Loopcast

Loopcast (loopcast.io) is a hosted service that keeps a pre-recorded video broadcasting live 24/7 to Steam, YouTube 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, so 1,440 minutes is a full day. Packs start at $5 (10,080 minutes, 7 days) and run to $100 (259,200 minutes, 180 days) with up to 30% bonus minutes. There is no subscription, no seat fee and no overage: minutes never expire, and a stream pauses on its own at zero balance.

Steam store page broadcasts, YouTube Live and Kick. Each platform publishes its own broadcast 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: the second platform 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 yourself means a computer at full tilt for the entire event, on your power bill and your internet connection. Over a 7-day Steam Next Fest (168 hours), Loopcast costs about $5, while a home PC costs roughly $11 in electricity and network draw 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 your phone, with your own machine switched off.

Yes, on all three platforms. Valve's own Steamworks 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. Loopcast publishes the per-platform rules at loopcast.io/knowledgebase.

Yes. A schedule is built from blocks, and each block has its own video, day, start time and length. Blocks repeat weekly or daily, or fire once on a date you choose, and they are stored in your own timezone, so 18:00 stays 18:00 through the spring and autumn clock changes. The handover between blocks happens inside a single continuous connection, so the platform never sees a disconnect when the video changes. You are billed only for minutes actually on air, so a schedule with quiet hours costs less than running around the clock.

Loopcast supervises the broadcast and relaunches it automatically on the same stream key, without you being awake for it. Because nothing runs on your hardware, the usual causes of a dead 24/7 stream (your PC sleeping, an ISP blip, a driver update) are off the table entirely. Live service status is published at status.loopcast.io.

Mostly game developers and publishers who want a trailer or gameplay reel playing on their Steam store page around the clock, particularly through Steam Next Fest, a launch window or a wishlist push, where a store page in motion converts better than a static 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.

Both loop a video to your Steam store page from a datacenter on prepaid, non-expiring credit, so the choice comes down to price and reach. RoboStreamer charges $1 per 24 hours; Loopcast charges $0.72, about 28% less, and the same $5 entry pack buys 7 days here against 5 there, which matters because a Steam Next Fest runs exactly 7 days. Loopcast also broadcasts to YouTube and Kick, not only Steam, and supports per-block scheduling. A full side-by-side, including the points where RoboStreamer comes out ahead, is published at loopcast.io/kb-loopcast-vs-robostreamer.

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, hit start. For Steam you generate a broadcast key in Steamworks from an account with Broadcast Live permission, so Loopcast never needs your Steam password. For YouTube you need live streaming enabled on the channel and one stream key. For Kick you need the ingest URL and the key from your creator dashboard. The whole thing takes under five minutes.