Managed IRL kits bill you a flat premium every month for data locked to their hardware and their portal. A Mushbox is a one-time build — then you assemble your own connections from carriers you choose, and pay only for what your stream actually uses.
Parts pricing moves with the market, so the total shifts a little from build to build. Here's a representative rig priced recently.
Radxa compute board, capture, modems, cabling, enclosure, mounts. Fluctuates with component prices.
Assembly, flashing, NOALBS + OBS tuning, bonding setup, and testing until it's stream-ready out of the bag.
The camera isn't part of the box or its running costs. The Mushbox works with any USB camera, so you're free to pick what suits your content and budget. If you want a starting point, these are the ones I recommend:
The recommended build is simple: two cellular lines through the BELABOX cloud relay — about $60/month for most streamers, on the data plans I help you set up. Everything below the relay and your two lines is optional, added whenever you want it. There's no cap on connections except your budget.
BELABOX cloud SRT + SRTLA relay — the server that merges your bonded links into one clean feed.
Unlimited data SIMs on different networks for diversity. Two is the sweet spot; add more anytime — the only limit is budget. The plans I recommend and help you set up run about $25/mo each. You're free to bring your own instead, but a line on a major carrier usually costs $50+/mo.
Not needed to start. Add Starlink Roam whenever you want truly remote coverage — from ~$50/mo, or a Mini on an existing account. Pause it in months you're not traveling.
Managed rigs bill a monthly fee for cloud-hosted OBS. Your scenes run on the streaming PC and home internet you already pay for, so that cost simply isn't on the list. It's compute you already own, put to work — a real slice of the savings, not a rounding error.
If you don't have a streaming PC or reliable home internet to run OBS, you can host it in the cloud instead — a monthly service, but it keeps you fully mobile with nothing to leave running at home. I recommend antiscuff.com, which starts at $50/month for the budget package — and you get 10% off with code mushbox
Almost everyone starts in the first column — the recommended build. The other two are optional scale-ups you can grow into whenever your streaming takes you further off the grid.
Carrier and satellite pricing changes constantly, and budget cellular plans can throttle or deprioritize during a long bonded stream — so treat every figure here as a ballpark for planning, not a locked quote. Your real monthly cost depends on your carrier mix and how far off the grid you stream. Happy to walk through a setup that actually holds up for how you go live.