What Loopcast is, what it costs, and what you need before you start. For questions about a stream that is already running, the knowledgebase goes deeper.
Loopcast is a hosted service that keeps a pre-recorded video broadcasting live 24/7 to Steam store pages, YouTube Live and Kick. You upload one file, Loopcast re-encodes it to that platform’s exact broadcast spec, and streams it on a loop from a datacenter. Nothing runs on your machine: no OBS, no spare PC, no encoder settings to configure. Billing is per minute on air, from $0.72 a day.
$0.72 for 24 hours of non-stop broadcasting. Your balance is held in minutes, and one live stream spends one minute per minute on air. Packs start at $5 (10,080 minutes, 7 days) and run to $100 (259,200 minutes, 180 days), with up to 30% bonus minutes on the larger packs. There is no subscription, no seat fee and no overage: minutes do not expire, and a stream pauses on its own at a zero balance. Minutes are prepaid and non-refundable. See the full pricing ladder.
Steam store page broadcasts, YouTube Live and Kick. Each platform publishes its own spec for resolution, bitrate, keyframe interval and audio, and Loopcast re-encodes your upload to the correct one so the stream is not rejected at ingest. The same video can be simulcast to several platforms at once, and the extra destinations are discounted: the second is 25% off and the third is half price, so Steam plus YouTube plus Kick costs 2.25 minutes per minute rather than 3, because one encode is shared across the outbound feeds.
Because OBS is free to download but not free to run. Broadcasting it yourself means a computer at full tilt for the entire event, on your power bill and your internet connection. Over a seven-day Steam Next Fest, 168 hours, Loopcast costs about $5, while a home PC costs roughly $11 in electricity at $0.20/kWh, before counting a power cut, a Windows update or a router reboot taking your channel off air at 3am. Loopcast runs in a datacenter and is controlled from a browser, including from your phone, with your own machine switched off. Loopcast vs OBS, in detail.
Yes, on all three platforms. Valve’s own broadcast FAQ, asked directly whether pre-recorded footage is acceptable on a store page, answers “Absolutely,” and states you can stream as often and as long as you want. YouTube treats anything pushed over RTMP as a live broadcast regardless of when it was filmed, and 24/7 loops are an established genre there rather than a loophole. What actually causes trouble is unlicensed music, clips too short to be worth watching, or a title implying someone is at the keyboard. The per-platform rules.
Loopcast supervises the broadcast and relaunches it automatically on the same stream key, without you being awake for it. Because nothing runs on your own hardware, the usual causes of a dead 24/7 stream, your PC sleeping, an ISP blip, a driver update rebooting the machine, do not apply at all. Live service status is published at status.loopcast.io. Live service status.
Mostly game developers and publishers who want a trailer or gameplay reel playing on their Steam store page around the clock, particularly during a launch window, a Next Fest or a wishlist push, where a store page in motion converts better than a screenshot. The rest are YouTube and Kick channels keeping something on air overnight or while they are away: ambient scenery, lo-fi radio, replays and rolling showcases.
New accounts get 1,440 free minutes, a full day of broadcasting, with no card required. Setup is upload a video, paste a stream key, press start. For Steam you generate a broadcast key in Steamworks from an account with Broadcast Live permission, and it never needs your Steam password. For YouTube you need live streaming enabled on the channel, and its stream key. For Kick you need the ingest URL and key from your creator dashboard. The whole thing takes under five minutes. How to get a Steam broadcast key.
Still unsure? Ask us directly, or start with 1,440 free minutes.