embeddings.                    |
| **Cost**                         | 1GB of 1080p footage costs \~\$0.10 in egress.                                                                                                                                            |