My updated rough estimate is:

**Most likely: about $120–$260/month**
with a believable cheap-floor around **$70–$110/month** and a more padded upper band around **$250–$450/month**.

Why I moved the estimate:

Your HAR shows a pretty specific stack:

* `api.robotstreamer.com/v1/robot_page_load` returning a huge JSON payload,
* WebSocket chat/control on `208-113-134-124.robotstreamer.com` ports `8765` and `8865`,
* a WebRTC SFU at `av2.robotstreamer.com:4443`,
* an HLS endpoint configured as `hls.robotstreamer.com`,
* and the platform docs still expose RTMP ingest at `rtmp://rtmp.robotstreamer.com/live`.  ([RobotStreamer][1])

That does **not** look like “pay Wowza and forget it.” It looks like a homemade multi-piece stack: app/API + chat/control + SFU + RTMP/HLS + B2-backed media storage.

The archive side is cheap. Parsing the HAR payload you uploaded, I get roughly **11.6k videos + 574 clips**, around **2,594 hours** total. Your logs from other runs were already landing in the same ballpark, around **12k discovered media items**.

Backblaze B2 pricing is currently:

* storage: **$6/TB/month**
* Class B download/API calls: first **2,500/day free**, then **$0.004 per 10,000**
* free egress up to **3x average monthly storage**, then **$0.01/GB**. ([Backblaze][2])

So for archive storage alone, even if the VODs average somewhere in RobotStreamer’s own bitrate range of **0.25–2.50 mbit**, the stored archive is probably only about:

* **0.29 TB** at 0.25 mbit → about **$1.75/mo**
* **0.58 TB** at 0.50 mbit → about **$3.50/mo**
* **1.17 TB** at 1.00 mbit → about **$7.00/mo**
* **2.92 TB** at 2.50 mbit → about **$17.50/mo**
  That bitrate band is grounded by the platform UI options exposed on RobotStreamer pages. ([RobotStreamer][3])

The cap error you hit also suggests Rick probably isn’t paying a lot for B2 transactions. Your screenshot shows Backblaze’s `download_cap_exceeded` error. But **9,000 downloads** would only be about **6,500 billable Class B calls beyond the free 2,500**, which is only a fraction of a cent at Backblaze’s published API rates. That makes it much more likely he set a conservative B2 cap than that he was getting crushed by unavoidable B2 transaction cost.  ([Backblaze][4])

The bigger cost risk is the **live infra**, not the archive:

* DreamHost DreamCompute examples currently show about **$12/mo** for a 2GB VM and **$48/mo** for an 8GB VM, with **100 GB block storage included**; extra block storage is **$10 per 100 GB/month**. ([DreamHost][5])
* DreamHost dedicated starts much higher, around **$199/mo** and up. ([DreamHost][6])

So the likely monthly buckets look like this:

**Cheap-but-working setup: $70–$110/mo**

* one small DreamCompute app/API box: **$12**
* one 8GB DreamCompute realtime/SFU box: **$48**
* B2 storage: **$3–$18**
* a little extra misc/storage/overhead

**Most likely: $120–$260/mo**

* one small app/API box: **$12–$48**
* one medium SFU/chat/control box: **$48**
* maybe one extra AV/HLS/legacy box on DreamHost or Bluehost/Unified Layer: call it **$20–$80** as a rough unmanaged-VPS-style bucket
* B2 storage and some egress overhead: **$5–$20**
* maybe a bit of extra block storage or sloppy overprovisioning

**If he’s doing something dumber / more padded: $250–$450/mo**

* one DreamHost dedicated or oversized box: **$199+**
* plus another cloud node or two
* plus B2
* plus redundant/legacy AV stuff

My blunt conclusion:
**He probably is not paying enterprise money.**
The archive side is dirt cheap. The likely all-in number is still probably around **$150-ish/month**, maybe **$200-ish** if he keeps an extra node around or overprovisions the live box. I would only push it toward **$300–$450** if one of those AV hosts is actually on a dedicated server or if he keeps multiple always-on boxes for redundancy.

The one thing I still cannot price tightly from this HAR is **viewer-driven live egress load** on the WebRTC SFU. That is the real wildcard. Storage is cheap; live fanout is where the bill gets ugly.

[1]: https://robotstreamer.com/new_stream2.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com "How to set up a stream on RobotStreamer"
[2]: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/pricing?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Cloud Storage Pricing Comparison: AWS S3, GCP, Azure ..."
[3]: https://robotstreamer.com/robot/6580?utm_source=chatgpt.com "TELE CATORCE - TeleCatorce"
[4]: https://www.backblaze.com/cloud-storage/transaction-pricing "Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage API Pricing Explained | Prices per API call or Transactions"
[5]: https://www.dreamhost.com/cloud/computing/ "Cloud Computing Powered by OpenStack - DreamHost"
[6]: https://www.dreamhost.com/hosting/dedicated/ "Fully Managed Dedicated Server Hosting - DreamHost"