Guides and answers for running 24/7 Steam broadcasts: setup, pricing, uptime, and everything in between.
Enable Broadcast Live in Steamworks and grab your RTMP URL + stream key.
SteamResolution, bitrate, GOP and audio Steam needs - handled automatically.
SteamKeep a broadcast live on your store page for the whole event.
SteamHow a live store page turns visitors into wishlists and sales.
All platformsWhy a hosted broadcast beats streaming from your own PC.
SteamThe usual reasons a Steam broadcast fails, and how to fix them.
SteamRun a separate broadcast per App ID from one dashboard.
SteamA plain-English intro to live video on your Steam page.
SteamAn honest, dated comparison: price, free trials and platforms.
SteamValve says yes, in writing. The catch is elsewhere.
SteamWhat Valve actually permits, and the one hard limit.
SteamUse the base game's App ID, or it shows up nowhere useful.
SteamUnreleased pages can broadcast. Why that matters pre-launch.
SteamSteam forgets your numbers after 30 days. Save them yourself.
SteamYour chat runs at 4am too. Appoint moderators before you need them.
All platformsValve's exact spec, and the one setting that hard-fails a stream.
YoutubeYes - and the limits that matter are about what is in the loop, not the loop.
YoutubeWhere it lives in Studio, and why the reusable key matters for a 24/7 loop.
YoutubeBitrate, keyframes and audio - and why a long run should sit below the ceiling.
YoutubeFour usual culprits, and how to tell which one you have from the symptom.
KickKick permits it. What that settles for an unattended channel, and what it does not.
KickKick gives every channel its own ingest endpoint, so you need both halves.
KickDiscovery, rules and setup friction compared for a looped broadcast.
All platformsWhat the viewer sees, what the platform sees, and how it differs from an upload.
All platformsLength, entry points, the seam, and the audio decision that carries the real risk.
What Loopcast is, what it costs, and what you need before you start. The guides above go deeper on a stream that is already running.
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 you buy 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 7 free days: 10,080 minutes, enough to keep one stream on air around the clock for a week, with no card required. The week starts when you confirm your email address, and whatever is unused at the end of it expires. 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.
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