Quick answer
Yes — Overlayr is a one-time-purchase alternative to StreamElements. It costs $69 once, while StreamElements runs $19/mo (Streamlabs Ultra) — about $149 per year, every year. Self-hosted stream overlays — countdowns, goal bars, tickers, alerts — each just a URL in an OBS Browser Source. It is for people who want the job done on their own hardware without a renewal date — not for teams that live inside StreamElements's ecosystem.
The verdict
Switch to Overlayr if you are an individual or small team paying StreamElements $19/mo (Streamlabs Ultra) for work your own machine can do. Streamlabs Ultra is $149/yr. Overlayr pays for itself in about 3.5 months — and saves you roughly $378 over 3 years.
Stay with StreamElements if your workflow depends on its integrations, you need enterprise features (SSO, admin controls, SLAs), or your team is large enough that per-seat collaboration tooling is worth the bill. Overlayr does not try to replicate those.
Head to head
| Overlayr | StreamElements | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $69 once | Streamlabs Ultra $19/mo ($149/yr) · OWN3D Pro $12.99/mo |
| Self-hosted, own your data | Yes | Cloud only |
| Watermark / branding | None | On free tiers |
| Webhook-triggered alerts | Built in | Paid tier |
| Timer survives OBS reconnects | Yes — server-authoritative | Varies |
| Themes | 5 presets + full overrides | Marketplace |
| Cost over 3 years | $69 | $447+ (Ultra annual) |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed |
| 5-year cost | $69 | $745 |
Where StreamElements still wins
- Ecosystem and integrations. Established tools accumulate years of third-party integrations, templates and add-ons. If your workflow is wired into StreamElements's ecosystem, switching means rebuilding that plumbing — a real cost.
- Team and enterprise features. Shared workspaces, granular permissions, SSO, audit logs and a vendor to call when something breaks — that is what the higher subscription tiers actually buy, and a pay-once app does not come with it.
- Familiarity and hiring. StreamElements is the name people already know. Onboarding a team onto a tool nobody has used before takes time the subscription never charges for.
Where Overlayr wins
- Price, permanently. $69 once versus $149/yr for as long as you use it. There is no renewal, no seat count and no tier gate.
- 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.
The math
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.
Common 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.
Try Overlayr — $69, one time
Or get Overlayr plus every other app in the suite: the OneTimeSuite bundle is currently $97, one time.