Blurry video, dropped frames, or choppy motion usually aren’t camera problems, they’re bitrate problems. Bitrate, in live streaming, controls how much video data reaches your viewers, and ultimately how sharp, crisp, clear, and focused your video can be.
Setting your livestreaming bitrate wrong can ruin an otherwise great stream.
In this guide, you’ll learn what a livestreaming bitrate is, how it works, how to calculate it, where to find it, how much bitrate you actually need, and how to set it correctly for each streaming platform.
The result? You’ll be able to broadcast stable, high-quality livestreams that your viewers want to watch.
Bitrate in live streaming is the amount of data your video sends every second. It determines how much of your livestream reaches your audience intact. Bitrate is measured in “bits.”
A simple way to picture this is to think of bitrate as a pipe, and your stream is what flows through the pipe. If the pipe is wide, more information fits through at once. If the pipe is narrow, some information has to be left behind so that the stream keeps moving.
The higher your bitrate, the more information your stream can deliver, which usually means sharper video, smoother motion, and clearer visuals.
Lower bitrate means less data to work with, so the stream has to cut corners, and you end up with blocky video, blurry motion, or muddy details during fast movement.
You set your livestreaming bitrate in your video encoder, which is the part that turns your camera/game/feed into a video livestream. Your encoder can live in your livestreaming software or as a separate device.
Some livestreaming software relies on software encoders (programs that run on your computer and use your CPU or GPU to encode video), which means that if your computer struggles or your CPU is overloaded, your video quality may suffer or become unstable.
Switcher uses a cloud-managed encoder, so you never have to touch raw bitrate numbers or tune your CPU/GPU before each stream. Instead, you can choose the right bitrate in the settings menu under “Stream Quality” and let Switcher do the rest. Easy.
There’s a third type of encoder usually used by career streamers and professional events, such as big concerts and sports events. These are hardware encoders, such as Blackmagic Streaming Processors. They’re physical boxes that connect to your devices, and their only job is to encode video.
You can set the bitrate on these devices using physical buttons, or on a simple settings page in a browser. Some hardware encoders let you pick a specific bitrate number, while others ask you to choose a general quality level instead.
Your livestreaming bitrate is determined by your internet upload speed, measured in megabits per second (Mbps).
Your upload speed is the maximum amount of data your connection can send to the internet. And your livestreaming bitrate should sit comfortably below your maximum upload speed, not right at the edge.
A good rule of thumb is to use about 70–80% of your upload speed for your total video bitrate.
Before setting your bitrate, test your connection with a speed test like Speedtest by Ookla, Fast.com, or TestMy.net.
Here’s what your upload speed means for reliable single-platform livestreaming bitrate:
Internet speed fluctuates throughout the day, so run the test a few times, and ideally at the time you usually stream, to see what your connection can realistically handle.
When you multistream, you’re often sending separate streams to each platform. Each of these platforms needs a certain amount of bitrate to look sharp. If your internet can’t handle sending multiple streams, then your multistream video will suffer, and your viewers will leave.
Luckily, you don’t need 20+ Mbps of internet to multistream reliably because Switcher fixes this issue.
In most cases, Switcher sends one encoded stream from your device and then delivers it to each platform. This means:
You’re not manually splitting your bitrate per platform
Your required upload speed remains closer to one stream, not several
Each streaming platform sets maximums and recommended ranges to keep your stream stable and pretty.
These ranges are based on the typical content type usually found on the platform (E.g., shorts vs long form) and the users’ connection type and speed (E.g., 5G mobile vs fiber-optic desktop connections).
Here’s a list of commonly recommended livestreaming bitrate ranges for popular platforms: YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
|
Platform |
Recommended Bitrate |
Notes |
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~3,000–6,000 kbps (1080p) |
YouTube supports higher ranges up to ~51,000 kbps for high-end streamers or professional productions streaming with maximum quality, such as some esports, live concerts, or events where extremely high visual fidelity matters. |
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3,000–6,000 kbps |
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~3,000–6,000 kbps |
Facebook often transcodes streams, which means it takes the video you send and creates multiple versions of it at different qualities and bitrates. This allows the platform to deliver the best version of your stream to each viewer based on their device and internet connection. |
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~3,500 kbps recommended, up to 6,000 kbps max |
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~2,250–6,000 kbps |
A large portion of your viewers are on mobile devices using cellular networks, which are often slower and less consistent than home broadband. If you stream at a very high bitrate, those viewers’ devices may struggle to download all that data in real time, causing stuttering, buffering, or dropped frames. |
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1,000–8,000 kbps (max) |
Everything you see on a screen is made of pixels, which are tiny dots of color that form an image. The more pixels you gather in an image, the higher the resolution of your video, which means more detail and sharper visuals.
Framerate dictates the fluidity and smoothness of movement in your video. So, the higher the framerate, the smoother your movements will look and feel, and also the faster the movements you can make.
Here’s what to expect from different resolution and framerate settings:
High resolution and low framerate: Detailed high-quality video, but movement looks choppy.
Low resolution and high framerate: Softer, less sharp video, but smoother motion.
High resolution and high framerate: Excellent clarity and fluid motion, but demands a lot of bitrate and a strong, stable upload speed.
A higher resolution doesn’t automatically mean better quality video, because quality is 100% dependent on the bitrate. So, no matter how high you set your resolution and framerate, if your bitrate is low, your video will still be low quality.
Use the table below to match your resolution and framerate with the right bitrate for your content type:
When you choose a bitrate, it doesn’t automatically apply to your stream. You need to enter this bitrate in your live streaming software so it knows how much data to transmit each second.
If you don’t configure it, your stream will default to whatever the software thinks is best, which could be too high, too low, or too inconsistent for your platform, content type, and audience.
So, once you’ve figured out the right bitrate for your stream, the next step is telling your software how to use it. This is where Constant Bitrate (CBR), Variable Bitrate (VBR), and Constant Rate Factor (CRF) come in — they’re different ways of controlling how your video data gets sent to the platform.
Each has its own strengths, but for live streaming, one clearly stands out:
Constant Bitrate sends the same amount of data every second, no matter what’s happening on screen. This makes your stream predictable and stable, so your upload won’t be surprised by sudden spikes in motion or detail. That stability is exactly why platforms like Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook recommend it for live streams.
The only trade-off is that during simple scenes, you’re using a little more data than necessary, and during very fast action, you might not have quite enough. But for live streaming, the predictability is far more valuable than squeezing out every last bit of efficiency.
For live streaming, Constant Bitrate (CBR) is almost always the safest choice.
Variable Bitrate adjusts the bitrate based on content complexity. If your scene is fast and detailed, VBR sends more data; if it’s static, it sends less. This can improve overall visual quality and save bandwidth, but it’s riskier for live streaming because your upload speed needs to handle sudden peaks.
If your connection isn’t rock solid, those peaks can cause stuttering or dropped frames. VBR is usually better suited for pre-recorded content or on-demand video rather than live broadcasts.
Constant Rate Factor is mostly used for offline encoding. Instead of targeting a specific bitrate, it aims for consistent visual quality by letting the encoder decide how much data each frame needs.
While excellent for recorded video, CRF doesn’t work well for livestreaming because platforms expect a predictable data flow. Using CRF live can easily overwhelm your connection and cause instability.
Even though livestreaming bitrate, framerate, resolution, and encoder settings can feel complicated at first, you can get used to them as part of your streaming routine.
Switcher handles most of this for you, keeping streams stable and consistent whether you’re streaming to one platform or many. Try Switcher for free today and focus on your content instead of fighting bitrate and encoder settings.