YouTube vs. Muvi Live: Which Platform is Best for Live Streaming?

Hello, live streamers! Are you still live streaming on YouTube and letting it take away more than 45% of your ad revenues? If your answer is yes, then you are not the only one. YouTube is one of the most popular live streaming platforms in the world, with over a million live streamers going live on YouTube. 

But in recent years, B2B live streaming platforms have grown in popularity, mainly because of their more diverse monetization options. And Muvi Live is one of the frontrunners among them. Platforms like Muvi Live offer more advanced security, monetization, support, and customization features that YouTube fails to offer. 

But we must also confess that YouTube is free and offers an extensive audience base. Maybe that is why it is so popular. For any live streamer, choosing between YouTube and any other live-streaming platform can be tricky. You might want to weigh the pros and cons thoroughly before making any decision. And we are here to help you out!

In this blog, we will tell you the top features of both YouTube and Muvi Live, compare their features side-by-side, and take you through their pros and cons, so that you can make accurate and informed decisions. We will also tell you which of these two live streaming platforms will help you make more money! So, let’s dive in!

Earn 10x More Than YouTube, using Muvi Live. Click here to get started!

So, What’s the Difference Between YouTube and Muvi Live?

YouTube Live Streams and Muvi Live perform the same function, but they are built with very different objectives. 

First things first, YouTube is a B2C platform. It means anyone who uses YouTube can start live streaming on it any day. It allows all its viewers to start their own live-streaming business. 

It might seem all good, but here’s an important question – do you have any advanced control over your live streams? The answer is NO. You cannot insert logos into your live videos unless you are using those OBS overlays. You cannot do any kind of customization whatsoever. The reason is, YouTube Live was not designed for business use in the first place!

So, if you are looking for a live-streaming platform suitable for enterprises and businesses, YouTube is not your place. You will need a B2B live streaming platform like Muvi Live, via which you can deliver white-labeled live streams with all the necessary branding and customizations. 

Even if you are not looking for enterprise solutions, YouTube Live has many flaws, and its limited monetization features are the biggest among them. These flaws will restrict any live streamer, whether established or beginner, from generating good revenues from their live streams. 

We will talk about that in detail in some time, but before that let’s take a look at the feature-wise comparison of both the platforms. 

Top Features of YouTube 

YouTube offers a lot of attractive features that help make your live streams engaging and attractive for your viewers. Some of the core features of YouTube live streaming include:

• Live chat engagement: Live chat is a key part of audience interaction. Your audience can send you live chats, including Super Chats that include donations. You can pin or reply to messages, moderate chats, and even run live Q&A sessions to encourage engagement.
• Monetization: YouTube supports ad-based monetization. You can enable pre-roll, mid-roll, or display ads.
• Multiple streaming options: You can choose to stream using your webcam, mobile device, or an encoder for a more professional setup. 
• Go Live Together (Beta): This new feature allows you to collaborate with your guests on your live streams. You can invite a guest and even screen them beforehand. But it might not be available to everyone. 

Top Features of Muvi Live 

Muvi Live offers 100+ industry-leading and trending live-streaming features, that cover everything from security to scalability. Let’s take you through some of their major features:

• Monetization (Ads + Paywall): Muvi Live allows you to place pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ads on your live streams. In addition to ads, you can also insert a paywall to your live streams, and monetize your live streams on a pay-per-view basis.
• Multi-DRM and Live Stream Security: With built-in multi-DRM, your content remains completely secured and protected from any screengrab, screenshot, or content-stealing attempts from pirates. Also, server-side security, firewall, and password-protected live streaming help you ensure overall live stream security.
• Built-in CDN: With Muvi Live, scalability is never an issue. Its built-in CDN offers unlimited scalability so that your live streams remain stable and buffer-free even at peak concurrent viewership.
• Run recurring live sessions: You can schedule and run multiple sessions of a live stream without changing the streaming URL. This means you don’t need to share your stream URL with your audience multiple times. They can join the live stream through a single URL for every recurring session.
• Record live streams: You can easily record your live streams. You can reuse these recordings for multiple purposes, including republishing them as on-demand content.
• Live Chat: Your viewers can send live chats during the live streams. You can also moderate your live chats and block users from sending offensive comments.
• Live stream from Mobile: You can download the Muvi Live mobile app and live stream from your mobile phone on the go, even if you are not carrying your laptop.
• DVR-enabled live streaming: Let your users pause, rewind, and replay your live streams. With DVR-enabled live streams, your end-users won’t miss out on any action.

YouTube vs Muvi Live – Feature Wise Comparison

Let’s keep the features of YouTube and Muvi Live side by side, to understand which one will be more beneficial for the live streamers. And let’s get started with Monetization, as obviously, we all want to earn more from our live streams, isn’t it?

Monetization

Both YouTube and Muvi Live enable you to monetize your live streams. Both of them support ads, and Muvi Live supports paywall too! But if you look deeply, there’s a drastic difference. 

Since YouTube supports only ad-based monetization, you cannot deliver ad-free live streams even if you want to. Otherwise, you won’t be able to earn from your live streams. And when you earn revenues via these ads, YouTube keeps a large chunk of your revenue as platform fees, which might go up to 45% at times. It means that if you generate $100 through your live streams, YouTube will keep $45 as platform fees and give back only $55 to you. 

But in the case of Muvi Live, you do not solely depend on ads. It is purely your choice, not a compulsion. If you want to insert ads, you can do that. If you do not want, you can insert a paywall instead, and ask your viewers to pay a specific fee to access the live streams. If you want to insert both ads and paywall to maximize your revenues, you can do that too! And after all of that, you can keep 90% of the revenues that you generate!

Stream Recording and Reuse

YouTube offers options to archive your live streams. But, it comes with certain conditions. The live streams that are less than 12 hours long and of resolution up to 1440p can be recorded and archived. But in case your live streams do not meet these criteria, you would need a third-party tool for recording your live streams. Also, you do not have much control over the storage location and management of these recordings. 

But with Muvi Live, you can record and store all your live streams. There are no conditions. You can also auto-store your recordings effortlessly on 3rd party cloud storage. The recordings get stored in the asset library of your Muvi Live CMS automatically. You can access them anytime, download them, and reuse them for multiple purposes. 

Live Streaming Capabilities

We analyzed the major live-streaming features of both YouTube and Muvi Live, and listed the difference in the table given below:

Security

YouTube is a public platform. So, their prime focus always remains on the discoverability of the content. Also, YouTube intentionally allows its viewers to capture and share memorable moments from your live stream as it is one of their core viewer engagement features. 

In all of these things, they completely ignore content security! Anyone can capture and share your live streams, hence making your live videos extremely prone to piracy. Also, anyone can reuse these screen recordings for multiple purposes in the future, without taking your permission. 

While in case of Muvi Live, the situation is totally different. Content security is one of the major USPs of Muvi Live. They offer built-in Multi-DRM security. DRM is basically a special type of encryption mechanism for your live videos. When they are DRM-protected, only authorized users can view the content via permitted devices. Also, they cannot record or take screenshots. Hence, your live streams remain protected from piracy. 

Streaming from Mobile

Both Muvi Live and YouTube let you stream live from your mobile phones. You can download the Muvi Live mobile app and YouTube app on your Android or iOS mobile phones, and start live streaming. You can seamlessly convert your mobile camera into a professional streaming camera. In short, both Muvi Live and YouTube are similar to each other in this aspect.          

Technical Support

In live streaming, technical glitches might happen to anyone, anytime. But if you cannot resolve those glitches quickly, that might irritate your viewers. Having dedicated technical support always helps in quickly identifying and resolving these issues. 

In the case of YouTube, you won’t get to chat with technical support executives. There is no hotline or chat support. The only thing you can refer to is their troubleshooting documentation which is quite elaborate, time-consuming, and technically complicated. In short, we can say that this document won’t help you in resolving your issues quickly. 

That is where Muvi Live wins big time. Muvi Live’s dedicated live streaming support helps you in every step of your live stream. A dedicated technical support executive will be ready to guide you whenever you need them. And in case of any technical glitch, the executive will directly look into the matter and try to resolve it as soon as possible.     

YouTube VS Muvi Live: Which Platform Will Help You Make More Money?    

With YouTube, you can generate revenues from your live stream only through ads. And we all know that you will generate revenue only when your viewer watches a significant portion of the ad (usually 30 minutes) or clicks on it. 

Now do you know how many of the ads are actually viewed for more than 30 minutes? Well, on average, it is believed that only 15% of the ads are viewed for so long by the viewers. Rest all the other ads are usually skipped. Nowadays, many viewers even use ad-blockers to block the ads altogether. 

Hence, it directly means that you will get paid for only 15% of the total ad viewership, on average. You won’t be able to monetize a whopping 85% of the viewership! And on top of that, YouTube will keep 45% of the generated revenues in the form of platform fees. 

But with Muvi Live, that’s not the case! You can insert a paywall into your live stream. So, whenever your viewers will try to access your live streams via the live link, they would first encounter the paywall which will ask them to pay a certain amount. 

It is basically a form of pay-per-view monetization. You can decide the price of your livestream. But just for the sake of calculation, let’s consider that you have set the paywall price as US $30. 

Now, one thing to note here is that you are monetizing 100% of your viewership using a paywall. Only those who pay will be able to watch the live stream.

Sample Revenue Comparison: YouTube vs Muvi Live

So, imagine two scenarios. In the first scenario, you are live streaming via YouTube. In the second, you are live streaming via Muvi Live. And you have invited an equal number of viewers, suppose 1 million. 

Since YouTube is a public platform, we are expecting more people to join via YouTube. So, let’s say that out of 1 million, 10% of viewers joined the livestream. That means your viewership will stand at 100K. On the other hand, let’s consider that only 1000 viewers joined the Muvi Live live stream. 

At the end of the day, with 100K viewership, 15% ad viewership on average, and 45% platform fees, you will end up with a net revenue of US $1,650. 

On the other hand, with Muvi Live, you will end up with a net revenue of US $27,000 considering US $30 as paywall fee and 10% platform fee even for only 1000 viewers. It means you can actually end up with 16X more in-hand revenue than YouTube if you use Muvi Live. 

The complete calculation is depicted in the table below:

Pros and Cons of YouTube

YouTube has many pros, including:

• It is really cost-effective. 
• It offers a large community of viewers who are already there on the platform. 
• You can slowly build a large community of loyal subscribers. 

But like the pros, there are many cons too, like:

• You won’t get to decide how you want to present your live streams, or which audience engagement feature you want.
• You will end up with very little revenue. 
• You won’t get built-in support for recording and archiving longer and premium-quality live streams. 
• You won’t be able to protect your live content against piracy, as YouTube does not support multi-DRM.         
• You won’t get any technical support in case you encounter any glitches.       

Pros and Cons of Muvi Live

Some of the major pros of Muvi Live include:

• It is a white-labeled solution. So, you can insert your brand logo, watermarks, and other brand identities into the player. 
• You will be able to monetize 100% of your viewership using a Paywall Live Stream and keep 90% of the revenues that you generate. 
• Your content will be protected with built-in Multi-DRM. 
• You will get to leverage built-in live stream recording and storage features for all your live streams. 
• You will get dedicated technical support for your live events. 

But Muvi Live does have some cons too when compared to YouTube, like: 

• It is not a public platform. So viewership will solely depend on how you promote your live streams. 
• Though it supports live chat, it lags behind YouTube in terms of other audience engagement features. 

Pricing Comparison: YouTube vs Muvi Live

As we all know, YouTube is FREE to use. But when you do live streaming, and monetize your live streams, it keeps 45% of your revenues as platform fees. 

You can start live streaming for FREE with Muvi Live too. However, you will need to pay the infra cost, like the cost of bandwidth and streaming hours, as per your usage, on a monthly basis. The pricing of Muvi Live is explained in detail here.          

The Final Verdict

If your sole concern is earning more revenues from your live streams, Muvi Live is the clear winner here. And if you want to have customization options for your player, security for your live streams, and technical support, Muvi Live beats YouTube here as well! So, without waiting any further, sign up with Muvi Live and start earning more from your live streams!