All four tools put a guest on screen and send a show out live — but they bill you for different things. StreamYard and Restream charge by how many destinations you stream to at once. Riverside charges by how many hours of separate-track recording you download. Talk Studio charges by session length and storage. This guide compares them on those meters, because that is where the real price differences hide.
Essential, billed annually. Monthly billing is $18.99/mo. Note: the logo stays until Core ($35.99/mo billed annually).
Standard, billed annually ($190/year). Monthly billing is $19/mo.
Pro, billed annually — recording only. Live streaming starts on Grow, $34/mo billed annually.
Standard, billed annually ($90/year) — 1 destination. Pro ($12/mo billed annually) unlocks unlimited destinations.
| StreamYard | Restream | Riverside | Streamlabs Talk Studio | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Interview and talk shows with remote guests | Sending one feed to as many platforms as possible | Podcasters and creators who edit the recording afterwards | Creators who want multistreaming and guests on a small budget |
| What you are billed for | Simultaneous destinations (1 → 2 → 3 → 8 by plan) | Simultaneous channels (2 → 3 → 5 → 8 by plan) | Separate-track recording hours per month; streaming is an add-on tier | Per-track recording length and storage days; destinations jump to unlimited on Pro |
| Free option | Yes — 1 destination, 6 on screen, logo shown, 2 hrs/mo local recording | Yes — 2 channels, logo on Studio streams, Studio capped at 720p | In transition — see the pricing note below. A 14-day trial of paid plans is offered | No free plan — 7-day trial only |
| Paid plans from | Essential $14.99/mo billed annually ($18.99 monthly) | Standard $16/mo billed annually, $190/year ($19 monthly) | Pro $24/mo billed annually ($29 monthly) — recording only, no live streaming | Standard $7.50/mo billed annually, $90/year ($9 monthly) |
| Max simultaneous destinations | 8 on Advanced ($68.99/mo billed annually); Business is quote-only | 8 on Business ($199/mo billed annually); 30+ platforms supported overall | Unlimited on Grow and above ($34/mo billed annually) | Unlimited on Pro ($12/mo billed annually) |
| Guests / on screen | 6 on screen on Free and Essential; 10 on Core and Advanced | 5 guests on Free, 9 on Standard (browser Studio) | Up to 9 shown on screen; each participant recorded on their own track | Up to 5 guests on Standard, up to 11 on Pro |
| Recording model | Local recordings; storage 50 hrs on Core. Essential has no cloud recording | Cloud recording of the broadcast; storage 15 days on Standard, 30 days on Professional | Local recording per participant, separate audio/video tracks up to 4K; downloads metered at 15 hrs/mo (Pro) and 20 hrs/mo (Grow) | Recording and local recording up to 4 hrs per track on Standard, 10 hrs per track on Pro; storage 15 / 30 days |
| Removing the vendor logo | Only from Core ($35.99/mo billed annually) — Free and Essential keep the StreamYard logo | From Standard — the free plan carries Restream branding on Studio streams | Paid plans remove the watermark on exports; the trial/free tier is watermarked | No watermark on any paid plan, including Standard |
| Live output resolution | Up to 1080p on paid plans | Studio is 720p on Free and Standard; 1080p Studio starts on Professional ($39/mo billed annually) | Streams up to 1080p on Grow (recording itself goes up to 4K) | 720p on Standard, 1080p on Pro |
| Trade-off to know | Essential, Core and Advanced are licensed for individuals only — business use requires the unpriced Business plan | The browser Studio is the weaker half; the value is the relay. Webinars and Clips are paid add-ons, not included | Pro cannot stream live at all, and Riverside's own pages currently disagree on prices and on whether a free plan exists | Standard is a single destination, so multistreaming effectively starts at Pro; Talk Studio is one part of the wider Streamlabs suite |
Prices are USD, before tax, as published by the vendors in November 2026. Prices checked November 2026 — always confirm on the vendor's site before you buy. Two checks deserve a warning: Riverside's own blog has listed higher prices (Pro at $35/mo monthly billing) than its pricing page showed in the same period, and has said the free plan was replaced by a trial while a free tier still appeared on the pricing page — treat Riverside's signup screen as the final word. StreamYard renamed its plans in 2024, so older articles quoting "Basic $19 / Professional $49" are out of date.
Destination pricing is a staircase, not a slope. The table below is simple arithmetic on the published annual-billing prices above: for each destination count, the cheapest plan from each vendor that reaches it without the vendor's logo on your stream. Streaming twice a week does not change these figures — none of the four bills by viewer count — but Riverside's recording-hour meter can push you up a tier on its own (see the product notes).
| Destinations needed (no logo) | StreamYard | Restream | Riverside | Talk Studio |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 destinations | Core — $431.88/yr (Essential reaches 2 destinations for $179.88/yr but keeps the logo) | Standard — $190/yr | Grow — $408/yr | Pro — $145/yr |
| 3 destinations | Core — $431.88/yr | Standard — $190/yr | Grow — $408/yr | Pro — $145/yr |
| 5 destinations | Advanced — $827.88/yr (Core caps at 3) | Professional — $470/yr | Grow — $408/yr (unlimited) | Pro — $145/yr (unlimited) |
| 8 destinations | Advanced — $827.88/yr | Business — $2,390/yr | Grow — $408/yr (unlimited) | Pro — $145/yr (unlimited) |
Annual totals are the vendors' published annual-billing figures (monthly-equivalent × 12 where no annual total is published). The cheapest row is not automatically the right tool: Talk Studio Pro and Riverside Grow win on destination arithmetic, but Riverside is the only one here that records every guest on a separate local track, and StreamYard's studio is built around guest interview shows. Buy the workflow first, then check which step of the staircase you land on.
StreamYard runs the whole show in the browser: guests join from a link with no download, you arrange layouts, banners and overlays, and the finished program goes out to your connected destinations. The free plan covers 1 destination with 6 people on screen, the StreamYard logo on the stream, and 2 hours a month of local recording. Essential ($14.99/mo billed annually, $18.99/mo monthly) raises that to 2 destinations at 1080p with unlimited streaming — but the logo stays, and there is no cloud recording. Core ($35.99/mo billed annually, $44.99/mo monthly) is where the logo disappears: 3 destinations plus custom RTMP, 10 people on screen and 50 hours of storage. Advanced ($68.99/mo billed annually, $88.99/mo monthly) reaches 8 destinations and 4K local recordings. One licensing point matters for businesses: Essential, Core and Advanced are sold for individual use, and organizations are directed to a Business plan whose price is not published.
Restream's core job is distribution. You send one feed — from its browser Studio, or from OBS and other encoders you already use — and Restream duplicates it to 30+ supported platforms and custom RTMP destinations, with chat from the platforms gathered into one window. The free plan covers 2 channels at once with Restream branding on Studio streams and a 720p Studio cap. Standard ($16/mo billed annually, $190/year; $19/mo monthly) removes the branding, reaches 3 channels, allows custom RTMP and up to 9 Studio guests, with recordings kept 15 days. Professional ($39/mo billed annually, $470/year; $49/mo monthly) reaches 5 channels, unlocks 1080p in Studio and dual-format streaming (horizontal and vertical at once). Business ($199/mo billed annually, $2,390/year; $239/mo monthly) reaches 8 channels. Note that webinars and clip generation are separate paid add-ons, not plan features.
Riverside is built the other way round from the tools above. Its core is local recording: every participant is recorded on their own device and uploaded as a separate audio and video track — up to 4K video — so the edit afterwards is built from full-quality files rather than from the live broadcast. Pro ($24/mo billed annually, $29/mo monthly) includes 15 hours a month of separate-track downloads and no watermark — and no live streaming at all. Streaming arrives on Grow ($34/mo billed annually, $39/mo monthly): multistreaming to unlimited destinations (YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, X, Twitch, TikTok, Instagram and custom RTMP) at up to 1080p, with 20 hours a month of separate-track downloads. Up to 9 participants are shown on screen. The meter to watch is recording time: eight 2-hour sessions a month is 16 hours — already past Pro's cap — and eight 3-hour sessions (24 hours) outgrow Grow as well. As flagged in the comparison note, Riverside's own pages currently disagree about both the free plan and some prices, so confirm what your signup screen shows before relying on any figure, including ours.
Talk Studio is Streamlabs' browser-based studio (the product formerly known as Melon): invite guests by link, share your screen, go live and record, without installing the Streamlabs Desktop app. It is sold on its own plans and is also included in the Streamlabs Ultra bundle. There is no free plan — a 7-day trial is the way in. Standard ($7.50/mo billed annually, $90/year; $9/mo monthly) covers 720p, a single destination, up to 5 guests, recording and local recording of up to 4 hours per track with 15 days of storage — and no watermark, which makes it the cheapest logo-free entry in this comparison. Pro ($12/mo billed annually, listed at $145/year; $17/mo monthly) jumps to 1080p, unlimited destinations, up to 11 guests, up to 10 hours per track and 30 days of storage, plus custom RTMP. Do not confuse Talk Studio's plans with Streamlabs Desktop's own free tier, which is a separate desktop encoder product with its own multistream rules.
If the live broadcast itself is the product, StreamYard, Restream or Talk Studio fit. If the real product is the edited recording — a podcast, a course, clips — Riverside's separate local tracks are the differentiator, and its recording-hour meter matters more than destination counts.
List the platforms you will actually stream to every week, not the ones you might try once. Then read the annual-cost table: StreamYard and Restream charge per step of the staircase, while Riverside Grow and Talk Studio Pro are flat. Also check each platform's own simulcasting rules before you commit.
The cheapest paid plan is not always a clean stream: StreamYard keeps its logo until Core, Restream's free plan is branded, and Talk Studio removes the watermark from its cheapest tier. Decide whether the logo matters for your use, then price the plan that actually removes it.
Add up sessions × length. Sixteen hours a month already exceeds Riverside Pro's 15-hour separate-track cap. On StreamYard and Talk Studio the binding limits are different — storage hours, per-track length, storage days — so check the meter that applies to the tool you picked in Step 1.
Going live normally means one platform. Multistreaming sends the same program to several platforms at the same time — YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch and others — from one session. All four tools here can do it, but the number of simultaneous destinations is plan-gated on StreamYard (up to 8) and Restream (up to 8), and unlimited on Riverside Grow and Talk Studio Pro, per their published plans.
Partly. Restream's free plan covers 2 channels with branding on Studio streams, and StreamYard's free plan covers 1 destination with its logo shown. Talk Studio has no free plan, only a 7-day trial, and Riverside's free offering is in transition between a free tier and a trial model — check its signup page. Free tiers are best treated as a way to test the workflow before paying.
Because Riverside's meter is separate-track recording hours, not destinations. Pro includes 15 hours a month of separate-track downloads and Grow includes 20. A schedule of eight 3-hour sessions a month is 24 hours, which exceeds both, regardless of how few destinations you stream to. StreamYard and Talk Studio meter recording differently (storage and per-track length), which is why the "cheapest" tool flips depending on whether your bottleneck is destinations or recording time.
Read the license first. StreamYard's self-serve Essential, Core and Advanced plans are described by the vendor as being for individual use, with organizations directed to a separate Business plan that has no published price. If you stream as a company, confirm which plan you are licensed for before building a workflow on a personal tier.
It depends on your destination count, which is why this page leads with the annual-cost table. At 2–3 destinations without a logo, Restream Standard ($190/yr) and Talk Studio Pro ($145/yr) undercut StreamYard Core ($431.88/yr). At 5–8 destinations the gap widens further because StreamYard needs its Advanced tier. What the cheaper tools do not replicate is StreamYard's specific guest-show studio — the saving is real, but it buys a different workflow.
Because this guide is compiled from the vendors' published specifications and pricing, not from hands-on testing. Judgments that do appear — for example, that a destination step "nearly doubles the annual cost" — are arithmetic on the published prices, shown next to the claim so you can check them yourself. We do not promise audience growth, stream stability or any other outcome a pricing page cannot guarantee.