Guides · 7 min read
Multistream to Twitch, Kick and YouTube without a second PC
Your encoder can send one stream well or three streams badly. A relay is how you get the second and third for free.
Why the obvious way hurts
OBS can send to more than one destination with a plugin, and it works. What it costs you is an encode and an upload per destination. Three destinations at 6,000 Kbps is 18 Mbps leaving your house and three encodes on the same GPU, and the first thing that gives is the stream you care about.
It is worse on a laptop and much worse on anything wireless. The failure is not a clean one either: you get dropped frames on one platform and a stutter on another, and the viewer blames you rather than the upload.
The three ways to do it
The middle row is what most people want and do not know exists. You send one stream at your normal bitrate to a relay, and it re-sends that same stream to every destination. Your upload carries one stream whether you are live on two platforms or eight.
| Approach | What it costs you |
|---|---|
| A plugin in OBS | One encode and one upload per destination. Free, and the hardest on your machine and your line. |
| A relay service | One encode, one upload. The relay fans it out. Costs money, adds a second of latency. |
| A cloud machine | Nothing from your machine at all: you push once into it and it does the rest. Costs more, and it is where the IRL setups end up. |
What it looks like here
Multi Stream on Streampal is that middle row. You get a publish key, point OBS at it once, and add destinations in the dashboard. Twitch, Kick and YouTube connect with a click because your account is already linked; anything else that takes an RTMP key works too, including Rumble, Parti and X.
The destination count is where the plans differ: two on the free plan, three on Starter and up to eight on Pro. The free two is a real two, not a trial.
The publish key is a password. Anyone who has it can go live as you, so treat it like one and rotate it if it has ever been on screen.
Bitrate, and the one number that matters
A relay does not re-encode by default, which is the point: what you send is what every destination gets, so quality is preserved exactly. The catch is that every destination also gets your bitrate, and platforms differ on what they accept.
Twitch will take 6,000 Kbps from most accounts and 8,000 from some. Kick is comfortable well above that. YouTube will take more than either. So the ceiling is whatever the strictest destination in your list allows, and sending above it gets you transcoded or dropped there.
Practically: 6,000 Kbps at 1080p60 is the number that keeps every platform happy at once. If you want to push higher for one of them, that is the case for a cloud machine rather than a relay.
Chat, when you are live in three places
Three platforms means three chats, and the reason most people give up on multistreaming is not the video, it is that they stop reading any of them.
Merged chat puts them in one column, so you answer questions without watching three windows. It is on Starter and Pro here. Whatever tool you use, solve this before you add the third destination, not after.
Does the platform allow it
This changes, so check rather than trust a forum post. Twitch dropped its exclusivity requirement for most streamers some time ago, and Kick and YouTube have never had one, but Partner and affiliate agreements can still carry terms, and a contract you signed for a sponsorship might.
Kick publishes its position for partners, and it is the one most likely to catch someone out. Read your own agreement before you go live on three platforms with a sponsor's logo on screen.
Common questions
Does a relay add latency?
About a second, sometimes less. If you are reading chat aloud you will not notice it; if you are running a live call-in show, test it first.
Can I multistream from a phone?
Yes. Push SRT or RTMP from the phone into a cloud machine and let it handle the destinations, which is how the IRL setups work.
How many destinations can I use?
Two on the free plan, three on Starter and up to eight on Pro.
Last reviewed September 22, 2026. Rates in this guide are the live ones, not a snapshot.