Most of the time, a video on a small business website is watched by a few hundred people. Then one day somebody with a big following shares it, and it is watched by a few hundred thousand.
On a lot of platforms, that is the day the trouble starts. The video stops playing because the plan ran out of bandwidth. Or a bill arrives for the extra data. Or the site slows down under the crowd, just when the most people are looking at it.
On Bernard, a viral video is not a problem for you, and it is not a problem for us. This page explains why, starting with the usual choices and then what Bernard does differently.
The usual choices
YouTube. It is free, and it can carry any crowd. But it is built to keep viewers on YouTube, not on your site. YouTube's own help says end screens can "promote other videos", and that YouTube can "select a video from your channel" or a creator can pick one "from your or any other channel". When a video is earning money, "ads may appear during or next to your videos". The views, the comments and the subscribers all land on YouTube's page, a long way from your "book now" button.
Vimeo. Vimeo is kinder to a viral video than most, but there is a limit. Its help page says videos that can be embedded on your own site use "1 TB per month on Free and Creator, 2 TB per month on Core and Professional". Vimeo does not stop the video the moment you go over. But if an account goes over its limit again and again and the owner does not act, Vimeo says the account "is at risk of being temporarily suspended", and then "videos, wherever they are distributed or embedded, will no longer play for viewers". The way out is a custom plan, "where pricing depends on the expected bandwidth usage".
Wistia. Wistia's pricing page shows a bandwidth figure on every plan: 200 GB on Free and 1 TB on Business, which is $79 a month billed annually. Its help page says that on a paid plan, "Any bandwidth you use beyond your plan's included amount is billed as an overage". On the free plan, "your embedded media stops playing until your bandwidth resets".
None of this is unfair. Sending video across the internet costs money, and these companies pass the cost on. The point is that on each of them, more views can mean a bigger bill, a stopped video, or a phone call about a new plan.
What Bernard does
One price, whatever the views
Bernard charges one flat price for your site. There is no charge per view and no charge for the data your visitors download. A video that goes viral costs you the same as one that nobody watches.
Copies near every viewer
Every Bernard site is served through Cloudflare, a network with servers in cities around the world. When people watch a video on your page, Cloudflare keeps a copy close to them. The next viewer in that area gets the copy, and the request never reaches the place where the file is stored. A crowd of a hundred thousand is spread across the whole network, not queued at one server. That is why a viral day does not slow your site down.
The video plays on your page
Bernard plays the file itself, with the browser's own player. There is no other company's logo on it, no list of other people's videos at the end, and no adverts. The viewer stays on your page, next to your own words and your own button. Each video also gets a still picture taken from the film, so a visitor never sees a black box before they press play.
Viewers count as your visitors
Because the video is on your page, the people who watch it are visitors to your site. They appear in your own site analytics, not in a dashboard that belongs to someone else.
Google can show the video with your page
Google can show a video in search results with its picture and its length. To do that, it needs a hidden label on the page that says what the video is. Bernard adds that label for you and checks it against Google's rules before you approve it (how to let Google show your video). Then a search result can lead to your page, not to a YouTube page.
Paid lessons stay private
A course lesson is different from a video on your home page, because people pay for it. A paid lesson has no public address. When an enrolled student presses play, Bernard checks that they are enrolled and gives them a private link that stops working minutes later. A student who copies the link into a message does not give the course away.
Every lesson video also gets captions and a transcript that follows along as the student watches (captions and transcripts). The transcript is words on the page, so search engines and AI assistants can read what you teach.
What comes next
We are moving video to Cloudflare's own storage, called R2. Cloudflare's pricing page says "There are no charges for egress bandwidth for any storage class". Egress is the fee a storage company charges each time a file leaves its building to go to a viewer. Today, most of our videos are stored with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which does charge that fee. On R2 it is zero.
The move is under way, one site at a time. A video keeps the same address when it moves, so none of your pages change, and nothing you have shared or that Google has found stops working.
Two more changes are planned after the move. They are not built yet.
- Course lessons from the same free store. Paid lessons will move too, still behind each student's private link.
- Video that adjusts to the connection. Each lesson will be kept at two or three levels of quality, and the player will step down before the video stops. On a slow train the picture may go softer for a moment, but it will keep playing.
We will update this page as each one goes live.
The short version
Put your video on your own site. If it gets ten views, good. If it gets a million, also good: you pay the same, your site keeps working, and every one of those viewers is on your page.
Bernard is an AI-assisted website and marketing platform for small businesses. He builds a new site or moves an existing one, keeps it fast and readable to search and AI tools, and looks after it. Once measuring is on, he reads your numbers each week and suggests what to do next, with a button that does it. On the Medium and Large plans he also plans your marketing every six weeks and drafts your posts, emails and pages. Everything lands on a draft you approve. One flat price per site.
See what Bernard would do with your business. Already have a website? Paste its address and he measures it up, free, and shows you the new place before you decide anything. Starting from nothing? Tell him what you are building.
Questions people ask
- Will I pay more if my video gets a lot of views?
- No. Bernard charges one flat price for your site. There is no charge per view and no charge for the data your visitors download, so a video with a million views costs you the same as a video with ten.
- Will my site slow down if a video goes viral?
- It should not. Your site and its videos are served through Cloudflare, which keeps copies near the people who are watching. Most views never reach the place where the file is stored, so a sudden crowd does not queue up at one server.
- Why not just put my video on YouTube and embed it?
- You can, and Bernard supports it. But YouTube is built to keep viewers on YouTube. It can promote other videos at the end of yours and show ads next to it. When Bernard plays the file itself, the viewer stays on your page, next to your own button.
- Can people share or download my paid course videos?
- A paid lesson has no public address. A student gets a private link only after Bernard checks that they are enrolled, and that link stops working minutes later. Copying it into a message does not give someone else the course.
- Where are my videos actually stored?
- Today most videos are stored with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and served through Cloudflare. Bernard is moving them to Cloudflare's own storage, which charges nothing to send a file to a viewer. The address of each video stays the same when it moves, so none of your pages change.