Embodiments are generally directed to methods and apparatuses for encoding based on shading rates. An embodiment of a computing system comprises: a memory; a graphics processing unit (GPU) coupled to the memory, the GPU to render a scene of a graphics application into a color buffer within a frame buffer of the memory; and an encoder coupled to the memory, the encoder to encode the content of the color buffer into a video bitstream based on a plurality of shading rates each corresponding to a pixel in the color buffer.