The Free Plan: What's Included and Where the Limits Are
A clear breakdown of the playout.video Free plan: what you can build and stream at no cost, which limits apply (watermark, 5-hour sessions, one destination), and what upgrading changes.
What the Free Plan Is
The Free plan is a permanent $0 tier. It is not a trial: there is no countdown to expiry and no credit card required. Every new account starts here, and you can stay here as long as you like.
The idea is simple: you get the full production toolset to build a channel, and enough streaming allowance to run it casually. Paying starts when your channel does serious hours.
What You Can Do on Free
Everything involved in building a channel works on Free:
Upload videos and organize your media library (individual videos up to 1 hour long, 10GB total storage)
Build playlists and arrange your timeline
Design overlays in the composition editor and save up to 10 overlay templates
Create calendars for scheduled streams: add entries, set up recurring blocks, plan your programming
Go live with one stream at 1080p30 to one connected platform
Use Live Studio with up to 2 guests, in sessions up to 5 hours
The Limits
Limit | Free plan |
|---|---|
Watermark | playout.video watermark on all output |
Concurrent streams | 1 |
Quality | 1080p at 30fps |
Destinations per stream | 1 |
Session length | 5 hours, then auto-stop |
Storage | 10GB |
Upload length | 1 hour per video |
Live Studio guests | 2 |
Overlay templates | 10 |
Recording to library | Not included |
Custom RTMP destinations | Not included |
Running calendar schedules | Build only (running requires Channel) |
Website embed | Not included (Business) |
Two of these deserve a closer look:
The watermark appears on every stream from a Free workspace. It comes off the moment you upgrade to any paid plan. See How to Remove the playout.video Watermark.
The 5-hour session cap means a Free stream stops itself after 5 hours of continuous streaming. You can start it again right away; the cap is per session, not per day. The stream page shows a countdown as you approach the limit. See Session Length Limits: Why Your Stream Stopped.
Free vs Creator: the First Upgrade
Creator ($19/mo billed annually) is the natural first upgrade, and it changes the three limits people hit first:
The watermark comes off.
Sessions become persistent. No more 5-hour cap: this is where true 24/7 streaming starts.
Multistreaming opens up: 5 destinations instead of 1, plus custom RTMP endpoints.
It also raises storage to 100GB, uploads to 4 hours per video, Live Studio to 8 guests, and adds recording your streams to the library.
If your goal is a calendar-programmed channel that goes live on schedule, look at Channel instead: The Channel Plan: Run Your Channel Like a TV Network.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does my Free workspace ever expire? No. Content and settings stay as long as your account exists.
I had a trial before. What happened to it? Trials are gone. Accounts that previously had an expired trial are now simply Free workspaces with the limits above.
Can I test everything before paying? Almost everything. Building calendars, designing overlays, and rehearsing in Live Studio all work on Free. The main things you cannot try are running a calendar schedule, recording, and website embeds.