Live streaming is no longer optional for creators and businesses. It is how audiences are built, communities are grown, and brands are established in real time. But with so many platforms raising their prices every year, doing a proper streaming services comparison before you commit to a plan has never been more important.
This guide breaks down exactly what each major live streaming service charges in 2026, what you actually get for that money, and which one makes the most sense for your budget and goals. We compared OneStream Live, Restream, StreamYard, Dacast, and Castr side by side so you do not have to do the research yourself.
Whether you are a solo creator looking for the cheapest streaming service or a business hunting for the best streaming platform to scale on, this live streaming services comparison covers everything you need to make the right call.
- Live streaming prices have increased in 2026, so comparing platforms before choosing a plan is important.
- OneStream Live offers the cheapest paid plan at $15/month, making it a strong option for creators and small businesses.
- StreamYard is one of the most expensive options for individual users, but it offers a polished browser-based studio experience.
- Dacast and Castr are better suited for professional broadcasting, OTT streaming, video hosting, and monetization.
- The best streaming service depends on your needs, budget, audience, and workflow, not just the monthly price.
Why Live Streaming Prices Keep Going Up
Before we get into the numbers, it helps to understand why this keeps happening.
Most live streaming platforms started with aggressive low pricing to grab market share. Free plans were generous. Paid plans were cheap. The goal was growth first, revenue later.
That phase is over for most platforms.
As platforms matured, investor pressure increased, and infrastructure costs grew, pricing structures changed. Free plans got capped. Mid-tier plans lost features. And top-tier plans ballooned to hundreds of dollars a month to push business users toward enterprise contracts.
The result is a market where the price difference between the cheapest streaming service and the most expensive one can be over $700 a month, for tools that largely do the same core thing.
Here is what each platform actually charges right now.
Streaming Services List: Pricing Breakdown for 2026
Not all live streaming platforms are built the same, and neither are their prices. Here is a full streaming services comparison of what each platform charges in 2026 and what you actually get for that money.
1. OneStream Live
Plans: Free, Basic, Standard, Professional, Enterprise
OneStream Live has one of the most accessible pricing structures among all live streaming services right now. The free plan is genuinely free with no time limit. The Basic plan at $15/mo gives you multistreaming to 5 destinations, which already covers most individual creators. The Standard plan at $39/mo bumps you to 10 destinations and is the most popular tier. The Professional plan gives you 30 destinations, and the Enterprise plan at $99/mo gives you 50 destinations with 24/7 streaming capability, multicamera streaming, teleprompter, and the kind of feature other platforms charge three to four times more to access.
OneStream Live Studio allows you go live with up to 16 guests. It includes portrait mode for platforms like Instagram and TikTok; custom branding with logos, banners, and tickers; virtual backgrounds; screen sharing; media sharing; interactive countdown timers; intros and outros; live chat across platforms; stream recording; and advanced scheduling up to 60 days in advance. It also supports a teleprompter.
Pre-recorded streaming lets you upload videos from your device, Google Drive, Dropbox, or Amazon S3, add captions via SRT files, build playlists, loop content, and even stream 360-degree videos.
External RTMP streaming supports encoders including OBS, Zoom, Webex, Ecamm Live, Streamlabs, Wirecast, vMix, and Blackmagic ATEM, with password protection and stream key management included.
Hosted Live Pages let you create fully branded streaming pages with custom domains, CTA buttons, live chat widgets, social media links, and an upcoming events schedule, all without external hosting.
The Embed Player comes in universal and unique versions, supports adaptive bitrate streaming, includes a chat window, customizable controls, and password protection. Additional features are available as paid add-ons. OneStream Live has proven to be the best streaming platform for creators and businesses.
Best for: Creators, small businesses, and anyone who wants to multistream to multiple platforms without paying a premium for it.
2. Restream
Plans: Free, Standard, Professional, Business
Restream is one of the most well-known names when people compare streaming services. It gives you three ways to go live: through its multistreaming plugin with tools like OBS Studio, through its browser-based Restream Studio, or by uploading and scheduling pre-recorded videos.
The free plan lets you multistream to two platforms and access Restream’s unified chat tool, which combines comments from all your platforms in one window. Paid plans unlock custom destinations, more video storage and Full HD streaming at 1080p.
Restream Studio includes screen sharing, virtual backgrounds, portrait mode streaming, on-screen comments, custom graphics, and local recordings in up to 4K for each participant. You can invite up to five guests without any third-party tools, and a record-only mode lets you practice or film videos without going live.
The Business plan adds concurrent events for running multiple live streams at once, and the Enterprise tier includes parallel streams, single sign-on, custom team seats, account management, and dedicated onboarding.
The jump to the Business plan at $239/mo is significant and is primarily aimed at agencies and larger teams.
Best for: Creators comfortable with a mid-range budget who want a well-established multistreaming tool with strong repurposing and recording features.
3. StreamYard
Plans: Free, Core, Advanced, Business, Business Enterprise
StreamYard is a fully browser-based studio that lets you go live without downloading any software. When you compare streaming services on price, StreamYard is the most expensive option for individuals on this list, but it is also one of the most production-ready.
All plans include multistreaming, on-screen viewer comments, custom logos and overlays, multiple video layout templates, background music, screen sharing, and a built-in teleprompter for reading notes on camera. You can invite up to 10 guests directly from their browser with no software required. The Greenroom feature gives hosts and producers a private space to prep guests before bringing them live.
The free plan comes with StreamYard branding on your stream and significant limitations. Paid plans unlock local recordings in up to 4K for each participant, unlimited cloud recording, AI-generated short clips for TikTok, Reels, and Shorts, and MARS streaming which lets you broadcast in both vertical and horizontal formats at the same time.
The Business plan at $299/mo adds team seats, co-producer mode, and priority support. For a solo creator trying to find the best streaming platform at a reasonable price, the entry cost at $44.99/mo is the highest starting point of any platform on this list.
Best for: Professional creators and production teams who want a polished, no-setup studio experience.
4. Dacast
Plans: Starter, Event, Scale, Custom
Dacast is built differently from the other platforms on this streaming services list. It is less focused on social media multistreaming and more focused on professional broadcasting, video hosting, OTT distribution, and monetization.
All plans include RTMP streaming with latency as low as 10 seconds, a fully white-labeled HTML5 video player you can brand with your own logo and colors, a video content management system for organizing your library, global content delivery through CDN partners, and content security tools including password protection and geo-blocking.
Higher tiers unlock video monetization through subscriptions, pay-per-view, and ad-based models. You also get access to a video API for custom integrations, Expo video galleries for showcasing your content library with a branded landing page, and OTT app distribution across web, iOS, Android, and smart TVs.
It is not the cheapest streaming service on this list, but it is solving a fundamentally different problem. If you are running a church, an online education platform, a corporate training program, or a pay-per-view event, Dacast makes far more sense than a typical multistreaming tool.
Best for: Businesses, education platforms, churches, and organizations that need professional video hosting, OTT distribution, and monetization rather than social media multistreaming.
5. Castr
Plans: Starter, Standard, Premium, Ultra, Events (OTT)
Castr has the widest pricing range of any platform in this best streaming service comparison. It is built for professional broadcasters who need reliable infrastructure and advanced technical control.
The Starter plan covers: multistreaming to social platforms and custom RTMP destination, an embed player, adaptive bitrate streaming, password protection, analytics, and cloud production tools including multi-source input, audio control, overlays, and transition effects.
The Standard plan adds HLS, SRT, RTMP, and RTSP pull links for distributing your stream to other locations. Premium unlocks HLS URL for OTT platforms like Roku and Apple TV, geo-blocking, domain whitelisting, developer API access, live clipping, timeshifting, viewer rewinding, adaptive bitrate customization, and loop mode for 24/7 playout channels.
Ultra adds backup ingest so your broadcast continues if your primary stream fails, interlacing and deinterlacing for broadcast TV workflows, audio splitting, watermarking, and customizable bitrate ladders. The Events plan is built for OTT platform operators and includes full white-label branding, custom domain, TV app distribution across Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV, Android TV, Samsung Tizen, and LG WebOS, SVOD and TVOD monetization, email automation, and a full CMS. Castr partners with Akamai, Fastly, and CloudFront for enterprise-grade global delivery.
For most individual creators, the Starter or Standard plan is where they will realistically land.
Best for: Professional broadcasters and OTT platform operators who need advanced streaming infrastructure, technical protocol support, and large-scale content distribution.
What Is Actually the Cheapest Streaming Service Right Now?
If budget is your primary concern, here is the honest answer:
- Free tier: OneStream Live, Restream, and StreamYard all offer free plans. OneStream Live and Restream have no time limit on their free plans
- Cheapest paid plan: OneStream Live at $15/mo
- Best value for multistreaming: OneStream Live, which includes 30 destinations from the Professional plan at $39/month
- Cheapest for professional broadcasting: Dacast Starter at $39/mo
The question of how much a streaming service costs depends entirely on what you need it to do. If you are a creator who wants to stream to multiple social platforms at once, the answer is very different from a business running a pay-per-view event.
Final Thoughts
The prices for live streaming services have increased a lot in the past two years. Some services have quietly doubled their starting prices, while others have moved important features to higher plans. It’s a good idea to compare streaming services before you renew or switch your plan.
If you’re a creator or a small business looking for the best value for live and pre-recorded streaming, OneStream Live offers multistreaming to over 45 platforms and a full studio experience, starting at $15 per month. You can try the free plan first before spending any money.
For professional broadcasting and OTT capabilities, Dacast and Castr provide the right tools at prices that match those needs.
No matter which platform you choose, make sure to compare the live streaming services based on the features that matter to you, not just their prices. The best streaming service fits your workflow, your audience, and your budget. Based on this streaming services comparison, OneStream Live offers the best value for a wide range of users at every price point.
Frequently Asked Questions
Streaming services are raising prices because content production, licensing, live sports rights, and platform costs continue to increase.
Several major streaming platforms have adjusted their plans in 2026, mainly by increasing monthly fees or changing the prices of ad-free tiers.
Yes, some streaming services have kept their prices unchanged to stay competitive and retain budget-conscious subscribers.
Users can save money by choosing ad-supported plans, bundling services, rotating subscriptions, or canceling platforms they rarely use.
Switching between streaming services is often more cost-effective than paying for multiple subscriptions every month.
OneStream Live is a cloud-based live streaming solution to create, schedule, and multistream professional-looking live streams across 45+ social media platforms and the web simultaneously. For content-related queries and feedback, write to us at [email protected]. You’re also welcome to Write for Us!
