How Much Internet Speed You Need to Stream: Upload for 720p, 1080p and 2K

What matters for streaming is your upload speed, not the big number printed on your plan: providers usually advertise download speed, and upload can be many times lower. Aim for an upload of roughly 1.5-2 times your stream bitrate. For 720p30 at about 3 Mbps you need 5-6 Mbps of stable upload, for 720p60 (4.5 Mbps) 7-9 Mbps, and for 1080p60 on Twitch (6-7.5 Mbps) 10-15 Mbps. For 2K and Dual Format on Twitch, plan for 20 Mbps or more.

Why you should count upload

When you watch someone else's stream, video comes to you, so download is what works. When you stream yourself, OBS constantly sends the feed to the platform's server, so upload is what works. A 500 Mbps plan can mean 500 down and 50 up, and on ADSL, some cable connections and mobile internet, upload can be as low as 5-15 Mbps.

The second point: a stream is a constant flow. A file download can slow down for a second and you will not notice. A live broadcast cannot do that: if your connection drops below the bitrate for a couple of seconds, OBS starts dropping frames, and viewers see stutter and buffering. That is why you should look at stable upload, not peak upload.

Platform bitrates and the upload you need

First, what the platforms themselves recommend. The figures are for video; add another 128-320 kbps for audio.

Platform	720p	1080p	2K (1440p)
Twitch	3 Mbps (30 FPS), 4.5 Mbps (60 FPS)	6 Mbps is the classic recommendation, up to 7.5 Mbps under the new rules	up to 9 Mbps, HEVC codec, partners and affiliates only
YouTube (H.264)	from 3, recommended 8 Mbps	from 5-6, recommended 14 (30 FPS) and 17 Mbps (60 FPS)	from 7-8, recommended 21-34 Mbps
Kick	from 1 to 8 Mbps, no separate figures per resolution	up to 8 Mbps, maximum 1080p60	not supported
VK Video Live	1.5-4 (30 FPS), 2.25-6 Mbps (60 FPS)	3-6 (30 FPS), 4.5-9 Mbps (60 FPS)	7-10 (30 FPS), 9-14 Mbps (60 FPS)

On YouTube, the AV1 and H.265 codecs need a lower bitrate: for 1080p60, a minimum of 4 and a recommended 12 Mbps. Kick accepts only H.264 and only in CBR mode. The official Twitch help page on broadcast settings would not open when we checked, so the 720p figures and the classic 6 Mbps ceiling come from partner help pages that link to it, while 7.5 and 9 Mbps come from the Twitch blog in June 2026.

Now let us convert bitrate into upload with a 1.5-2x margin:

Mode	Stream bitrate	Upload needed
720p, 30 FPS	3 Mbps	5-6 Mbps
720p, 60 FPS	4.5 Mbps	7-9 Mbps
1080p, 60 FPS (Twitch, Kick)	6-8 Mbps	10-16 Mbps
1080p, 60 FPS (YouTube, H.264)	12-17 Mbps	20-35 Mbps
2K on Twitch (HEVC)	9 Mbps	14-18 Mbps
Dual Format on Twitch	12.5-14 Mbps combined	20-28 Mbps

If you are not sure which bitrate to choose for your game and graphics card, read up on it separately: we have a detailed guide on how to choose a stream bitrate.

Why you need a 1.5-2x margin

In its connection troubleshooting guide, OBS advises setting the bitrate no higher than 75% of your upload to begin with. That is the minimum margin for a perfect connection. At home the connection is rarely perfect, and here is why it is worth leaving more room:

• Connection fluctuations. In the evening, when all the neighbors are home, your provider's speed sags. A speedtest at lunchtime shows one thing, at 9 PM another.
• Other devices on the network. A Discord call, cloud sync, a game update in Steam, a relative's TV with an online cinema: all of it shares the same upload. Photo backups from phones are especially dangerous, because they upload in exactly the outgoing direction.
• Wi-Fi. A wireless connection has brief dropouts from interference and walls. The test looks fine, but over an hour of streaming tens of seconds of losses add up. OBS itself says that Wi-Fi may be unstable for streaming.
• Bitrate peaks themselves. Even in CBR mode the stream is not perfectly flat: in fast-moving scenes the encoder briefly goes above the set value.

How to measure your speed properly

1. Connect your computer with a cable and close everything that downloads or uploads: torrents, launchers, cloud apps.
2. Speedtest to the nearest server. On speedtest.net or in the app, pick a server in your city or at your provider. This shows what your plan really gives you. Run 3-4 tests at different times, especially in the evening, when you usually stream.
3. Speedtest to a server near the platform. The ingest servers of Twitch, YouTube and Kick are not in your city. In speedtest, pick a server in the country where the ingest server you need is located, for example in Europe. If you get 50 Mbps to your own city but 8 to Europe, go by the second number.
4. A test broadcast on Twitch. Add ?bandwidthtest=true to your stream key in OBS and start the broadcast. The channel will not go online or send notifications, and in Twitch Inspector (inspector.twitch.tv) you will see the real bitrate, its minimum and maximum, the frame rate and a stream stability note. This is Twitch's official tool, and it is more honest than any speedtest because it measures the actual path to the ingest server.
5. TwitchTest. This program sends a test stream to different Twitch servers and shows which one gives higher speed. OBS recommends it for finding the server with the best quality score.
6. Check packet loss. On Windows, open the command prompt and run ping -n 300 8.8.8.8 under your usual load. Even 1-2% loss is noticeable on stream. To see exactly where packets are lost, use tracert or WinMTR to the ingest server address.

Speed or route: how to tell what is wrong

A common situation: speedtest shows 100 Mbps of upload, yet OBS reports “Dropped frames due to network” and the indicator at the bottom turns yellow or red. That means the problem is not your plan but the path from you to the platform's server: an overloaded node at your provider, a poor route abroad, losses on one of the intermediate hops. Speedtest measures to the nearest server and does not see this stretch.

How to tell the difference:

• Frames drop even at a low bitrate while speedtest to your own city is perfect: it is the route.
• Drops start exactly when someone at home starts a video or a call: upload itself is not enough.
• In OBS the drops grow “due to encoding” or “due to rendering lag” rather than “due to network”: the problem is in the computer, not the internet. There is more on this in our article on what to do if your stream lags.

What helps, in order:

1. Change the ingest server. In OBS: Settings → Stream → Server. Try two or three neighboring regions; the geographically closest is not always the best. If Enhanced Broadcasting is on, OBS advises turning it off temporarily while you test servers, or limiting the maximum bandwidth below the TwitchTest result.
2. A cable instead of Wi-Fi. The cheapest and most effective fix. If you cannot run a cable, at least connect to the 5 GHz band close to the router.
3. Lower the bitrate by 1000 kbps and check again. Kick's help page advises stepping down exactly this way.
4. Turn on CBR. Constant bitrate is directly recommended by the YouTube and Kick help pages: the stream is smoother and more predictable, and Kick does not accept variable bitrate at all.
5. Dynamic bitrate in OBS (Settings → Advanced → Network) lowers quality instead of dropping frames when the connection cannot keep up. It is insurance, not a cure: it does not remove the cause.
6. Check your antivirus and network “optimizers” from the laptop or network card manufacturer: OBS names them a common cause of drops. Update your network card driver.

If drops remain on every server and at any bitrate, contact your provider with your traceroute results. That is their area of responsibility.

Mobile internet and IRL streams

You can stream over 4G, but with caveats. Mobile upload depends heavily on location, tower load and even how you hold the phone. In a city center in the evening you can get 30 Mbps, and 2 Mbps a hundred meters away.

• A realistic IRL mode with one SIM card is 720p30 at 2.5-4 Mbps. 1080p60 on a single modem is not stable.
• Always enable adaptive or dynamic bitrate: mobile streaming apps usually have it.
• Watch your data usage. An hour of streaming at 4 Mbps is about 1.8 GB, and that is upload only. Unlimited plans often throttle speed when tethering or after a certain volume, so check the terms with your carrier.
• Serious IRL streamers use bonding: a device or service combines several SIM cards from different carriers and Wi-Fi into one connection. Kick, for example, describes connecting LiveU equipment separately in its help page.
• For streaming straight from a phone, YouTube has requirements: at least 50 subscribers, a verified channel, and with fewer than 1000 subscribers there may be viewer limits.

A home 4G modem as your main internet for gaming streams is a last-resort option. Latency and speed swings there are noticeably higher than on a wired connection.

Multistream and Dual Format: upload adds up

If you stream to Twitch, YouTube and VK Video Live at once straight from OBS (through a plugin or several outputs), your computer sends three separate streams. Three times 6 Mbps is 18 Mbps, and with a margin you need 27-36 Mbps. A restreaming service solves this differently: you send one stream to it and it distributes to the platforms, so you need upload for just one broadcast.

The same goes for Enhanced Broadcasting on Twitch. This feature encodes several quality versions on your computer and sends them together. OBS has a maximum bandwidth setting: it caps the combined flow of all tracks. According to XSplit, Dual Format (horizontal and vertical at the same time) needs at least 12.5 Mbps of upload at 1080p and 14 Mbps at 2K, and that is without any margin. Read more about the mode in the article on vertical streaming on Twitch in Dual Format.

Once the picture is stable

Good upload takes care of the technical side, but viewers will not come by themselves: in the Twitch directory, new channels with zero viewers are almost invisible. So that your first broadcasts do not play out to an empty chat, you can bring in viewers and activity through the viewer management panel or look at the services for Twitch: followers, chat bots, live interaction. This helps your channel rise in the category list, where real people will notice it.

Frequently asked questions

Is 10 Mbps of upload enough for a 1080p stream?

For 1080p60 on Twitch at 6 Mbps, it is a tight fit, and only if nobody else on the network is uploading anything. 720p60 at 4.5 Mbps or 1080p30 is safer. For YouTube at 1080p, 10 Mbps is not enough: the recommended H.264 bitrate there is higher.

Why is my speedtest good but OBS drops frames?

Speedtest measures speed to the nearest server, while your stream goes to the platform's server, often in another country. The problem is usually the route or Wi-Fi. Change the ingest server, connect with a cable and run a test broadcast with ?bandwidthtest=true, checking the result in Twitch Inspector.

What upload do I need for 2K on Twitch?

Twitch offers 2K up to 9 Mbps on the HEVC codec, available to partners and affiliates through Enhanced Broadcasting. Plan for 14-18 Mbps of stable upload, and more than 20 Mbps if Dual Format is on together with 2K.

Can I stream in 2K on Kick?

No. According to Kick's help page, the maximum is 1920×1080 at 60 FPS and a bitrate of up to 8 Mbps on H.264. For 1080p60 at the maximum bitrate you need 12-16 Mbps of upload.

Does ping affect streaming?

A high ping to the ingest server on its own only adds a small delay for viewers. Ping spikes and packet loss are what hurt: they lower the real transfer speed and cause dropped frames.

With weak internet, should I lower the resolution or the FPS?

For fast-moving games, 720p60 is better than 1080p30 at the same bitrate. For calm games, chatting and IRL you can keep 1080p but at 30 FPS. Either way, the bitrate must fit within your upload with a margin.