The price anchor
| Overlayr | StreamElements | |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | $0 — no subscription | $19/mo (Streamlabs Ultra) |
| Annual | $0 after purchase | $149 |
| 5-year total | $69 | $745 |
| 10-year total | $69 | $1,490 |
Subscription figures from the vendor's published pricing ($19/mo (Streamlabs Ultra), ~$149/yr); the Overlayr column is the full price, paid once.
Break-even analysis
Streamlabs Ultra is $149/yr. Overlayr pays for itself in about 3.5 months — and saves you roughly $378 over 3 years.
- After 1 year: Overlayr has cost you $69 total — StreamElements has cost $149.
- After 3 years: Overlayr is still $69 — the subscription is at $447.
- After 5 years: Overlayr is still $69 — the subscription is at $745.
What you get for $69 once
- Countdown timer. Target datetime or duration mode, pause/resume/reset from the dashboard, custom end message, optional end sound.
- Goal bar. Animated fill, +1/+5/+10 dashboard buttons, milestone flash on target — also settable via webhook.
- Rotating ticker. A list of messages with fade/slide transitions or a scrolling marquee mode.
- Starting-soon scene. Full-screen headline + sub-text + embedded countdown, optional background image and looping audio.
- Alert box + webhook. Fire alerts from a dashboard button or POST /hook/:token — wire it to Streamer.bot, Zapier, or anything that can make an HTTP request.
- No renewal, ever. The license does not expire and there is no per-seat meter — $69 is the whole price.
Pricing questions
Is it really free on GitHub?
Yes — the full source is MIT at github.com/bensblueprints/overlayr-mvp. The $69 buys the packaged installer, guided VPS deploy and lifetime updates instead of running npm and docker yourself.
Isn't StreamElements free?
The core is, and it's genuinely good — that's the honest answer. But the polished themes, extras and watermark removal live in paid tiers (Streamlabs Ultra is $19/mo, OWN3D Pro $12.99/mo), and your overlays live on their cloud either way. Overlayr is for streamers who want to own the whole stack and never see a "premium" upsell again.
Does it do follower/sub alerts from Twitch automatically?
Not natively — alerts fire from the dashboard or a webhook (POST /hook/:token). If you already run Streamer.bot or any EventSub relay, point it at the webhook and platform events flow through. If you want zero-setup native platform alerts, StreamElements still does that out of the box.
Why don't my timers reset when OBS reloads the source?
Because the server owns the clock. Overlayr stores started_at/ends_at in SQLite and recomputes remaining time on every WebSocket reconnect — scene switches and Browser Source reloads always resync to the correct time.
Overlayr — $69, one time
Or get Overlayr plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.