A Kick follow alert is the short animation that plays on stream when someone follows your channel. For many new viewers it is the first on-screen thank-you they get from you, so it is worth setting up properly. It has to fire on real follows, show the right name, sit on a transparent background, and finish before it gets in the way of your gameplay.

This guide covers how follow events travel from Kick to OBS, how to set up a Kick follow alert in StreamElements or Streamlabs, the OBS Browser Source settings that matter, how to design the animation, and how to fix the problems that come up most often. For every other Kick event (subs, gifted subs, tips, and hosts), read our Kick alerts in OBS setup guide after this one.

How a Kick follow alert works

Three separate pieces have to work together.

Kick sends the event. When someone follows you, Kick emits a channel.followed event to apps that subscribe to your channel's events. Kick's developer documentation lists it as version 1 of the Channel Follow event. Its payload contains a broadcaster object and a follower object, each with fields such as username, profile_picture, and is_verified (Kick Dev Docs).
An alert widget receives it. StreamElements or Streamlabs, connected to your Kick account, receives the event, picks the alert you configured for follows, and fills in the follower's name.
OBS displays the widget. The widget is a web page. You add its URL to OBS as a Browser Source, and that page plays your animation and sound on top of your scene.

Keeping this chain in mind makes troubleshooting much faster. If the test button works but real follows do not appear, the problem sits between Kick and the widget, which usually means the account connection. If nothing shows even on a test, the problem sits between the widget and OBS: the URL or the source settings.

Comparison: StreamElements vs Streamlabs vs an OBS Media Source

Option	How the follow is detected	Where you build the alert	How it reaches OBS	Best for
StreamElements	Kick account connected to StreamElements	Overlay editor, AlertBox widget	Overlay URL as a Browser Source	Free hosted alerts, labels, and overlays in one place
Streamlabs	Kick merged into your Streamlabs ID	Alert Box under Streaming essentials	Alert Box source, OBS plugin, or widget URL	Streamers already using Streamlabs Desktop or several linked platforms
OBS Media Source	Not detected; you trigger it yourself	OBS only	Media Source pointing at the video file	Intros, reactions, and previewing a file

StreamElements announced its Kick integration in February 2025. The announcement covers custom follower, subscriber, and tip alerts, Labels that show your latest followers, and an Activity Feed that tracks every follow (StreamElements Blog). Streamlabs' alert guide, updated in May 2026, names Kick among the platforms you can link to one Streamlabs ID (Streamlabs Help).

An OBS Media Source can play a .webm file directly (OBS Knowledge Base), but it has no connection to Kick. It plays when you start it, not when someone follows. Use it to check how a file looks, and use a widget for live follows.

Pick one widget for follow alerts. If StreamElements and Streamlabs are both connected to Kick and both sit in your scene, every follow plays twice.

How to set up a Kick follow alert with StreamElements

StreamElements' alert guide is written around Twitch, but it says the process is basically the same for other platforms (StreamElements Help).

Connect Kick. Go to streamelements.com, click Log In, connect your Kick account, and choose Allow Access in the pop-up. If you already have a StreamElements account from another platform, open your dashboard, click your profile avatar, choose Channel Settings, scroll to Channels I manage, and connect your Kick channel there (StreamElements Blog).
Create an overlay. Go to Streaming tools, then Overlays, click New Overlay, and rename it to something you will recognise, such as "Kick alerts".
Add the AlertBox. Click Add widget, then Alerts, then AlertBox. This creates a basic alert box with default alerts.
Open the follower alert. Click the cog wheel next to the follower event. Use Set Image for a static image or GIF, or Change Video for a video file. Click Upload sound to replace the default sound, and choose a layout: text over image, row, or column.
Write the message. The only variable available for follows is {name}, the new follower's username, so a message like {name} just followed! is enough. Set the alert duration to match the length of your video and sound.
Save and copy the URL. Click Save. Then, on your Overlays page, open the three-dot menu on the overlay and click Copy URL (StreamElements Help).

How to set up a Kick follow alert with Streamlabs

Link Kick. Log in to streamlabs.com, click the arrow next to your profile picture, open Account Settings, select the Platforms tab, and click Merge next to Kick. Streamlabs recommends creating a Streamlabs ID to combine accounts (Streamlabs Help).
Open the Alert Box. In the left menu, find Streaming essentials and click Alert Box.
Set the general options. Alert Delay sets how many seconds to wait before an alert appears, and Streamlabs recommends 2 to 5 seconds. Alert Moderation lets you approve alerts before they show, and the Profanity Filter and Custom Bad Words list block words you do not want on screen.
Set the shared look. The Global Editing tab changes layout, animation, font, and text-to-speech for every alert at once.
Customise the Kick follow alert. Pick the platform, then the follow event, and change its image or sound. To play a different animation under certain conditions, click Add Variation and set the Condition.
Add it to your software. In Streamlabs Desktop, click the plus sign in Sources and pick Alert Box. With the Streamlabs plugin for OBS, open Streamlabs in the top menu, click Widgets, and add the Alert Box. In any other program, copy the Widget URL from the top of the page and paste it into a Browser Source.

Streamlabs repeats one warning throughout its guide: press Save Settings in the bottom right before you move to a different menu item.

OBS Browser Source settings that matter for alerts

Once you have a widget URL, add a Browser Source in OBS and paste it in. A few settings decide whether the alert behaves.

Width and height. OBS gives a new Browser Source an 800 by 600 viewport by default (OBS Knowledge Base). StreamElements notes that its overlays should most often be added at 1920x1080 (StreamElements Help). Set the source to your canvas size and position the alert inside the widget editor, rather than squeezing the source to fit.
Custom CSS. The default CSS sets a transparent background, removes body margins, and hides scroll bars. Leave it in place. If you have edited it and now see a solid box, paste the default back:

body { background-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); margin: 0px auto; overflow: hidden; }

Shutdown source when not visible. This is off by default. When it is on, OBS unloads the page whenever the source is hidden or not in the active scene, so follows that arrive then never play. Keep it off for alert sources.
Refresh browser source when scene becomes active. Also off by default. Leaving it off avoids reloading the widget every time you change scenes.
Refresh cache of current page. This button reloads the page immediately. Use it after you change the alert in your dashboard and OBS still shows the old version.

Put the alert source in every scene you go live with, including your Starting Soon and BRB scenes. The simplest way is one "Alerts" scene added as a source inside each of your other scenes, so there is only one copy to maintain.

Designing a Kick follow alert viewers notice

Follows are usually the most frequent alert on a growing channel, so the follow alert should be quick and light. Save the bigger celebrations for subs and gifted subs.

Keep it short. A few seconds is enough for a follow. Set the widget duration to match the file so the name does not hang on screen after the animation ends.
Make the name readable. The {name} text comes from the follower's Kick username, and usernames vary a lot in length. Leave space for long names, use high-contrast text with an outline or shadow, and test with the longest name you can think of.
Place it away from important things. Keep it clear of your webcam, chat box, and the game's HUD, such as the minimap or health bar. A top corner or the space beside your camera frame usually works.
Use a quiet, distinct sound. It should sit under your voice and sound different from your sub alert, so you and your viewers can tell events apart without looking.
Use a transparent file. A video with an alpha channel, such as a VP9 WebM, shows only the animation with no box around it. Our transparent WebM alerts guide explains the format and the OBS side.
Match the rest of your stream. The follow alert should share the character, colours, and type with your overlays and scene screens, so the stream looks like one channel.

If you want an animated follow alert built around your own mascot or logo, AlertForge's Kick alerts are made for this. You create a free Style Sheet when you sign up, which sets your character and colours. You then generate alerts with credits, and the cost is shown before each generation. Every alert downloads as a transparent WebM that you can upload to StreamElements with Change Video, or to the Streamlabs follow alert, and the same file also plays in an OBS Media Source. To keep the look consistent across your scenes, the Starting Soon screen maker builds Starting Soon, BRB, and Offline screens from the same approved style sheet.

Checklist before you go live

Only one alert tool is set to play follow alerts for your Kick channel.
A test alert from the dashboard plays in the OBS preview.
The alert source is present in every live scene, and Shutdown source when not visible is off.
The source size matches your canvas, and nothing is cropped.
The background is transparent, with no black or white box.
A very long username fits on one line or wraps cleanly.
The alert sound is clear in a short local recording but quieter than your voice.
Alerts are not muted or paused in your activity feed.
A friend has followed during a short test stream, so you have seen a real event, not only a test.

Troubleshooting

Test alerts play, but real follows do not. The widget-to-OBS side works, so check the Kick connection. Open the activity feed in your alert tool. If the follow appears there but no alert played, check that alerts are not muted or paused in the feed (StreamElements Help). If the follow is missing from the feed, refresh the Kick connection. When StreamElements added KICKs events in September 2026, its changelog told Kick channels that were not receiving them to log in to StreamElements again (StreamElements Changelog), and the same step is worth trying when follows go missing. In Streamlabs, check that Kick still shows as merged on the Platforms tab.

Nothing shows at all, even on a test. Copy the URL again from the dashboard and paste it into the source's Properties. Check that the source is visible and in the current scene, then click Refresh cache of current page. StreamElements also suggests switching Browser Source hardware acceleration on or off in OBS under Settings, then Advanced.

A black or white box appears behind the alert. Restore the default Custom CSS shown above. If the box comes from the video itself, the file has no alpha channel. Replace it with a transparent WebM. To check that your setup can show transparency at all, the AI transparent video page has a free WebM test file: add it to OBS, and if you see your scene behind the character, transparency works.

The alert is cut off or in the wrong place. The Browser Source size probably does not match the overlay size. Set it to your canvas, usually 1920x1080, and remove any crop on the source.

Every follow plays twice. Two widgets are connected to Kick and both are in your scene, or the same Browser Source was added twice. Remove one.

Alerts arrive late. Check the Alert Delay value in Streamlabs, or the duration of your other alerts. During a burst of follows, alerts queue and play one after another.

There is no sound. Check the volume set in the widget, confirm that the sound file uploaded, and check the Browser Source's level in the OBS Audio Mixer.

FAQ

Is a Kick follow alert free to set up? Yes. StreamElements describes its Kick alerts, overlays, and chatbot as free, and Streamlabs offers both free and paid themes. You only pay if you buy a theme or have a custom animation made.

Can a Kick follow alert show the follower's profile picture? Kick's follow event does include a profile_picture field, but your widget decides what it can display. StreamElements lists {name} as the only variable for follower alerts, so plan your design around the name.

What size should a Kick follow alert be? The Browser Source should match your canvas, most often 1920x1080. The animation itself only needs to fill part of that space. Leave room around it for the name text.

Can I use a WebM file as my Kick follow alert? Yes. StreamElements accepts a video through Change Video, and OBS Media Sources play .webm files. Use a WebM with an alpha channel so the background stays transparent.

Can I use the same follow alert on Twitch and Kick? Yes. The video file does not depend on the platform, but you set up the follow event separately for each platform in your widget. Our Twitch follow alert guide covers the Twitch side.