A stream is only as good as the upload under it. Set the bitrate higher than the connection can carry and the stream drops frames; set it far lower and the picture looks worse than it needs to. This bitrate calculator works out where the line sits for your picture and your upload.
Pick the resolution and frame rate you stream, then put in the video and audio bitrate from OBS and the upload figure from a speed test. It shows YouTube's recommended bitrate for that picture, the upload speed your bitrate needs at OBS's own starting point of 75% of the upload, the highest bitrate your upload carries, and the data the stream sends. Every figure it supplies names its source, and the list of what it cannot tell you is below the answer.
In this guide
The bitrate calculator
The output resolution and frame rate set in OBS or your streaming app.
The Bitrate box under Settings, Output in OBS, in Kbps. 1 Mbps is 1000 Kbps.
The audio bitrate in the same settings. The example is YouTube's figure for stereo.
The upload figure from a speed test run on the PC that streams, not the download figure.
For the data the stream sends, and the size of a recording made at the same bitrate.
How that is worked out, line by line
- YouTube's minimum video bitrate for that picture6,000 Kbps
- Your stream's total bitrate6,128 Kbps
- Share of your upload the stream takes31 %
- Upload YouTube's recommended bitrate needs22.8 Mbps
- Data the stream sends in an hour2.76 GB
- Data for the time you gave8.27 GB
On those numbers you are in the Within OBS's starting point band, which is the section below.
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Where every number here comes from
No part of this was measured on a bench here. This site works from published specifications and from what owners report, and every number below is either one you typed in or a published figure with its source named next to it.
The figures this page supplies
- YouTube's recommended bitrate, 720p at 30 fps: 8 Mbps. YouTube Help, 'Choose live encoder settings, bitrates, and resolutions': recommended H.264 bitrate for 720p at 30 fps, 8 Mbps.
- YouTube's recommended bitrate, 720p at 60 fps: 8 Mbps. The same YouTube table: recommended H.264 bitrate for 720p at 60 fps, 8 Mbps.
- YouTube's recommended bitrate, 1080p at 30 fps: 14 Mbps. The same YouTube table: recommended H.264 bitrate for 1080p at 30 fps, 14 Mbps.
- YouTube's recommended bitrate, 1080p at 60 fps: 17 Mbps. The same YouTube table: recommended H.264 bitrate for 1080p at 60 fps, 17 Mbps.
- YouTube's recommended bitrate, 1440p at 30 fps: 21 Mbps. The same YouTube table: recommended H.264 bitrate for 1440p at 30 fps, 21 Mbps.
- YouTube's recommended bitrate, 1440p at 60 fps: 34 Mbps. The same YouTube table: recommended H.264 bitrate for 1440p at 60 fps, 34 Mbps.
- YouTube's recommended bitrate, 4K at 30 fps: 42 Mbps. The same YouTube table: recommended H.264 bitrate for 4K (2160p) at 30 fps, 42 Mbps.
- YouTube's recommended bitrate, 4K at 60 fps: 50 Mbps. The same YouTube table: recommended H.264 bitrate for 4K (2160p) at 60 fps, 50 Mbps.
- YouTube's minimum bitrate, 720p at 30 fps: 3 Mbps. The same YouTube table: minimum H.264 bitrate setting for 720p at 30 fps, 3 Mbps.
- YouTube's minimum bitrate, 720p at 60 fps: 3 Mbps. The same YouTube table: minimum H.264 bitrate setting for 720p at 60 fps, 3 Mbps.
- YouTube's minimum bitrate, 1080p at 30 fps: 5 Mbps. The same YouTube table: minimum H.264 bitrate setting for 1080p at 30 fps, 5 Mbps.
- YouTube's minimum bitrate, 1080p at 60 fps: 6 Mbps. The same YouTube table: minimum H.264 bitrate setting for 1080p at 60 fps, 6 Mbps.
- YouTube's minimum bitrate, 1440p at 30 fps: 7 Mbps. The same YouTube table: minimum H.264 bitrate setting for 1440p at 30 fps, 7 Mbps.
- YouTube's minimum bitrate, 1440p at 60 fps: 8 Mbps. The same YouTube table: minimum H.264 bitrate setting for 1440p at 60 fps, 8 Mbps.
- YouTube's minimum bitrate, 4K at 30 fps: 11 Mbps. The same YouTube table: minimum H.264 bitrate setting for 4K (2160p) at 30 fps, 11 Mbps.
- YouTube's minimum bitrate, 4K at 60 fps: 14 Mbps. The same YouTube table: minimum H.264 bitrate setting for 4K (2160p) at 60 fps, 14 Mbps.
- OBS's starting share of the upload: 75 %. OBS Knowledge Base, 'Stream Connection Troubleshooting': a good starting point is to set your bitrate to 75% of your total upload speed.
- Kilobits in a megabit: 1,000. The SI prefixes, as NIST publishes them: kilo is 10^3 and mega is 10^6, so 1 Mbps is 1000 Kbps.
- Bits in a byte: 8. IEC 80000-13 defines the byte as eight bits, the gap between a bitrate and a size in bytes.
- Seconds in an hour: 3,600 s. The SI Brochure (BIPM), Table 8: the hour, a unit accepted for use with the SI, is 3600 seconds.
- Kilobytes in a decimal gigabyte: 1,000,000. The SI prefixes, as NIST publishes them: giga is 10^9 and kilo is 10^3, so a gigabyte is 10^6 kilobytes.
Why each step is the step it is
- YouTube's recommended video bitrate for that picture:
(yt_rec_720_30 * is_1 + yt_rec_720_60 * is_2 + yt_rec_1080_30 * is_3 + yt_rec_1080_60 * is_4 + yt_rec_1440_30 * is_5 + yt_rec_1440_60 * is_6 + yt_rec_2160_30 * is_7 + yt_rec_2160_60 * is_8) * kbps_per_mbps. YouTube's own recommended H.264 figure for the resolution and frame rate you picked, from its live encoder table, in Kbps. - YouTube's minimum video bitrate for that picture:
(yt_min_720_30 * is_1 + yt_min_720_60 * is_2 + yt_min_1080_30 * is_3 + yt_min_1080_60 * is_4 + yt_min_1440_30 * is_5 + yt_min_1440_60 * is_6 + yt_min_2160_30 * is_7 + yt_min_2160_60 * is_8) * kbps_per_mbps. The minimum bitrate setting the same YouTube table lists for that picture. - Your stream's total bitrate:
video_kbps + audio_kbps. The video and the audio travel up the same connection, so the two add. - Upload speed your bitrate needs:
total_kbps / kbps_per_mbps * 100 / obs_pct. The total in Mbps, divided by OBS's 75% starting share, so the stream uses no more than that share of the upload. - Highest video bitrate your upload carries:
Math.max(0, upload_mbps * kbps_per_mbps * obs_pct / 100 - audio_kbps). 75% of your upload in Kbps, less the audio, which is OBS's starting point read the other way round. It cannot go below zero. - Share of your upload the stream takes:
total_kbps / (upload_mbps * kbps_per_mbps) * 100. The stream's total over your upload. Above 75% is past OBS's starting point, and above 100% the connection cannot carry it at all. - Upload YouTube's recommended bitrate needs:
(yt_rec_kbps + audio_kbps) / kbps_per_mbps * 100 / obs_pct. The same sum for YouTube's recommended video bitrate plus your audio. - Data the stream sends in an hour:
total_kbps * sec_per_hour / bits_per_byte / kb_per_gb. Kilobits a second times 3600 seconds, divided by eight for kilobytes and by a million for gigabytes. A recording at the same bitrate is about the same size. - Data for the time you gave:
gb_hour * hours. The hour's figure times the hours.
What this cannot tell you
Every calculator has an edge, and a page that hides its edge is worse than no page at all. Here is this one's.
- It is arithmetic on the figures you give it and on YouTube's and OBS's published guidance. No stream was run for it, and this site has not streamed on these connections itself.
- The recommended figures are YouTube's. Twitch and other services publish their own figures, and some cap the bitrate they accept well below YouTube's, so check the guidelines of the service you stream to before setting a bitrate above its limit.
- The figures are for H.264, the codec most streaming setups use. YouTube lists lower figures for H.265 (HEVC) and AV1, which this calculator does not use.
- OBS calls 75% of the upload a starting point, not a promise. A speed test is one moment: the upload can drop in busy evening hours, on Wi-Fi, or while someone else in the house is uploading, so watch for dropped frames and lower the bitrate if they appear.
- The data figures count the stream's own bitrate. The packets' headers add a little on top, and what a viewer downloads depends on the quality they watch at.
What that share of your upload means
These follow from the answer above and nothing else. Each heading below covers one span of results, so read the one the calculator pointed you at and ignore the rest.
Within OBS's starting point
The stream takes no more than the 75% of your upload OBS suggests starting from, so the connection has room for the bitrate you set. If the stream still drops frames, look at the link between the PC and the router as well as the plan; the guide below compares a cable with Wi-Fi.
Wireless vs Wired Network 2026: The Best Setup Is Both covers this range in full.
Past OBS's starting point
The stream takes more than 75% of your upload but less than all of it. It may hold, but there is little room for anything else uploading at the same time, and OBS's first fix for dropped frames is a lower bitrate. If the PC is on Wi-Fi, a cable or a better-placed router can raise the upload it actually gets; the guides below cover both.
Wireless vs Wired Network 2026: The Best Setup Is Both covers this range in full.
How to Optimize Your WiFi in 2026, 4 Fixes Worth Doing covers this range in full.
More than your upload carries
The stream needs more than your whole upload, so it will drop frames however the network is set up. Lower the bitrate to the highest figure above, or the resolution or frame rate with it. A router cannot make the plan's upload faster; only a plan with a faster upload does, and the router guide below is for when the plan is fast but the house is not.
Best WiFi Router for Home in 2026: 5 Ranked Picks covers this range in full.
Most plans upload far slower than they download, and the download time calculator times uploads too: put the upload speed in its speed box to see how long a recording takes to send. A bitrate calculator can only be as right as the upload you give it, so run the speed test on the PC that streams, at the hour you stream.
Questions about the bitrate calculator
What bitrate should I stream at?
YouTube publishes a figure for each resolution and frame rate. For 1080p at 60 fps it recommends 17,000 Kbps of H.264 video and lists a minimum of 6,000. For 720p at 30 fps the figures are 8,000 and 3,000 Kbps, and for 4K at 60 fps 50,000 and 14,000. This bitrate calculator puts the figure for the picture you pick at the top, then works out whether your upload carries it. Other services set their own limits, so check theirs before going higher.
What upload speed do I need to stream?
Add the audio to the video, then leave headroom. 6000 Kbps of video and 128 Kbps of audio make 6,128 Kbps. OBS's own guide suggests starting with the bitrate at 75% of your total upload, so that stream wants an upload of 8.2 Mbps. YouTube's recommended 17,000 Kbps for 1080p at 60 fps wants 22.8 Mbps. Compare it with the upload figure from a speed test on the PC that streams, as YouTube suggests, not the download figure.
What bitrate can my upload handle?
Take 75% of the upload and leave room for the audio. An upload of 20 Mbps carries 14,872 Kbps of video beside 128 Kbps of audio. At 5 Mbps it is 3,622 Kbps, and at 50 Mbps 37,372 Kbps; put your own speed test figure in the bitrate calculator above for yours. Set the Bitrate box in OBS no higher than that, and lower it if the stream still drops frames: OBS says dropped frames mean the connection cannot keep up with the bitrate set.
How much data does streaming use an hour?
Bitrate times time, divided by eight to turn bits into bytes. A 6,128 Kbps stream sends 2.76 GB an hour, so a 3-hour stream sends 8.27 GB. A 50000 Kbps stream with the same audio sends 22.56 GB an hour. A recording saved at the same bitrate comes out at about the same size, which makes this bitrate calculator a quick way to size a recording too.
Does 4K streaming need a faster upload?
Yes, by YouTube's own figures. 4K at 60 fps is recommended at 50,000 Kbps, which with 128 Kbps of stereo audio wants an upload of 66.8 Mbps at OBS's 75% starting point. 1080p at 60 fps wants 22.8 Mbps, and 720p at 30 fps 10.8 Mbps. If your upload falls short, YouTube lists a lower minimum for each picture, and the H.265 and AV1 codecs need less than the H.264 figures used here.
Sources
- YouTube Help: choose live encoder settings, bitrates, and resolutions: Tabulates a minimum and a recommended H.264 video bitrate for each resolution and frame rate, recommends 128 Kbps audio for stereo, and recommends a speed test of the upload.
- OBS Knowledge Base: stream connection troubleshooting: Says a good starting point is a bitrate of 75% of the total upload speed, and that dropped frames mean the connection cannot keep up with the bitrate set.
- NIST: metric (SI) prefixes: Lists kilo as 10^3, mega as 10^6 and giga as 10^9, the decimal meaning of Kbps, Mbps and GB.
- IEC 80000-13: quantities and units, information science and technology: Defines the byte as eight bits.
- BIPM: the International System of Units (SI Brochure): Lists the hour as 3600 seconds among the units accepted for use with the SI.
Download Time Calculator 2026: How Long It Actually Takes Wireless vs Wired Network 2026: The Best Setup Is Both
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