# How to set up Discord notifications > Set up Discord notifications from eight external platforms — the shared three-step setup every platform follows, and where each one actually differs. - Canonical: https://discordguides.blog/blog/set-up-discord-notifications - Published: 2026-10-08 - Author: The Manual desk - Facts checked: 2026-08-31 - Sources: - Vetox docs — How notifications work (https://docs.vetox.io/en/notifications/overview) — checked 2026-08-31 - Streamcord — premium and platform coverage (https://streamcord.io/pro/) — checked 2026-08-31 - MonitoRSS — pricing and feed limits (https://monitorss.xyz/pricing) — checked 2026-08-31 - Publication: The Manual, an independent site not affiliated with Discord Inc. --- Eight platforms — Twitch, YouTube, Kick, Reddit, Bluesky, Steam, RSS and Podcasts — share one architecture in Vetox: a watch list of up to 10 sources per platform, a target channel, and an embed template. Every one of them follows the same setup shape, and every one of them shares the same short list of reasons nothing arrives. **Before you start:** Notifications require **Basic** premium or above, on every platform. You need Administrator permission in the server, or to be the owner, to configure them. The bot needs **View Channel**, **Send Messages** and **Embed Links** in every target channel — Embed Links specifically, since every announcement is an embed. ## 1. Turn the platform on in Server Setup This is the step every guide to this feature has to lead with, because it is the single most common reason a fully configured platform announces nothing: each of the eight platforms has its **own toggle** in Server Setup, off by default, and the notifications settings page gives no indication of its state. Adding a subscription and setting a channel does not turn the platform on — check Server Setup separately. ## 2. Add a source The specifics differ slightly by platform — a Twitch username, a YouTube channel, a subreddit, a raw RSS URL — but the shape is the same: search or paste the identifier, and Vetox resolves it. Up to **10 sources per platform, per server**, on every tier from Basic to the top one. This cap does not scale with premium. ## 3. Point it at a channel and confirm Embed Links Every platform announces as an embed, so **Embed Links** in the target channel is non-negotiable — without it, nothing posts and nothing in the notifications page will tell you why. ## 4. Know the two tracking models Vetox tracks platforms one of two ways, and which one matters for what you should expect: | Model | Platforms | Behaviour | | --------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | **Live state** | Twitch, Kick | Announces the moment the stream's status _changes_ from offline to online (and back, if you enable it) | | **New content** | YouTube, Reddit, Bluesky, Steam, RSS, Podcasts | Announces each new item once, individually | The practical consequence: adding a Twitch or Kick streamer who is **already live** produces nothing. The live-state tracker only fires on a transition, so the first announcement you get is their _next_ stream. Test with someone currently offline, or simply wait. ## 5. Customise the embed and the ping Every platform accepts a **custom embed template** with platform-specific variables — `{stream.title}` and `{stream.game}` for Twitch, `{video.title}` and `{video.type}` for YouTube, and so on; using one platform's variable on another resolves as empty text and the field is silently dropped. RSS and Podcasts additionally accept a **custom plain-text message** up to 2,000 characters, alongside the embed. An optional **mention role** pings on every announcement — useful for a dedicated `#going-live` channel members opt into via a role, rather than pinging the whole server. ## 6. Wait for the next real event before judging it Because nothing backfills and live-state platforms only fire on transitions, the honest test of a fresh setup is patience: wait for the streamer's actual next stream, or the feed's actual next post, rather than assuming a quiet first hour means something is broken. ## What each platform is for - **Twitch and Kick** — the two live-state platforms, for a streamer's own community or a game's community tracking creators who play it. - **YouTube** — uploads and live broadcasts from a channel, distinguished by the `{video.type}` variable since you cannot route the two to different channels for the same YouTube channel. - **Reddit and Bluesky** — social content, each with its own filtering quirks (Bluesky excludes replies and reposts twice over; quote posts are not filtered on either). - **Steam** — patch notes and news for a specific game, sourced from every outlet that publishes into that game's news hub, not only the developer. - **RSS and Podcasts** — the two general-purpose platforms, for anything with a feed: a blog, a changelog, a status page, or a podcast's episode feed. ## Vetox versus the specialists No competitor bot checked in this comparison covers all eight platforms Vetox does, and the two that specialise split the space cleanly along exactly the two tracking models above. **Streamcord** owns live-stream detection — Twitch, YouTube and Kick, free at 5 tracked channels per platform per server, with a $2.99/month Pro tier raising Twitch to 250 but YouTube and Kick only to 10 — and stops there; there is no path to Reddit, Bluesky, Steam, RSS or podcasts at any price. **MonitoRSS** owns feed-based content instead, covering "anything with a feed" including Reddit and Bluesky indirectly through their own feeds, free at 3 feeds with 20-minute polling, scaling to 2,000 feeds on its $10/month Team plan — but it has no live-state detection for Twitch or Kick at all, because neither publishes a first-party feed to poll. Two further specialists sit outside the bots most directly compared here: **NotifyMe** covers five platforms including TikTok and X, and **Notify** covers eleven including Trovo, Rumble and Odysee. Where Vetox is alone is combining **live-stream alerts and feed-based content in the same product**: a server that wants Twitch alerts and a changelog RSS feed and podcast episodes elsewhere needs at least two of the specialist bots to match what one Vetox setup covers, and even then has no path to Steam or Bluesky from either of the two most directly comparable ones. ## Common questions **Why does the FAQ page say I can have more than 10 Twitch streamers, but I hit a wall at 10?** Ten is correct and flat across every tier, Black included — there is no premium path past it on any single platform. **I get the live announcement but never the offline one. Is that broken?** No — offline announcements are off by default on both Twitch and Kick. Turn `Notify when offline` on for the specific streamer if you want it. **Why did clearing the channel field silently keep the old channel?** An emptied channel field is not sent to the server at all, so the previous value is kept with no error shown. Select a different channel instead of clearing the field. **My premium lapsed for a week — will I get a flood of everything I missed once I renew?** No. Anything published during the lapse is marked as already seen, so reactivating premium resumes tracking going forward rather than replaying the backlog. For the two most commonly requested platforms individually, see [setting up Twitch alerts](/blog/set-up-discord-twitch-alerts) and [setting up YouTube notifications](/blog/set-up-discord-youtube-alerts). If a fully configured platform still posts nothing, [why your notifications are not arriving](/blog/discord-notifications-not-working) walks the full failure list in order.