For one continuous YouTube stream, Castr and Restream price different things: Castr publishes plans with player-bandwidth allowances, while Restream’s listed tiers chiefly distinguish simultaneous channels and features. Neither a low monthly price nor an unlimited-duration statement guarantees uninterrupted delivery, unlimited bandwidth or a complete replay archive.
As listed on the vendors’ sites in October 2026, Castr Starter is $19.99 monthly or $16.67 per month equivalent with annual billing; Restream has a free tier and lists Standard at $19 per month. The better comparison is what your actual channel needs, what happens when a limit is reached, and whether you can accommodate a daily restart.
What a continuous YouTube stream requires
An always-on channel needs more than a video file and a price plan. It needs a source that can keep supplying content, an encoder or service that sends the broadcast to YouTube, a stable connection between that source and the service, and a plan for recovery when something interrupts the stream. If you use a prerecorded loop, the file and playback workflow matter as much as the destination.
There are at least three different meanings of “continuous”. A service may permit a stream to remain live without a preset end time. The delivery may still pause because of maintenance, a dropped connection, account or bandwidth limits, or a problem at YouTube. Separately, YouTube’s archive of a live broadcast may not preserve the whole continuous period. Treat those as separate questions rather than assuming that one vendor’s duration statement answers all three.
The operating choice also depends on what you are broadcasting. A bhajan channel that repeats a long playlist, a local news loop, and a study ambience stream may all stay live around the clock, but their audiences and workflows differ. For a prerecorded channel, you might value unattended playback and recovery more than multi-guest production tools. If the source is a local computer, the computer and home or studio connection must remain available; a cloud-based workflow can remove that particular dependency, but cannot remove YouTube’s own policies or all interruption risk.
Start by writing down the destination count, expected stream quality, whether viewers need a replay, and who can respond to an interruption. The practical question is not simply “Which plan is cheaper?” It is “Which costs and operational tasks remain when this runs through the night?”
Castr’s listed price and duration conditions
Castr’s pricing page lists Starter at $19.99 per month, or $16.67 per month equivalent when paid annually, with an annual charge shown as $199.99. Those figures were listed on Castr’s site in October 2026; check the current checkout terms before relying on them. The distinction between a monthly fee and an annual equivalent matters for cash flow: the annual figure is not a monthly payment.
For the continuous-stream use case, Starter’s listed allowance is 200 GB per month on monthly billing, or a 2.4 TB annual pool on annual billing. The displayed plan also includes 100 GB of hosted-video storage. Castr lists two concurrent streams and six destinations for monthly Starter, and three concurrent streams and six destinations for annual Starter. Those are plan features, not promises that a single broadcast will remain uninterrupted.
Castr’s help page says duration is unlimited while the subscription remains active and the account has enough streaming bandwidth. That caveat is material. Castr identifies bitrate, viewership and stream duration as factors affecting bandwidth use, so a stream that is technically allowed to run indefinitely may still consume its allocation. The plan’s duration language should not be read as an unlimited delivery allowance.
The effect of exhausting that allocation depends on tier. Castr’s overage guidance says Starter and Standard streams are disabled when allocated bandwidth runs out. Premium and higher can continue under an overage mechanism after included and rollover bandwidth are exhausted, at $0.10 per GB, billed per 1 TB. The guidance says additional usage is charged to the selected payment method. These terms, including the price and billing basis, were published on Castr’s site in March 2026 and should be checked against the current policy before you choose a plan.
That creates a real trade-off. A lower tier can be easier to budget if usage stays within the pool, but the consequence of exhausting it is a stopped stream. A higher plan’s overage provision may reduce that particular risk while exposing you to usage charges. You should not buy a more expensive tier just because “24/7” sounds demanding; first estimate the actual delivery pattern and decide which failure mode you can manage.
Castr lists higher tiers with larger pools and more destinations, but the headline figures do not make those tiers automatically suitable for one YouTube destination. Compare your expected audience and bitrate with the exact current plan allowance. Castr’s pricing page links to a bandwidth calculator; use it with your own assumptions rather than treating a general plan label as a forecast.
Restream’s listed price and restart guidance
Restream’s pricing page lists Free at $0 for two simultaneous channels, Standard at $19 per month for three, Professional at $49 per month for five, and Business at $239 per month for eight. Enterprise pricing requires contacting Restream. These are prices displayed on Restream’s site in October 2026, not permanent rates. The page also presents an annual billing control; verify the chosen interval and amount at checkout rather than inferring an annual price from a savings label.
For a channel sending only to YouTube, Restream Free may cover the channel-count requirement, depending on the features you need. A paid tier should therefore be justified by a feature or capacity you will use, not by the assumption that any continuous stream requires Standard. Check the live feature comparison for current restrictions before deciding; channel count is only one part of plan fit.
Restream says it does not impose a stream-duration limit, but its help guidance also warns that a stream running continuously for more than 24 hours may be restarted for server maintenance. It recommends restarting every 24 hours to prevent potential issues. An unlimited-duration statement and a maintenance restart recommendation can both be true: one describes the absence of a fixed duration cap, the other describes an operational interruption to plan for.
That daily task has a cost even if it is not shown on the pricing page. Someone must schedule or perform the restart, and the channel may have a brief interruption while it reconnects. If you can plan a handover or use a workflow that makes the restart manageable, the guidance may be acceptable. If nobody can oversee the channel and even a short interruption is unacceptable, you need to test the full workflow and decide how you will detect and recover from a drop; no pricing comparison can promise that it will never happen.
Restream’s FAQ says multistreaming does not require additional broadcaster bandwidth for each destination and that Restream itself does not set a bitrate limit, while destination platforms may set their own limits. That can matter if your channel also goes to another platform. It does not mean the broadcaster needs no connection, that the platform has no constraints, or that YouTube’s stream will never be interrupted.
Compare bandwidth, destinations and plan limits
The plans are not directly comparable by monthly price alone. Castr’s listed entry plan comes with an explicit player-bandwidth allocation, while Restream’s listed tiers are differentiated in part by simultaneous channel count. The distinction is especially important for an always-on stream: a service’s channel limit and the amount of audience delivery it includes answer different questions.
| Comparison point | Castr Starter, as listed October 2026 | Restream, as listed October 2026 | What to check for one YouTube stream |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry price | $19.99 monthly; $16.67 monthly equivalent on annual billing | Free tier; Standard $19 monthly | Billing interval, checkout total and features actually needed |
| Destinations or channels | Six destinations; two concurrent streams monthly or three annually | Free: two simultaneous channels; Standard: three | Whether YouTube is the only destination, now and later |
| Bandwidth information | 200 GB monthly or 2.4 TB annual pool on Starter | Pricing is not framed around a comparable player-bandwidth pool | How the vendor defines usage and what happens at exhaustion |
| Duration and interruptions | Unlimited duration while subscription is active and bandwidth is sufficient | No duration limit stated, but maintenance restart may occur after more than 24 continuous hours | Whether you can plan a daily restart and test reconnection |
| Archive | Hosted-video storage is listed separately from live delivery | YouTube archive behaviour is separate from Restream’s duration policy | Whether you need a replay and for how long |
Castr’s bandwidth figure concerns delivery, not merely how large the uploaded file is. A small video file can be played to viewers for a long time, and the audience’s viewing adds demand to delivery bandwidth. Castr says bitrate, viewership and duration affect usage. Therefore a quiet overnight stream and a popular stream at the same bitrate should not be assumed to consume the same amount.
Restream’s statement about broadcaster bandwidth relates to sending a stream to multiple destinations through its workflow. It is not an equivalent allowance for viewers watching on YouTube, and it is not a general claim that your network quality is irrelevant. YouTube and other destinations may have their own encoding or bitrate requirements. If you want multiple platforms, see the practical distinctions in streaming to several social platforms at once, then check each destination’s current official guidance.
The right comparison has at least four parts: recurring payment, audience-delivery allowance, number of outgoing destinations, and the operator’s time for recovery or scheduled maintenance. A plan may be cheaper for one part and more demanding for another. Record the assumptions beside the plan, so a change in audience or destination count prompts a fresh calculation rather than a surprise interruption.
Live continuity is not a replay archive
A continuous live broadcast and a retained replay are separate outputs. Restream’s duration help page says YouTube has no duration limit for a live stream, but that YouTube archives only streams shorter than 12 hours. Do not infer from “live all day” that the full day will appear afterwards as one replay. Confirm the current YouTube rule and your channel’s archive settings before you rely on the recording.
If a complete archive matters, decide how you will preserve it independently of the live session. You may need to keep source files, divide a long programme into manageable segments, or create a separate recording and upload workflow. Each choice changes storage, editing and publishing work. A vendor’s hosted-video storage allowance is not automatically the same thing as YouTube’s archived replay, and neither should be treated as a substitute for a backup you have tested.
For a devotional channel, the live stream may be the main value and a partial archive may be enough. For a local news loop or a study channel, viewers may expect to revisit a particular programme. Write down which content needs to remain available, where it will live, and who checks that it is actually there. If you are managing a playlist of prerecorded segments, playlist scheduling for a YouTube channel is relevant to the content workflow, but scheduling does not change YouTube’s archive policy.
YouTube’s official live streaming help and Restream’s stream-duration guidance are useful starting points, but check them again close to launch. Platform policies and service documentation can change. If a replay is important for an event or a daily programme, test the archive behaviour with a non-critical stream before depending on it.
Estimate what your channel needs
Start with a typical day, not an idealised quiet day. Note the intended video bitrate, how many hours the stream is live, the likely audience range, and whether the same stream goes to other destinations. For a prerecorded loop, note how the source is delivered and how it resumes after a disconnection. These inputs are more useful than guessing from a plan name.
For Castr, enter the relevant assumptions into the vendor’s bandwidth calculator and compare the result with the exact billing-period pool. If you are considering annual billing, remember that Castr lists an annual pool rather than simply twelve monthly pools presented in the same way. Ask what happens when the allowance is depleted, whether any rollover applies to your plan, and how you will be notified. On Starter and Standard, the documented consequence of exhaustion is stream disablement, so leave a margin rather than planning to use every last unit.
For Restream, ask whether the free channel allowance and included features suit the workflow, then consider how a restart every 24 hours fits your schedule. If you use more than one destination, confirm that the plan’s simultaneous-channel limit covers the actual targets. A plan that supports several channels does not mean every destination will accept the same settings, so check platform requirements independently.
A compact worksheet helps:
| Question | Your answer | Why it changes the choice |
|---|---|---|
| Is YouTube the only destination? | One destination or more | Restream tiers distinguish channel count; Castr lists destination capacity |
| Is this a live source or a prerecorded loop? | Describe source and recovery method | The source workflow determines what must stay running |
| What bitrate and audience range do you expect? | Use a realistic range | Castr says these factors affect bandwidth use |
| Can someone accommodate a daily restart? | Yes, no, or needs testing | Restream recommends a restart every 24 hours |
| Does the full replay need to remain available? | State archive requirement | YouTube replay retention is not the same as live duration |
| What happens if delivery stops? | Identify an alert and owner | A plan’s terms do not replace monitoring and recovery |
For a local computer workflow, consider what happens during a power cut, router restart or operating-system update. If the stream depends on that computer staying on, include the practical burden of leaving it available and watching for failures. If you prefer not to keep a computer running, a hosted workflow can remove that specific task. StreamNeo, for example, turns an uploaded video into a YouTube live stream without requiring your own computer to remain on, which addresses the overnight dependency rather than changing the limits or policies discussed above.
You can also compare a local playback setup with other approaches in OBS and FFmpeg for a prerecorded 24/7 stream. Choose the workflow you can operate and recover, not just the one with the lowest first-month cost. If your content is a large library, upload time and file handling become part of the plan; this guide to uploading a 100 GB video library covers that separate practical constraint.
Recheck current prices and terms
The figures here reflect vendor pages and help material checked for this article, not a guarantee that the pages will remain unchanged. Before paying, open the official pricing page and confirm the plan name, billing cadence, displayed amount, included destinations and any bandwidth allocation. Check the checkout screen as well, especially when a page presents an annual monthly equivalent beside a charge collected upfront.
Then read the policy that affects your failure mode. For Castr, that means confirming the bandwidth pool and what happens at exhaustion for the tier and billing cadence you intend to buy. For Restream, it means understanding the current duration and maintenance guidance and deciding how a daily restart will be handled. For both, check destination-platform requirements separately; a streaming service’s plan does not override YouTube’s rules.
Use the official Castr pricing page, Castr bandwidth overage guidance, and Restream pricing page for current terms. A trial or test broadcast can help expose setup issues, but it cannot prove that a stream will never fail or that future policy will not change. Make a short runbook with the stream link, restart steps, alert owner and recovery procedure before leaving the channel unattended.
Before committing, compare the operating options on the pricing page. When the file and channel are ready, start free — 24-hour trial, no card.
FAQ
Is Castr or Restream cheaper for one YouTube destination?
Restream’s Free tier may be sufficient if its current features fit your workflow; its Standard plan is listed at $19 per month. Castr Starter is listed at $19.99 monthly or $16.67 per month equivalent on annual billing, but includes a defined bandwidth pool. Compare the exact billing terms and what happens if usage or feature needs exceed the plan.
Does “unlimited duration” mean the stream will never stop?
No. Castr conditions unlimited duration on an active subscription and sufficient bandwidth. Restream says it does not impose a duration limit but recommends a restart every 24 hours because maintenance may interrupt a longer continuous stream. Neither statement guarantees uptime.
Will YouTube save a full 24-hour replay?
Do not assume so. Restream’s guidance says YouTube archives streams shorter than 12 hours, even though the live stream itself may have no duration limit. Check YouTube’s current official rules and test the archive workflow if a complete replay is important.
What should I check before choosing a plan?
Write down bitrate, likely audience, stream duration, destination count, archive needs and who will respond to interruptions. Confirm the current vendor price, billing interval, bandwidth terms and restart guidance on the official pages. Then test the complete workflow before relying on it overnight.