Comparison
Dacast prices bandwidth by the year and sells storage generously. CastNest prices by the month and leads on distribution.
Dacast is an established online video platform focused on live streaming, video hosting and monetization for businesses and broadcasters, with a strong emphasis on white-label delivery, paywall features and broadcast reliability. Its plans are quoted per month billed annually, with bandwidth granted as a yearly or upfront allowance, unlimited concurrent viewers on every tier, and published overage rates.
Dacast figures were read from dacast.com pricing on 2 September 2026. Both platforms revise their plans, so check the current pages before deciding.
| CastNest | Dacast | |
|---|---|---|
| Entry tier price | $19.99/mo billed monthly; annual discount available | $39/mo, billed annually |
| Entry tier bandwidth | 200 GB/mo — 2.4 TB a year | 2.4 TB a year |
| Entry tier storage | 100 GB | 500 GB |
| Mid tier | $149.99 Premium — 3 TB/mo (36 TB a year), 2 TB storage | $165 Scale — 24 TB a year, 2 TB storage |
| Multistream destinations | 6 to 30, depending on tier | Not a headline feature of the plans |
| Free trial | 7 days, no card | 14 days, no card |
| Published overage rates | Not published — you are notified before the cap | $0.30/GB bandwidth, $0.15/GB storage |
| Billing flexibility | Monthly or annual at every tier | Published rates are annual billing |
Highlighted cells mark where one platform is clearly stronger on that row — including where that is Dacast.
Dacast's Starter grants 2.4 TB of bandwidth a year for $39 a month billed annually. CastNest's Starter grants 200 GB a month, which is the same 2.4 TB across a year, for $19.99 — and you can pay monthly. The honest counterweight is storage: Dacast includes 500 GB at that tier against CastNest's 100 GB, so a large back catalog with modest delivery flips the math.
CastNest's plans are counted in multistream destinations, from 6 to 30, because pushing one feed to many platforms is the core job. Dacast's published plans lead on bandwidth, storage, transcoding channels and paywall rather than social distribution. If your audience is reached through YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitch simultaneously, that is the difference to weigh first.
Dacast publishes its overage rates — $0.30 per GB of bandwidth, $0.15 per GB of storage — so an unexpectedly large month has a knowable cost. CastNest does not publish overage rates; you are notified as you approach the cap and streams keep running rather than being cut mid-event. Dacast's approach is more predictable to model in a budget; CastNest's is more forgiving on the night. Neither is strictly better, but they suit different kinds of planning.
Dacast offers 14 days to CastNest's 7, and both take no card — a longer runway if your evaluation needs sign-off from several people. Against that, Dacast's published prices assume annual billing, so the low monthly figure comes with a year's commitment, while CastNest offers the same tiers monthly or annually with a 20% annual discount.
At the entry tier, the equivalent annual bandwidth is the same: CastNest includes 200 GB per month for $19.99 billed monthly, while Dacast lists 2.4 TB per year for $39 per month billed annually. Dacast includes considerably more storage at that tier — 500 GB against 100 GB — so if your catalog is large relative to your viewing volume volume, the comparison narrows or reverses. Compare both against your own bandwidth and storage split.
Dacast quotes a yearly or upfront figure and CastNest quotes a monthly one, so multiply CastNest by twelve to compare. Starter's 200 GB a month is 2.4 TB a year, matching Dacast's Starter. Premium's 3 TB a month is 36 TB a year, against 24 TB on Dacast's Scale tier at a broadly similar price.
Dacast publishes overage rates of $0.30 per GB for bandwidth and $0.15 per GB for storage. CastNest does not publish overage rates — you are notified as you approach the limit so you can move up a plan, and a live broadcast is not cut off mid-event because of an allowance.
Yes. Pay-per-view for single events or rentals, and subscriptions for recurring access, both from the Premium tier upwards. Payments run through your own connected Stripe or PayPal account, so the revenue and the customer relationship stay with you.
Starter includes a 7-day trial with no card, so you can run a real broadcast end to end before moving anything.
