# StreamYard

> StreamYard is a browser-based live streaming studio that lets one or more people broadcast a branded, multi-guest show simultaneously to YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and custom RTMP destinations, with custom layouts, overlays, banners, chat pulled in from every platform, pre-recorded stream playback, cloud and local recording, and an on-air webinar mode with its own registration and viewer experience.

- Category: Webinars & Virtual Events (https://saastracker.org/categories/webinars-events)
- Website: https://streamyard.com
- Starting price: $0 (Free), then $35.99 per month billed annually (Core)
- Free plan: Six on-screen participants, standard definition output, limited streaming destinations, two hours of local recording per month, limited storage, and a StreamYard logo on every broadcast.
- Free trial: No fixed-length trial; the permanent free plan is the evaluation path
- Founded: 2018, HQ: Milan, Italy (as part of Bending Spoons); originally founded in the United States, Ownership: Owned by Bending Spoons following an April 2024 acquisition
- Profile last reviewed: 2026-08-22
- Canonical profile: https://saastracker.org/products/streamyard

## Overview

StreamYard solved a problem that used to require OBS, a second monitor, and an afternoon of configuration: making a live broadcast look like a television show without installing anything. Founded in 2018 by Geige Vandentop and Dan Briggs and accelerated through Y Combinator, it put scene composition, guest management, brand overlays, and multi-destination streaming into a browser tab, and became the default tool for podcasters, creators, and marketing teams running public live shows.

Its ownership history has been eventful. Hopin acquired StreamYard in 2021 for a reported 250 million dollars during the pandemic virtual-events boom. When Hopin sold its Events and Sessions product lines to RingCentral in 2023 for around 200 million dollars, StreamYard was kept separate and the remaining company rebranded around it. Bending Spoons then acquired StreamYard in April 2024. Bending Spoons is an Italian company known for buying consumer and prosumer software (Evernote, Meetup, WeTransfer among others) and running it profitably; the practical implication for buyers is that StreamYard is now a cash-generating asset in a portfolio rather than a venture growth story, which tends to mean steady operation and disciplined pricing rather than rapid new feature investment.

The place StreamYard sits in this category needs stating plainly. It is a studio, not a webinar platform. Its natural output is a public broadcast on YouTube or LinkedIn, not a gated session that produces named leads in a CRM. It has added an on-air webinar mode with registration, and that mode is real, but the registration, reminder-email, and marketing-automation machinery is thin next to Demio, Livestorm, or Contrast. Many teams run StreamYard alongside a webinar platform rather than instead of one.

Pricing is published and self-serve. The free tier gives you six on-screen participants, standard definition, two hours of local recording a month, and a StreamYard logo on your stream. Core is 44.99 dollars a month or 35.99 billed annually for 1080p, three destinations, ten participants, fifty hours of permanent storage, and no branding. Advanced is 88.99 monthly or 68.99 annually for 4K local recordings, eight destinations, fifteen backstage participants, and on-air webinars for up to 100 viewers. One detail matters more than any other: Core and Advanced are licensed for individual use only. Team use requires the Business plan, reported at around 299 dollars a month for two to ten seats.

## How it works

1. You open a browser, create a broadcast, and connect the destinations you want: YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Twitch, or a custom RTMP endpoint. Multiple destinations can run simultaneously, so the same broadcast reaches every channel at once rather than being repeated.

2. Guests join by clicking a link. There is nothing to install for them either, which is the reason StreamYard displaced desktop encoders for interview shows: an expert with fifteen minutes to spare will click a link but will not install software.

3. In the studio you compose the picture. Drag guests on and off screen, pick a layout, apply your brand colors, logo, and background, add lower-third name banners, run a countdown timer, and share your screen or play a video clip into the stream. Comments from every connected platform land in a single panel and can be promoted on screen with one click, which is the feature that makes a StreamYard broadcast feel interactive.

4. You can also broadcast content that is not happening live. Pre-recorded streams let you schedule a recorded file to go out as a live broadcast, with the host present in the chat, which is a legitimate middle ground between live and evergreen and is capped at two hours on Core and four on Advanced.

5. Recording happens two ways: a cloud recording of the composed broadcast, and separate local recordings captured at higher quality, up to 4K on Advanced. Afterwards, AI clipping cuts the recording into short segments for social distribution, and transcripts can be downloaded on Advanced. The on-air webinar mode wraps a registration flow and a dedicated viewer page around the same studio when you want a gated audience rather than a public one.

## Best for

Creators, podcasters, and marketing teams running a recurring public live show on YouTube and LinkedIn who want it to look produced, need guests to join by link with nothing installed, and value multi-destination reach over gated lead capture.

## Not the right fit for

- Anyone whose primary requirement is registration, reminder emails, and CRM-synced lead data; StreamYard's webinar mode is a bolt-on and Demio, Livestorm, or Contrast will do that job far better.
- Teams buying Core or Advanced for shared use; those plans are licensed for individuals only, and a team needs the Business plan at a reported 299 dollars a month, which is a large jump most buyers do not see coming.
- Businesses running evergreen automated funnels with timed offers and conditional logic; pre-recorded streams are a scheduling feature, not an automation engine, and eWebinar exists for that.
- Organizations that need SSO, SOC 2 evidence, and formal enterprise procurement; StreamYard is a prosumer product in a portfolio company and is not sold that way.
- Anyone needing to charge attendees, run ticketing, or manage a multi-session conference agenda; none of that exists here and third-party tools have to cover it.

## Features

### Studio and production

The reason StreamYard exists: making a browser broadcast look composed.

- **Custom layouts and scene composition**: Choose how guests, screen shares, and media are arranged on screen and switch between arrangements live, which is what separates a produced show from a grid of faces.
- **Brand overlays and backgrounds**: Apply your logo, colors, and custom backgrounds so the broadcast carries your identity rather than a vendor's. Custom fonts are available on Advanced.
- **Lower-third banners and tickers**: Name and title banners, headlines, and scrolling tickers pushed onto the stream during the broadcast.
- **On-screen chat overlay**: Promote a viewer comment onto the broadcast itself with a click, which is the interaction mechanism that makes a public stream feel live rather than pre-baked.
- **Screen sharing and video playback**: Share a screen or play a pre-uploaded video clip into the live broadcast without leaving the studio.
- **Extra camera input**: Add a second camera source on the Advanced plan, which covers the common two-angle setup without a hardware switcher.
- **Countdown timers and intros**: Pre-broadcast countdowns and branded intro assets so the stream starts cleanly rather than with someone saying can you hear me.

### Guests and participants

Getting other people on the stream without a technical conversation.

- **Guests join by link**: No account, no install, no plugin. A guest clicks a link in a browser and is backstage, which is why StreamYard displaced desktop encoders for interview formats.
- **Backstage green room**: Guests wait off-air where hosts can brief them, check their audio, and bring them on when the moment arrives, invisible to the audience.
- **On-screen participant limits**: Six on the free plan, ten on Core, and fifteen backstage on Advanced, which is the practical ceiling on panel size.
- **Host controls**: Mute, remove, and reposition any participant from the studio, so a bad connection or an unmuted microphone does not derail the broadcast.

### Distribution

Multi-destination streaming is the headline capability.

- **Simultaneous multi-destination streaming**: Broadcast at once to YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Twitch, and custom RTMP endpoints. Three destinations on Core, eight on Advanced, limited on the free plan.
- **Unified cross-platform chat**: Comments from every connected destination arrive in one panel, so you are not watching four browser tabs during your own show. This is genuinely one of the better implementations available.
- **Pre-recorded streams**: Schedule a recorded file to go out as a live broadcast with the host present in chat. Two hours on Core, four on Advanced. A useful middle ground between live and evergreen.
- **1080p and 4K output**: Full HD streaming from Core; Advanced adds 4K local recordings for post-production, while the free plan is standard definition only.
- **Custom RTMP**: Push to any RTMP-compatible endpoint, including a webinar platform or a corporate video system, which is how StreamYard is often used as a production front end for something else.

### Recording, storage, and repurposing

What you keep after the broadcast ends.

- **Cloud recording**: The composed broadcast is recorded in the cloud automatically, available to download or republish afterwards.
- **Local recordings**: Higher-quality separate captures, two hours a month on the free plan and unlimited on Core, at up to 4K on Advanced, which is what you want if the stream is going to be edited properly.
- **Permanent storage**: Fifty hours of permanent storage on Core; the free plan's storage is limited, so recordings age out unless you download them.
- **AI clips**: Automatic short-form clip generation from a recording, aimed at the social distribution workflow that follows every live show.
- **Transcript downloads**: Available on the Advanced plan for repurposing, captioning, and accessibility.
- **No StreamYard branding on paid plans**: The free plan overlays a StreamYard logo on every broadcast; removing it is the single most common reason people upgrade to Core.

### Webinar mode and team use

The part that puts StreamYard in this category, with real caveats.

- **On-air webinars**: A gated viewer experience with registration, available from the Advanced plan for up to 100 viewers and expanding to 1,000 or more on Business. Real, but shallower than a purpose-built webinar platform.
- **Registration capture**: Collects attendee details for the webinar mode, though without the reminder-email sequencing and CRM depth Demio or Livestorm provide.
- **Business plan for teams**: Core and Advanced are licensed for individual use only. Team collaboration, multiple seats (reported at two to ten), priority support, and larger webinar capacity require the Business plan, reported at around 299 dollars a month.
- **Priority support on Business**: The only tier with elevated support; lower tiers rely on documentation and standard email response.

## Use cases

- **Podcaster running a weekly interview show**: A new guest every week, none of whom will install software, and a show that needs to go out simultaneously to YouTube and LinkedIn while looking like it was produced rather than recorded on a laptop. Outcome: Guests click a link into the green room, branded layouts and lower-thirds make the show look professional, multi-destination streaming covers both channels at once, and local recordings give the editor a clean file.
- **B2B marketing team running a public live series**: A monthly thought-leadership stream aimed at reach and brand rather than at lead capture, with comments arriving across LinkedIn and YouTube that nobody can keep up with. Outcome: Unified cross-platform chat puts every comment in one panel, on-screen promotion of viewer questions makes the show interactive, and AI clips produce the follow-up social assets without an editing pass.
- **Course creator broadcasting a pre-recorded session as live**: The training is the same every time and presenting it live weekly is unsustainable, but a bare replay link converts far worse than an appointment. Outcome: Pre-recorded streams schedule the file as a live broadcast with the host present in chat, which keeps the appointment and the interaction while removing the presenting, up to two hours on Core or four on Advanced.
- **Agency producing streams on behalf of clients**: Several people need to run broadcasts under one account, and each client wants their own branding on the output. Outcome: The Business plan is the only legitimate option here because Core and Advanced are individual-use licences; it covers two to ten seats with team collaboration and priority support at a reported 299 dollars a month.

## Pricing

Freemium per-user subscription. Feature gates are on output quality, destination count, participant count, storage, and webinar capacity. Team use requires a separate Business plan.

- **Free**: $0 per month. 6 on-screen participants; Standard definition output; Limited streaming destinations; 2 hours of local recording per month; StreamYard logo displayed on all streams. Genuinely usable for testing, but the logo overlay makes it unsuitable for anything client-facing.
- **Core**: $44.99 monthly or $35.99 billed annually per month. 1080p Full HD output, no StreamYard branding; 3 streaming destinations, 10 on-screen participants; Unlimited streaming, recording, and local recordings; 50 hours of permanent storage; Pre-recorded streams up to 2 hours, custom layouts, AI clips, chat overlay. Licensed for individual use only. This is the plan most solo creators need and the one teams wrongly assume they can share.
- **Advanced**: $88.99 monthly or $68.99 billed annually per month. 4K local recordings; 8 streaming destinations, 15 backstage participants; Pre-recorded streams up to 4 hours; Extra camera input, custom fonts, transcript downloads; On-air webinars for up to 100 viewers. Also individual use only. The webinar mode starts here, which is the tier that puts StreamYard in this category at all.
- **Business**: Reported at around $299 per month per month. 2 to 10 seats with team collaboration; Larger on-air webinar capacity (1,000-plus viewers); Priority support; Everything in Advanced. The only legitimate plan for team use. StreamYard directs organizations to contact sales, so treat the reported figure as indicative rather than a published rate card entry.

Billing notes:

- Annual billing saves roughly twenty-two percent on Core and a similar proportion on Advanced.
- Core and Advanced are explicitly licensed for individual use only. If two people in your company need to run broadcasts, you need Business, and that is a jump from about 69 dollars to about 299 dollars a month.
- The free plan's StreamYard logo overlay is on every stream, which rules it out for anything customer-facing regardless of the other limits.
- Storage is capped rather than unlimited (fifty hours of permanent storage on Core), so a long-running show needs a download-and-archive habit.
- Webinar capacity is the sharpest paywall: 100 viewers on Advanced, 1,000-plus only on Business, which makes StreamYard expensive for a mid-size gated webinar.
- StreamYard is owned by Bending Spoons, which acquires and operates software portfolios for profitability; expect disciplined pricing and steady operation rather than aggressive discounting.

Value assessment: For an individual creator, StreamYard at 35.99 dollars a month billed annually is excellent value and the best browser studio available at any price. Unlimited streaming and recording, 1080p, three destinations, brand overlays, and unified chat for less than a Demio seat is a strong offer, and the free tier lets you learn the tool before paying. The value proposition inverts sharply for teams and for webinars. The individual-use licensing on Core and Advanced means a two-person team's real price is the Business plan at a reported 299 dollars a month, and the on-air webinar mode caps at 100 viewers until you reach that same tier. Judged as a production studio for one person, it is a bargain. Judged as a webinar platform for a company, it is expensive for what it does, and a dedicated webinar tool at half the price will serve you better.

## Strengths

- The best browser-based production studio available: layouts, brand overlays, banners, and on-screen chat promotion that make a stream look genuinely produced with no software installed.
- Guests join by link with nothing to install, which is why external experts actually show up rather than cancelling over a technical prerequisite.
- Simultaneous multi-destination streaming with unified cross-platform chat in a single panel, which is one of the better implementations in any product.
- A permanent free tier that is usable for learning the tool and for internal broadcasts where a vendor logo does not matter.
- Pre-recorded streams provide a legitimate middle ground between live and evergreen, keeping the appointment and the live chat while removing the presenting.
- AI clip generation and transcript downloads cover the social repurposing workflow that follows every live show.
- Stable ownership under Bending Spoons, which operates acquired software profitably rather than pivoting it.

## Limitations

- Core and Advanced are individual-use licences, so a team's actual entry price is the Business plan at a reported 299 dollars a month, which is a much bigger step than the published tiers suggest.
- The on-air webinar mode caps at 100 viewers until Business, making StreamYard poor value for any gated webinar of meaningful size.
- Registration, reminder emails, and CRM sync are thin compared with Demio, Livestorm, or Contrast; this is a studio with a webinar feature, not a webinar platform.
- No evergreen automation: pre-recorded streams are scheduled broadcasts, with no timed interactions, conditional logic, or just-in-time sessions.
- Storage is capped and the free plan overlays a StreamYard logo, so both the archive and the free tier have practical ceilings.
- No SSO or published SOC 2 apparatus, and Business pricing is not clearly published, which makes formal procurement awkward.
- Under portfolio ownership, expect steady operation rather than rapid feature investment; the roadmap is unlikely to move as fast as a venture-funded challenger's.

## Comparisons

- **StreamYard vs Riverside**: The closest comparison in this batch. Riverside records locally at studio quality with separate tracks per participant and is built for content that will be edited; StreamYard is built for the live broadcast itself, with better layouts, overlays, and multi-destination streaming. Choose Riverside when the finished, edited artifact matters most and your guests have unreliable internet. Choose StreamYard when the live moment is the product and it needs to look composed on YouTube and LinkedIn.
- **StreamYard vs Zoom Webinars**: Zoom Webinars gives you scale, reliability, registration, and enterprise compliance; StreamYard gives you a stream that looks like television. Zoom's Production Studio has closed some of the gap on scene switching, but the branding and layout control is not comparable. Take Zoom if the event is a large gated session that has to work for thousands and integrate with corporate IT. Take StreamYard if the audience is public and presentation quality is the whole point.
- **StreamYard vs Livestorm**: These are complements more often than rivals and many teams run both. Livestorm handles registration, reminder emails, engagement tracking, and CRM sync for gated sessions; StreamYard produces the polished public broadcast. Livestorm can even simulcast to YouTube and LinkedIn itself, which covers the basic case. Add StreamYard when the visual production of the public stream matters enough to justify a second tool.

## Implementation

- Setup time: Fifteen minutes to a first broadcast. Connect a destination, set your brand colors and logo, invite a guest by link, and go live. There is nothing to install and no encoder to configure, which is the entire reason the product exists.
- Learning curve: Very low for basic streaming and moderate for polished production. Composing layouts live, managing a backstage green room, and running chat promotion while presenting takes a few shows to feel natural. Budget one rehearsal broadcast before anything public.
- Onboarding: Entirely self-serve through the free plan and paid tiers. Business adds priority support. Documentation is solid and there is a large body of third-party tutorial content given how widely used the tool is.
- Migration: Nothing to migrate in the usual sense; StreamYard has no registration history or contact database to port. If you are moving from OBS or a desktop encoder, your scenes and overlays have to be rebuilt in StreamYard's simpler model, which is faster to do but less flexible. Past recordings should be downloaded from your old tool since StreamYard does not import them.

## Platform, API & security

- Platforms: Web browser (hosts and guests, desktop), Mobile viewing on the destination platforms, Custom RTMP output to any compatible endpoint
- API: No substantial public API. Integration happens through streaming destinations and RTMP output rather than through data connectors.
- Compliance: GDPR
- Data residency: Not published.
- SSO: Not published.
- Security notes: StreamYard is a prosumer product without a published enterprise security package. There is no SSO and no published SOC 2 certification. Ownership sits with Bending Spoons, an Italian software portfolio company, following the April 2024 acquisition.

## Support

- Channels: Email support, Help center and documentation, Priority support on the Business plan
- Documentation: Comprehensive help center covering studio setup, destinations, layouts, recording, and the on-air webinar mode.
- Community: Large informal community of creators and podcasters with extensive third-party tutorial content on YouTube.

## Company

- Founded: 2018
- Founders: Geige Vandentop, Dan Briggs
- Headquarters: Milan, Italy (as part of Bending Spoons); originally founded in the United States
- Ownership: Owned by Bending Spoons following an April 2024 acquisition
- Employees: Not separately disclosed as part of Bending Spoons
- Funding: Bootstrapped and Y Combinator-backed before being acquired by Hopin in 2021 for a reported 250 million dollars, then sold to Bending Spoons in April 2024 for an undisclosed sum.

Funding history:

- Y Combinator and early funding (2019): Not disclosed. StreamYard grew largely on revenue before its first acquisition.
- Acquisition by Hopin (2021): Reported at 250 million dollars. Acquired during the pandemic virtual-events boom.
- Acquisition by Bending Spoons (2024): Not disclosed. After Hopin sold its Events and Sessions lines to RingCentral in 2023 for around 200 million dollars, StreamYard was retained separately and then sold to Bending Spoons in April 2024.

Timeline:

- 2018: Founded by Geige Vandentop and Dan Briggs to put live production, guest management, and multi-destination streaming into a browser tab.
- 2020: Adoption accelerates sharply as creators and marketing teams move to live streaming; StreamYard becomes the default browser studio.
- 2021: Acquired by Hopin for a reported 250 million dollars at the peak of the virtual-events market.
- 2023: Hopin sells its Events and Sessions product lines to RingCentral for around 200 million dollars while retaining StreamYard, and rebrands around it.
- 2024: Bending Spoons acquires StreamYard in April, placing it in a portfolio of profitably operated consumer and prosumer software.
- 2026: Pricing runs Free, Core at 35.99 annually, Advanced at 68.99 annually with on-air webinars for 100 viewers, and a Business plan for team use reported around 299 dollars a month.

## Integrations

YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and Facebook Groups, X, Twitch, Custom RTMP endpoints, Local file upload for video playback and pre-recorded streams, Downloadable cloud and local recordings for any editing workflow

## FAQ

### What is StreamYard?

StreamYard is a browser-based live streaming studio. It lets you broadcast a branded, multi-guest show simultaneously to YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, and custom RTMP destinations, with custom layouts, brand overlays, lower-third banners, unified cross-platform chat, pre-recorded stream playback, cloud and local recording, and an on-air webinar mode with registration.

### How much does StreamYard cost?

There is a permanent free plan with six on-screen participants, standard definition, two hours of local recording a month, and a StreamYard logo on every stream. Core is 44.99 dollars monthly or 35.99 billed annually; Advanced is 88.99 monthly or 68.99 annually. Both are individual-use licences. Team use requires the Business plan, reported at around 299 dollars a month for two to ten seats.

### Is StreamYard actually a webinar platform?

Not really. It is a production studio that has added an on-air webinar mode with registration, available from the Advanced plan for up to 100 viewers. The registration, reminder-email, and CRM machinery is thin compared with Demio, Livestorm, or Contrast. Plenty of teams run StreamYard for the public broadcast and a separate webinar platform for gated sessions.

### What does a 500-registrant webinar cost on StreamYard?

You cannot run one on Core or Advanced, because the on-air webinar mode caps at 100 viewers there. Five hundred registrants requires the Business plan, reported at around 299 dollars a month with 1,000-plus viewer capacity, and StreamYard directs organizations to contact sales for it. That is several times what Demio or Contrast would charge for the same audience with far better registration tooling, which is why StreamYard is the wrong tool for a gated webinar of that size.

### Can two people share a StreamYard Core or Advanced plan?

No. Both plans are explicitly licensed for individual use only. Team collaboration requires the Business plan, and that is a jump from roughly 69 dollars a month to a reported 299. This is the most expensive surprise in StreamYard's pricing and it catches a lot of small teams who assume the published tiers cover them.

### Do guests need to install anything?

No. Guests click a link and are in a browser-based green room, with no account, plugin, or download required. This is the single reason StreamYard displaced desktop encoders for interview formats: an expert who will give you twenty minutes will click a link but will not install software beforehand.

### Can StreamYard broadcast to several platforms at once?

Yes, and it is the headline feature. Three simultaneous destinations on Core and eight on Advanced, covering YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, X, Twitch, and custom RTMP. Comments from every connected destination arrive in a single panel and can be promoted onto the stream with one click, which is a better implementation than most competitors manage.

### Can StreamYard run evergreen automated webinars?

No. It has pre-recorded streams, which schedule a recorded file to go out as a live broadcast with the host present in chat, capped at two hours on Core and four on Advanced. That is a scheduling feature, not an automation engine: there are no timed interactions, no conditional logic, and no just-in-time sessions. eWebinar or EverWebinar cover that job.

### Who owns StreamYard now?

Bending Spoons, an Italian company that acquires and profitably operates software portfolios including Evernote, Meetup, and WeTransfer, bought StreamYard in April 2024. Before that it was owned by Hopin, which acquired it in 2021 for a reported 250 million dollars and then sold its Events and Sessions lines to RingCentral in 2023 while keeping StreamYard.

### What quality can StreamYard stream and record at?

The free plan is standard definition. Core streams at 1080p Full HD with unlimited streaming and recording plus fifty hours of permanent storage. Advanced adds 4K local recordings for post-production and transcript downloads. If your workflow involves editing the recording properly, Advanced or a dedicated recording tool like Riverside is the right choice.

## Editorial verdict

StreamYard is the best browser live studio there is and, for one person running a public show, a genuine bargain at 35.99 dollars a month annually. Layouts, brand overlays, link-join guests, multi-destination streaming, and unified chat make a laptop broadcast look produced with no software and no learning cliff. Buy it if your output is a public stream on YouTube and LinkedIn and you care how it looks. Do not buy it as your webinar platform: the on-air webinar mode caps at 100 viewers until the Business tier, registration and CRM tooling is thin, and the individual-use licensing on Core and Advanced means a two-person team's real price is a reported 299 dollars a month rather than the 69 they were reading.

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Source: SaaSTracker (https://saastracker.org), an independent editorial project. This profile is compiled from public information, carries no peer reviews or paid placement, and was last reviewed 2026-08-22. Awards are judged on published criteria: https://saastracker.org/methodology