PolyStreamer is the simplest and most affordable alternative for live streaming to multiple sites. Our only-pay-for-what-you-need model provides exceptional value for creators or organizations looking to get into live video, including Facebook Pages and Groups, without breaking the bank.
Here's how PolyStreamer stacks up:
| PolyStreamer | Their Pro Package | |
| Monthly Price | $6.99 + bandwidth | $49 + add-ons |
| "Extra Channels" or Custom RTMP(s) | Unlimited * | 3 |
| Platforms | The important ones | 30+ |
| Pricing | Pay as you go, one low rate | Extras, upsells, price tiers |
* Ok, there are practical limits. But extra channels don't bump you onto a pricier plan. Lots of YouTube channels, Facebook Pages or Groups? No problem, same low rate!
Your monthly bill is the base rate, $6.99, plus bandwidth. So the total depends the bitrate of your video stream, how many outputs you stream to (e.g. YouTube, Facebook, etc), and how many hours you stream. Try our handy calculator to estimate your monthly bill.
Bandwidth initially costs $0.05 per GB, before volume discounts. So as a rule of thumb, a 1080 stream at 4.5 Mbps costs about 10 cents per hour per output. At those settings, streaming a 2 hour event to 3 platforms will cost around $0.60 in total. But the more bandwidth you use in a billing cycle, the greater the volume discount, so this cost decreases as you stream more events.
Nope! We don't watermark, brand or re-encode your video stream, nor put any branding in your title or description. You're in complete control of your stream's quality and branding.
Some services offer free multistreaming. They usually do it in trade for branding or watermarking your video, or worse — selling your data. That's not our gig.
Servers and bandwidth cost money, and we offer high quality, unbranded multistreaming at near-wholesale prices. It's that simple.
However... ask & you shall receive! Here's how you can get PolyStreamer for free!
PolyStreamer's only-pay-for-what-you-need model provides exceptional value for creators or organizations looking to get into streaming at a reasonable price. It's perfectly suited to:
There are a few reasons you might decide not to use PolyStreamer to multistream:
Your streaming software, like VMix or OBS, may already support streaming to multiple destinations at once. But there are two excellent reasons to use a cloud-based service instead:
First, simplicity. With our platform integrations, when you start or schedule a stream from your PolyStreamer dashboard, we automatically take care of setting up streams at all your destinations. You don't need to visit YouTube Studio or Facebook Live Producer separately.
Second, performance. If your computer is encoding two or three simultaneous streams, it will consume more CPU / GPU resources, as well as congest your Internet bandwidth. With PolyStreamer, your computer only generates one stream, resulting in less load, higher quality, and fewer dropped frames.
Probably! We currently have ingest servers in 6 countries — USA, Germany, India, Singapore, Japan, and Australia — with plans to expand:
To use PolyStreamer, you'll need to broadcast an RTMP stream using streaming or video broadcast software. There are a lot of options, but a few popular ones include:
| Free | Commercial | |
| Windows | OBS Studio | VMix, Wirecast |
| Mac | OBS Studio | Wirecast, Ecamm Live |
Or, if you use Zoom, you can live stream your meeting to YouTube, Facebook, and more with PolyStreamer.
When you enter the stream server and stream key into your streaming software, be aware that some software uses separate inputs:
While other software uses a single stream URL, formed by appending the stream key to the server, like this:
Yes! To stream video from your phone to PolyStreamer, you'll need an app that can transmit RTMP video. Here are a couple popular ones:
| Larix Broadcaster | |
| Broadcast Me | |
When you enter the stream server and stream key, be aware that some apps use separate inputs:
While other apps use a single stream URL, formed by appending the stream key to the server, like this:
When you're streaming from a phone, we recommend using a Wi-fi Internet connection, or you might use a lot of cell data. Always do a speed test to ensure your upload bandwidth is higher than your chosen bitrate.
You can send us an RTMP video stream from any encoder, software or hardware, that can publish RTMP video to a server URL and stream key. In your encoder, you enter the PolyStreamer server and stream key found on your dashboard. This directs your encoder to send your video stream to our servers. Note that some encoders take server and stream key separately:
While others take a single stream URL or RTMP URL, formed by appending the stream key to the server, like this:
Your PolyStreamer stream key does not change (unless you manually reset it on the dashboard.) So you only need to setup your encoder once.
It is recommended to use hardware encoders with scheduled broadcasts. You'll schedule your stream using the PolyStreamer dashboard, at some time in advance. Then at the scheduled time, simply start your hardware encoder, and you'll be live everywhere. It's that easy.
Our 3-minute video shows the whole process, from sign-up to setup to live!
By default, PolyStreamer works like this:
Those two steps are just setup, and you only have to do them once. Now you're ready to go live everywhere in a couple clicks:
It's that simple! With our convenient YouTube, Facebook, and Twitch integrations, we start your stream on all those platforms for you — no need to visit those sites separately.
Scheduling broadcasts has a couple extra steps - read our blog post to learn all about it.
Camera lenses have a field-of-view (or FOV) rating that, combined with the distance from camera to subject, can help you decide what equipment you need to frame your shot. Here's a handy visualization tool, and info on a few common lenses.
| Model | Telephoto FOV | Wide-angle FOV |
| HuddleCam HD 3X zoom | 36° | 82° |
| HuddleCam HD 10X zoom | 7° | 57° |
| HuddleCam HD 20X zoom | 5° | 58° |
Here are a few horizontal FOV ratings for some common DSLR lens focal lengths. Note that the "effective" FOV varies with sensor crop factor:
| Focal length | 1x Full Frame | 1.6x crop | 2.0x crop |
| 35mm | 54° | 36° | 29° |
| 50mm | 40° | 26° | 20° |
| 70mm | 29° | 18° | 14° |
| 100mm | 20° | 13° | 10° |
| 200mm | 10° | 6.5° | 5.1° |
| 500mm | 4.1° | 2.6° | 2° |
PolyStreamer is growing fast — but as of now we have integrations for Facebook, Twitch, and YouTube, as well as custom RTMP for any platform. But we're looking to add more — what platform are you interested in? Contact us and request it!
Instagram doesn't currently make streaming available outside their app. Twitter's Periscope and LinkedIn have private beta programs that we're applying to.
Yes, you can stream to your Profile, to one of your Pages, to one of you Groups — or any combination of these:
First, add a Facebook destination and for PolyStreamer to post your streams.
To stream to a Facebook Page, you must be an admin of that page. See .
To stream to a Facebook Group, setup is similar to a Page, except you must also install the PolyStreamer app in the Facebook Group's settings. .
Yes. You can go live on many of your Pages and Groups at the same time. Right now, we only support connecting a signle Facebook account, but you can stream to all your pages and groups.
YouTube supports multiple simultaneous live streams as well, and you can connect multiple accounts / channels.
Twitch destinations only support a single live stream.
You can connect multiple YouTube accounts and channels:
Right now, you can only connect one Facebook account, but you can stream to multiple Pages or Groups that your account owns:
Right now, you can only connect one Twitch account.
Yes! You can schedule future broadcasts with PolyStreamer. On all your YouTube and Facebook destinations, this creates an announcement post with a custom thumbnail image, letting your audience know when you'll be live. At the schedule time, just start your streaming software - it's literally one click! Read all about it on our blog post:
Scheduling is great for distributing a direct link to your stream in advance. But it's not the only way to distrubute your stream. You could instead share the link to your Facebook Page or Group, your YouTube channel, or Twitch page — those links don't change. And your stream will automatically show up on those pages whenever you go live.
Consider customizing your YouTube channel to put
"Live now", "Upcoming live streams", and possibly "Past live streams" near the top.Facebook by default shows the newest items at the top, so finding live streams on Pages and Groups is easy.Check out Twitch's article on setting up your channel page, posting your schedule, trailer, and more.
We're looking into creating a Twitch extension to give your page a countdown to your next scheduled stream. Let us know if that would be helpful to you!
PolyStreamer is testing the ability to upload your videos and conveniently schedule their broadcast to your destination platforms. This feature is currently in private beta.
If you'd like to try this feature — please contact us!
During an active live stream, PolyStreamer provides direct links to your YouTube and Twitch chat pop-out windows:
Open those links in a new window, and you can easily arrange your chat channels on your desktop:
While things are changing quickly, here's the general shape of the dashboard:
We don't impose any limits on your video stream, specifically. We recommend checking out YouTube's help article for suggested bitrates for various resolutions. Your chosen bitrate will determine the amount of bandwidth consumed per hour of streaming, which in turn, determines your monthly bill. See our handy calculator to estimate your monthly bill.
Your ideal stream settings will vary a lot based on your hardware, encoder settings, Internet connection, and content. We recommend performing a speed test to measure your upload bandwidth, and estimate that only about 75% of that will be available for your video.
On mid-range hardware with high-speed Internet, a starting point for testing might be 1080 at 30fps and 4 Mbps. That's a reasonable balance of quality and affordability. Adjust settings and test your stream from there.
PolyStreamer provides links to all those features on the target platforms: chats windows, YouTube Studio, and Facebook Live Producer, and more. So if there's a feature we don't have built-in, you can easily pop over to the platform and use it.
We'd love to hear from you — feel free to contact us!