How to Co-Stream on Twitch: Stream Together, Shared Chat and Raids

The easiest way to co-stream on Twitch in 2026 is the built-in Stream Together feature (formerly Guest Star). It is free and open to every account, so you do not need to be an Affiliate or Partner. One call fits up to six people: you and five guests. You invite guests from the Stream Together panel in Stream Manager, bring them into OBS with a browser source link, and, if you like, turn on Shared Chat so up to six channels share a single message feed. If you do not need a shared broadcast, there are raids and Shoutout, and for a call with people who have no Twitch account, OBS and VDO.Ninja will do the job.

Your options right now

Method	Who can use it	What you get
Stream Together	Everyone; the host needs a computer	Up to 6 people on screen, with Shared Chat and shared viewership if you want them
Raid	All streamers	Your viewers move to another channel at the end of your stream
Shoutout	Affiliates and Partners	A card for another channel with a Follow button in your chat
OBS + VDO.Ninja or a video call	Everyone	Guests on screen with no Twitch link-up, but no Shared Chat

What was removed or renamed

Squad Stream is gone. The four-Partner mode was retired on January 17, 2024. According to Twitch, fewer than 1% of Partner streams used it. If an old guide mentions Squads, that no longer works.
Guest Star is now Stream Together. The rename was announced at TwitchCon in October 2023. The feature itself stayed the same and picked up Shared Chat, shared viewership and Drop Ins.
The /host command has been gone since October 2022. Twitch replaced it with Shoutout.
Co-Streaming is something else. Twitch wrote about this feature on October 14, 2025. It is meant for rebroadcasting big events with your own commentary. The organizer decides who gets in, so it does not suit an ordinary collab with a friend.

Stream Together: how to start a joint stream

Who can do it

The call host is any streamer with a verified phone number. You can only host from a computer: you need streaming software (OBS, Streamlabs and the like) and a browser, and Twitch recommends Chrome. Guests have it easier: they join from a browser on a PC or from the Twitch app on a phone, with nothing to install. Guests who are not Affiliates or Partners also need a verified phone. The feature is still labeled beta.

How many participants

Up to six people can be on a call at once: the host and five guests. Each guest can run their own stream on their own channel, or simply sit in your frame without streaming. Camera is optional too, so voice only works.

How to invite guests

Start your stream and open Stream Manager in the Creator Dashboard.
Add the Stream Together panel if it is not on your screen: use the panel menu or quick actions.
Find the guest by username and send an invite. If the person is offline, copy the invite link and send it to them in a direct message.
Viewers can ask to join on their own ("raise a hand") if you allow requests. A filter lets you accept them only from subscribers or followers, for example.
An accepted guest lands in the backstage. There you and your moderators can see and hear them, but viewers cannot. Check the sound and camera, then set permissions: video with audio, audio only, or screen share.
When everything is ready, click Show on Stream and the guest appears on screen.

How to bring guests into OBS

Twitch does not place guests into your picture for you: you take the browser source link from the Stream Together panel and add it to an OBS scene as a Browser source. There are two ways. One shared link arranges all participants in a grid or a strip on its own, which is fast but leaves little freedom. Separate links for each guest slot let you place the windows by hand, for example putting your partner next to the game. Guest voices come through desktop audio, so you do not need to set them up separately, and you only have to make sure the call volume does not drown out the game.

What viewers see

Viewers see the guests inside your stream, arranged the way you set them up in OBS. If a guest streams on their own channel, their audience watches the same conversation with their own picture. Without Shared Chat, each channel keeps its own message feed.

Drop Ins: a stream with no prior arrangement

Since August 2024, a streamer can "knock" on the stream of a channel they follow and ask to join. The host decides who is allowed to knock and who to let in. It is handy for spontaneous collabs, but for a first joint stream with someone you do not know, it is still better to agree in advance.

Shared Chat

Shared Chat merges the message feeds of the channels that are currently together in Stream Together. The limit is six channels, matching the number of people on the call. It works only inside Stream Together: you cannot start Shared Chat separately from a call.

Who turns it on and how

Only the host turns it on, with the Start Sharing Chat button in the backstage window, before or after inviting guests.
A guest joins Shared Chat only if they are live on their own channel.
Any guest can take their community out of Shared Chat while staying on the call, and rejoin later. The host can turn Shared Chat off for everyone.
Next to a viewer's name you can see which community they come from, so moderators know who is one of "their own".

Moderation

When a moderator deletes a message from your viewer, it disappears everywhere. A message from another channel's viewer is deleted only in your channel and stays visible to your partner.
A timeout or ban for another channel's viewer lasts only until Shared Chat ends.
Anyone banned in at least one channel of the collab cannot write in Shared Chat.
Bots and extensions from other channels read Shared Chat and see moderator actions. Before the collab, agree whose commands will respond, otherwise a single command can get three replies. If you have your own bot, you can configure its behavior in advance. For more, see our guide to chat bots for Twitch.

What stays separate for each channel

Subscriptions, Bits and gift subs go only to the channel where they were bought, even if everyone sees the message about them. At launch, polls, predictions, Power-Ups and Shoutouts worked only inside their own channel. Hype Train, however, became shared: if all channels are Affiliates or Partners with Hype Train enabled, viewers from any channel push one common meter.

Shared Viewership

Since December 2024, when Shared Chat is on, Twitch counts shared viewership: the number of unique viewers across all channels in the collab, without repeats. That is the number that affects your position in the directory when sorted by viewers, while each channel's own viewer count stays visible as well. Shared viewership does not affect the path to Affiliate or Partner, or ads, since only your own count is used there.

There is one condition: participants must actually talk to each other on the stream, by voice or video. Twitch treats "parking" a channel in a call just for the number as a violation: a warning for the first case and a strike for repeat ones.

Raid and Shoutout: when you do not need a shared stream

Raid

A raid sends your viewers to another channel. You start it with the /raid command and a username in chat, or from Stream Manager. After you start it, a countdown of up to 90 seconds begins; you can skip it with the Raid Now button or cancel the raid. The channel receiving the raid does not show pre-roll ads, so new viewers drop straight into the stream. In the incoming raid settings you can limit who may raid you: by channel size, account age, team or follows. There is also a button that pauses all incoming raids for an hour, which comes in handy when trolls swarm in. Read more about what a raid on Twitch is and how to receive one properly.

Shoutout

Shoutout shows a card for another streamer in your chat, with their avatar, category and a Follow button. A streamer or a moderator can send it with the /shoutout username command or from the user card. Conditions: you are live and you are an Affiliate or Partner, and the requirements for that are covered in the article how to become a Twitch Affiliate. Limits: one Shoutout every two minutes, and no more than once an hour to the same channel.

Combining a Shoutout in the middle of the stream with a raid at the end is the cheapest way to support a friend when you have no time for a full collab.

Collab outside Twitch: OBS + VDO.Ninja or a video call

If your guest streams on another platform, has no Twitch account, or you want more control over the picture, put the stream together yourself. VDO.Ninja is a free browser-based service: the guest opens the link you send, allows camera and microphone access, and you add their feed to OBS as a Browser source. The video travels directly between the computers with no middleman, so a lot depends on both sides' internet connections. The second option is a call in a messenger, with the call window captured in OBS. Keep in mind that Discord has been blocked in Russia since October 2024, so browser-based solutions are more reliable for guests from Russia. The downside of all external methods is that there is no Shared Chat or shared viewership, and you will have to balance the call audio against the game separately.

How to arrange a collab

Look for channels of a similar size. A channel with 10 viewers will find it easier to agree with a channel of 10 to 40 than with one that has 2000. Look at your own category, at the people who raid you, and at people from your chat who stream themselves.
Come with an idea, not just "let's do something together." "We beat a co-op game in one evening, and whoever dies more does a challenge" sells itself better than any request.
Agree on the tech in advance. Who is the host, who also streams on their own channel, whether you turn on Shared Chat, whose bot answers commands, and what the title and category of the stream will be.
Do a test call. Ten minutes in the Stream Together backstage before going live will save you half an hour of awkwardness on air.
Announce from both sides. A social media post and a line in the stream title with your partner's username.

How to split the audience so nobody feels cheated

Everyone should get about as much as they give. If you are the bigger channel, let your guest talk and show their channel; if you are smaller, do not hog the spotlight and do not ask your partner's viewers to move over to you. Agree on who raids whom at the end: usually the smaller channel ends the stream with a raid on the bigger one, but taking turns is often fairer. Do not turn on Shared Chat with someone you do not know: moderation in it is partly shared, and other people's trolls become your problem. For more ideas on building these partnerships, see our article on streamer collaborations on Twitch.

Common issues

Problem	What to check
A guest cannot accept the invite	Whether their phone is verified and whether they are logged in to the right account
The guest is not visible on stream	Whether Show on Stream was clicked and whether the browser source is added to the active scene
No guest audio	Whether OBS captures desktop audio and whether the guest is muted in the call mixer
Echo	Someone has the call audio coming out of speakers instead of headphones
The guest does not get into Shared Chat	The guest must be live on their own channel
Shoutout does not work	You are not live, you are not an Affiliate, or less than an hour has passed since the last Shoutout to that channel
The guest's video lags	The guest's upload speed and the video quality in the guest permissions

A joint stream works best when your channel has something to offer a partner: a lively chat and steady viewership. If you are just starting out and want to go into a collab with more than zero viewers, you can pick viewers and followers in the Twitch services section, and build a plan to match your stream length in the viewer control panel .

Frequently asked questions

Do I need Affiliate status for Stream Together?

No. Stream Together and Shared Chat are open to any account. The host needs a verified phone and a computer; guests without Affiliate or Partner status need a verified phone too. Status is required only for Shoutout and the shared Hype Train.

How many people can I invite to a joint stream?

Up to five guests plus you, six people on the call in total. Shared Chat also holds no more than six channels.

Are donations and subscriptions shared in Shared Chat?

No. The money goes to the channel where the purchase was made. Only the Hype Train is shared, and only if all participants are Affiliates or Partners.