Media Conversion API — Free Tier + Pay-As-You-Go

Video and audio conversion API in one endpoint. 27 video + 21 audio formats, FFmpeg-backed, GPU-accelerated.

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What it does

The Media Conversion API is a focused surface for video and audio workflows — 27 video formats and 21 audio codecs sharing a single endpoint, single SDK surface, and unified webhook contract. The API auto-detects whether the input is video, audio, or both, and routes to the right FFmpeg pipeline accordingly. Video jobs use H.264, H.265, AV1, VP9, or ProRes encoders with per-job CRF or target-bitrate control, optional two-pass mode, and GPU acceleration (NVENC) on Business tier.

Audio jobs use LAME (MP3), libfdk-aac (AAC), libopus (Opus), libvorbis (OGG), FLAC, or PCM (WAV) encoders with per-job bitrate, sample-rate, and channel control. Mixed jobs — e.g., extracting audio from video, demuxing video without re-encoding — work without explicit mode selection: just specify the target format and the API figures out the right pipeline. Webhook payloads include video-specific metadata (resolution, frame rate, codec, duration) for video outputs and audio-specific metadata (bitrate, sample rate, channels, duration) for audio outputs.

Cloud-to-cloud is supported on both ingress and egress; resumable uploads handle large media files cleanly.

Supported formats

Source formats (27)

mp4
mov
avi
mkv
webm
flv
wmv
m4v
mts
ts
3gp
vob
ogv
f4v
mpg
mpeg
mxf
mp3
wav
flac
aac
ogg
m4a
aiff
alac
amr
opus

Target formats (13)

mp4
webm
mov
mkv
avi
gif
mp3
wav
flac
aac
ogg
m4a
opus

Quick start

Every sample posts the job, then polls /v1/status/{jobId} until it finishes, with your API key in the X-Api-Key header. The parameter names below are the ones the endpoint actually accepts — anything else is dropped rather than rejected.

curl

curl -X POST https://api.convertintomp4.com/v1/convert \
  -H "X-Api-Key: ck_your_api_key" \
  -F "file=@input.mp4" \
  -F "targetFormat=mp3"

Node.js

import { readFileSync } from "node:fs";
import { ConvertIntoMP4Client } from "convertintomp4";

const apiKey = process.env.CIM4_API_KEY;
const client = new ConvertIntoMP4Client({ apiKey });

// Presigned direct-to-R2 upload, then queue the conversion.
const { jobId } = await client.uploadDirect(
  readFileSync("input.mp4"),
  "input.mp4",
  "application/octet-stream",
  { targetFormat: "mp3" },
);

// Poll until the job reaches a terminal state.
let job;
do {
  await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 2000));
  job = await fetch(`https://api.convertintomp4.com/v1/status/${jobId}`, {
    headers: { "X-Api-Key": apiKey },
  }).then((r) => r.json());
} while (job.status !== "completed" && job.status !== "failed");

console.log("Download URL:", job.result?.downloadUrl);

Python

import time, requests
from convertintomp4 import Client

api_key = "ck_your_api_key"
client = Client(api_key=api_key)

# Presigned direct-to-R2 upload, then queue the conversion.
with open("input.mp4", "rb") as f:
    job = client.upload_direct(
        f, "input.mp4", "application/octet-stream", "mp3"
    )

# Poll until the job reaches a terminal state.
while True:
    status = requests.get(
        f"https://api.convertintomp4.com/v1/status/{job['jobId']}",
        headers={"X-Api-Key": api_key},
    ).json()
    if status["status"] in ("completed", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(2)

print("Download URL:", status.get("result", {}).get("downloadUrl"))

Features

27 video formats + 21 audio codecs
Single endpoint for video, audio, and cross-format jobs
GPU acceleration (NVENC) on Business
FFmpeg with two-pass encoding and CRF/bitrate control
Cloud-to-cloud workflows for large media
Resumable multipart uploads
Webhook payloads with media-specific metadata

Pricing

From $9.99/mo (Pro) or $24.99/mo (Business) — or pay-as-you-go on the API plan.

Free tier: 5 conversions/day, 100 MB file size, no API key required (IP-gated). Pro $9.99/mo: 100/day (2,000/month), 2 GB files. Business $24.99/mo: 1,000/day (20,000/month), 10 GB files, GPU encoding, dedicated support.

See full pricing breakdown →

Built for production

99.9% uptime SLA

Multi-region failover, transparent status page, 60-second response-time guarantee on Business.

Encryption + auto-delete

TLS 1.2+ in transit, AES-256 at rest. Files deleted after 1h / 24h / 7d depending on plan, or instantly via DELETE endpoint. See the security page.

~7s median latency

Most sub-100 MB jobs complete in 6-9 seconds. Webhook-driven async for heavier workloads; waitForJob for synchronous flows.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I use the Media Conversion API or the Video / Audio APIs directly?

Use the Media Conversion API when you handle both audio and video in the same pipeline (e.g., a podcast platform that ingests both raw audio and video-with-talking-heads). Use the Video API or Audio API when you exclusively handle one or the other and want the format-specific parameter surface documented more thoroughly.

Is GPU acceleration always faster?

For H.264 and H.265 encoding at typical web bitrates, GPU encoding is substantially faster. For complex filter work — denoising, scaling, colour grading — CPU is sometimes faster, because GPU paths cannot pipeline every FFmpeg filter efficiently. There is no `forceCpu` flag; the way to pin the path is `engine=ffmpeg` for the plain CPU pipeline, or `gpuEncoder` to request hardware encoding, which is a paid-tier feature and returns a 403 for anonymous and free callers.

What's the difference between Opus and AAC at the same bitrate?

Opus is roughly 30-50% more efficient than AAC at low bitrates (under 96 kbps) and roughly equivalent at high bitrates. Opus is the modern recommendation for any new audio pipeline; AAC remains relevant for Apple ecosystem compatibility (iTunes, podcast distribution).

Can I crop / trim / rotate as part of conversion?

Yes, and they run in the same FFmpeg pass as the transcode — no separate job. The field names are individual, not packed: `cropWidth`, `cropHeight`, `cropX` and `cropY` for cropping, `startTime` with `endTime` or `duration` for trimming, and `rotate` for 90, 180 or 270. There are no combined `crop=W:H:X:Y` or `trim=start:end` shorthands. You can combine all three in one request.

Is there a difference in quality between this API and FFmpeg locally?

No — the underlying encoder is the same FFmpeg binary. The API just provides hosted infrastructure, GPU access, resumable uploads, webhook orchestration, and 9 language SDKs around the encoder. For maximum reproducibility, every job logs the exact FFmpeg command used in the response's `engineCommand` field.

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What it does

Cloud-to-cloud is supported on both ingress and egress; resumable uploads handle large media files cleanly.

Quick start

curl

curl -X POST https://api.convertintomp4.com/v1/convert \
  -H "X-Api-Key: ck_your_api_key" \
  -F "file=@input.mp4" \
  -F "targetFormat=mp3"

Node.js

import { readFileSync } from "node:fs";
import { ConvertIntoMP4Client } from "convertintomp4";

const apiKey = process.env.CIM4_API_KEY;
const client = new ConvertIntoMP4Client({ apiKey });

// Presigned direct-to-R2 upload, then queue the conversion.
const { jobId } = await client.uploadDirect(
  readFileSync("input.mp4"),
  "input.mp4",
  "application/octet-stream",
  { targetFormat: "mp3" },
);

// Poll until the job reaches a terminal state.
let job;
do {
  await new Promise((r) => setTimeout(r, 2000));
  job = await fetch(`https://api.convertintomp4.com/v1/status/${jobId}`, {
    headers: { "X-Api-Key": apiKey },
  }).then((r) => r.json());
} while (job.status !== "completed" && job.status !== "failed");

console.log("Download URL:", job.result?.downloadUrl);

Python

import time, requests
from convertintomp4 import Client

api_key = "ck_your_api_key"
client = Client(api_key=api_key)

# Presigned direct-to-R2 upload, then queue the conversion.
with open("input.mp4", "rb") as f:
    job = client.upload_direct(
        f, "input.mp4", "application/octet-stream", "mp3"
    )

# Poll until the job reaches a terminal state.
while True:
    status = requests.get(
        f"https://api.convertintomp4.com/v1/status/{job['jobId']}",
        headers={"X-Api-Key": api_key},
    ).json()
    if status["status"] in ("completed", "failed"):
        break
    time.sleep(2)

print("Download URL:", status.get("result", {}).get("downloadUrl"))

Pricing

From $9.99/mo (Pro) or $24.99/mo (Business) — or pay-as-you-go on the API plan.

See full pricing breakdown →

Built for production

99.9% uptime SLA

Multi-region failover, transparent status page, 60-second response-time guarantee on Business.

Encryption + auto-delete

TLS 1.2+ in transit, AES-256 at rest. Files deleted after 1h / 24h / 7d depending on plan, or instantly via DELETE endpoint. See the security page.

~7s median latency

Most sub-100 MB jobs complete in 6-9 seconds. Webhook-driven async for heavier workloads; waitForJob for synchronous flows.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I use the Media Conversion API or the Video / Audio APIs directly?

Is GPU acceleration always faster?

What's the difference between Opus and AAC at the same bitrate?

Can I crop / trim / rotate as part of conversion?

Is there a difference in quality between this API and FFmpeg locally?

What it does

Supported formats

Source formats (27)

Target formats (13)

Quick start

Features

Pricing

Built for production

99.9% uptime SLA

Encryption + auto-delete

~7s median latency

Frequently Asked Questions

Related APIs

Get an API key

What it does

Supported formats

Source formats (27)

Target formats (13)

Quick start

Features

Pricing

Built for production

99.9% uptime SLA

Encryption + auto-delete

~7s median latency

Frequently Asked Questions

Related APIs

Get an API key