How to start streaming on Twitch, YouTube or Kick: a beginner's guide

Twitch's help center says all you need is a stable internet connection and something that can broadcast video: a console, the mobile app or software like OBS. You can be live in an afternoon. The order that works:

1. Pick a platform and make an account. Turn on two-factor authentication now: Twitch requires it for Affiliates and Partners, and Kick before you monetize. On YouTube, verify your channel with a phone number and switch on live streaming today, because the first time can take up to 24 hours.
2. Decide what you'll stream: one game, one kind of show, or one thing you make, that you'd happily stream twice a week for months.
3. Set up your gear: a microphone first, then a webcam and a light.
4. Install OBS Studio, build your scenes and connect your account.
5. Run a test stream and fix the sound before anyone hears it.
6. Choose your schedule and post it on your channel.
7. Go live, then clip. Short clips of each stream's best moments are how new people find you.

All three let anyone go live for free. They differ in how viewers find you, how long streams stay up, and what it takes before they pay you:

• Twitch is built around live: viewers browse live channels by category and tag, and streamers pass audiences to each other with raids. “3 average viewers” means people watching at the same time, not views. Before Affiliate, you can turn on subs and Bits by accepting the Monetized Streamer Agreement, but that money can only be spent on Twitch. See how much Twitch pays.
• YouTube keeps your stream: under 12 hours, it's saved as a video people can find in search after you end, and its watch time counts toward the Partner Program if it's public. Streams from the Live Control Room also go out in a vertical version by default, which can show in the Shorts feed.
• Kick has the lowest bar of the three to subs that pay out, and the biggest share. Kick's help center calls the 5-hour step Affiliate in some articles and Partner in others. It isn't the Kick Partner Program, which is the bigger step: Kick says that program's metrics may change, and meeting them doesn't guarantee entry.

Can you stream to more than one? Twitch allows simulcasting under its Simulcasting Guidelines: the Twitch stream can't be worse than the others, and you can't use Twitch to send viewers to your stream elsewhere. Kick's Partner Program cuts your pay by 50% while its Multistreaming toggle is on. Starting out, one platform is simpler: one chat, one follower count. Pick the one where people already watch what you'll stream.

A stream's quality comes mostly from its sound and its connection, not its camera. Twitch says your upload speed should be your bitrate plus 30%: streaming at 6 Mbps may need 8 Mbps of upload.

Streaming from your phone? The Twitch app goes live without a stream key, in portrait or landscape. Kick has its own Go Live app. YouTube's app lets you stream once your channel has 50 subscribers.

OBS Studio is free and open source, for Windows 10 and 11, macOS 13 or newer, and Linux, and Twitch, YouTube and Kick all name it as a way to stream. To set it up:

1. Install it from obsproject.com. The Auto-Configuration Wizard opens the first time: choose streaming, and it checks your computer and connection to pick your settings (run it again from Tools).
2. Make your scenes. A scene is a layout you switch to with one click. Press + under Scenes and add a few: Starting soon, Game, Just chatting, Be right back and Ending.
3. Add sources to each scene with + under Sources: Game Capture (Windows) or Display Capture and Window Capture (macOS Screen Capture on a Mac) for what's on your screen, Video Capture Device for your webcam or capture card, and images or text for overlays. A source higher in the list is drawn on top, so put the webcam above the game.
4. Check your audio. OBS captures desktop audio and your mic by default: watch both meters move in the Audio Mixer, or pick the right device in Settings, Audio.
5. Connect your account in Settings, Stream:
   • Twitch: choose Twitch as the service and click Connect Account, which Twitch recommends. On OBS 30.2 or newer you can tick Enable Enhanced Broadcasting there too: Twitch then picks your settings each time you go live, and it's what vertical Dual Format streams need.
   • YouTube: in YouTube Studio, click Create, Go live to open the Live Control Room. If OBS lists YouTube as a service, choose it; otherwise copy the stream URL and stream key from the Stream tab into OBS.
   • Kick: choose Custom as the service and paste the Server URL and Stream Key from your Creator Dashboard, under Channel, Stream URL and Key. Set your title and category on Kick before you go live, or the stream may not start correctly.
6. Check your output against each platform's limits:

• Twitch recommends 6,000 kbps for 1080p at 60 fps, or 4,500 kbps for 720p at 60 fps, with constant bitrate (CBR) and a 2-second keyframe interval. A broadcast can last up to 48 hours.
• YouTube detects your resolution itself. For 1080p at 60 fps in H.264 it recommends 17 Mbps, with a minimum of 6.
• Kick takes up to 1080p, 60 fps and 8,000 kbps, in H.264 only, with CBR.

Never show or share your stream key: anyone with it can stream to your channel. If it leaks, reset it in your stream settings.

OBS's guide says to run a test for a few minutes before your first stream. Then work through this:

Before you go live

• Test the stream. On YouTube, set it to unlisted or private, start streaming from OBS and check the preview in the Live Control Room; YouTube suggests a test with sound and movement like the real stream's. On Twitch, Twitch Inspector can run a test stream (its guide shows what to add to the end of your stream key) and shows your bitrate and any unstable moments.
• Write a title, and set your category and tags. Say what's happening (“First playthrough, no guides”) rather than “Stream #1”. Twitch takes up to 10 tags of up to 25 characters each.
• On Twitch, turn on Store Past Broadcasts in your stream settings, on the web (it isn't in the app). Twitch can't recover a stream it didn't save.
• Write a go-live notification on Twitch, up to 140 characters, in Stream Manager's Edit Stream Info. It goes once a broadcast to followers who have notifications on, so make it say why to come.
• Hide what shouldn't be seen: your stream key, pop-up notifications, personal tabs.

While you're live

• Start on your Starting soon scene for a minute or two, then say who you are and what the stream is.
• Talk even when nobody's chatting, and greet each chatter by name. A VOD with commentary clips well, too.
• On Twitch, type /marker when something good happens. Markers show on the VOD's timeline in the Highlighter, so you can find the moment to clip later.

After the stream

• On Twitch, raid a streamer your size before you end: your chat goes to their channel, and it's how streamers meet.
• Check how it went: Twitch's Stream Summary is ready within 15 minutes, with your viewers, follows and where people came from; YouTube shows a stream's metrics in the Live Control Room.
• Save the VOD before it expires, and clip it. How to get it off Twitch is in how to download Twitch VODs.

Viewers come back when they know when you're on, and a short schedule you keep beats a long one you miss. Start with two or three streams a week at the same times; two a week is already more than the 4 stream days Twitch's Affiliate bar asks for in 30 days. Then post it:

• Twitch: Creator Dashboard, Settings, Channel, the Schedule tab, then Add Stream. Your schedule shows on the Following page and in search results. Cancel a single stream when you can't make it, or turn on Vacation Mode for a break.
• YouTube: in the Live Control Room, open the Manage tab and click Schedule stream. Viewers can set a reminder, and you can share the link before you go live.
• Kick: your channel's Schedule tab, then + Schedule stream, one-off or repeating, from 30 minutes to 48 hours long. It works on desktop and mobile web, not yet in the Kick app, and you can share it to X, Facebook or as a link.

Put the same times in your bio wherever you post clips, so someone who finds you on TikTok knows when to come.

Your first streams will have few viewers. On Twitch, Browse sorts a category's live channels by viewer count or by Twitch's recommendations, so a new channel starts far down a big one. Short clips work differently: TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Reels show videos by what people watch, not who they follow, so a clip can reach people who have never heard of you, and some come to the next stream.

• Clip moments that stand on their own: a reaction, a play, a story told to chat. See how to clip streams.
• On Twitch, the clip button makes up to a minute, and the Share menu posts it straight to YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat: see how to clip on Twitch. On Kick, see how to clip Kick streams.
• Stack the webcam over the game, so your face and the play both read on a phone. The free split screen video maker does it for one clip, in your browser.
• Post from every stream, not just the big ones, with your channel name and schedule in the caption or bio.

The catch is time: a three-hour stream means watching three hours again for the moments, then cutting, reframing and captioning each one by hand. That's the part Clyper does. Upload the VOD or your local recording (MP4, MOV, WebM or MKV, up to 4 GB and 4 hours), or paste the YouTube link of a stream once it's saved; Clyper doesn't take Twitch or Kick links. It reads the transcript, picks the best moments and cuts each on whole sentences, finds your webcam and stacks it over the game (the top 1080 × 608), frames you alone when there's no game on screen, and captions every word. You check each clip in the editor and download 1080 × 1920 MP4s with no watermark. A 3-hour stream uses 180 credits. More in stream clips with Clyper.