How to Set Up a Donation-Triggered Spin Wheel (Streamlabs, StreamElements & Ko-fi)

Most "spin wheel for streamers" guides stop at putting a wheel on screen and leave you hitting the spin button yourself. That works, but it means alt-tabbing mid-game and it disconnects the wheel from the thing you actually want to reward: a donation. A donation-triggered wheel closes that loop. A viewer tips, the wheel spins on its own, it lands on a prize or a punishment, and the moment plays out hands-free while you keep playing. We'll use Wheel of Item because the donation trigger is built in and free, but the OBS and alert-service concepts apply broadly.

Why a donation-triggered wheel beats spinning it by hand

Manual spinning has three problems on a live stream. First, it's friction — you have to notice the tip, switch windows, and click, which kills the pacing. Second, it breaks the cause-and-effect: when you spin, the viewer doesn't feel like their money did anything. Third, it's easy to forget during an intense moment, and a missed spin is a missed thank-you.

Auto-spin-on-donation fixes all three. The tip and the spin become one event, so the reward feels immediate and earned. It also creates a clear, repeatable call to action you can pin in chat — "tip $5 to spin the wheel" — which is far easier to sell than a vague "donations appreciated." This auto-spin-on-tip behavior is Wheel of Item's signature feature, and honestly very few free wheels document it at all, which is part of why we wrote this page.

Step 1 — Build your wheel

Open Wheel of Item and type your options into the list. Good donation wheels mix outcomes the viewer wants to cause: game or character choices, dares, "viewer picks my next round," a shoutout, a silly forfeit, or prize tiers. You can reorder slices, weight them so a rare jackpot shows up less often, and recolor everything. No account is needed — the wheel is ready the instant you've typed it.

Step 2 — Connect your alert service in the streamer tools

Go to the streamer tools and connect the donation service you already use. This is the bridge that lets a real tip trigger a spin. Three services are supported, and they behave a little differently, so here's the honest rundown:

• Streamlabs — connect once and donations flow straight through to the wheel. This is the smoothest path if Streamlabs is already your tip page and alert box.
• StreamElements — same idea: link it in the streamer tools and tip events drive the wheel. Use this if your overlay lives in StreamElements.
• Ko-fi — Ko-fi tips and memberships can trigger the wheel too. Ko-fi's webhook fires on a successful payment, so there's a brief moment between the viewer paying and the spin landing — normal, just don't expect it to be instant to the millisecond.

If you don't use any of these yet, you can still add the wheel as a plain overlay and spin it manually or with a chat command — the auto-spin is the only part that needs an alert source.

Step 3 — Choose every tip vs a minimum threshold

In the streamer tools you decide what counts as a spin. Two modes:

• Every donation spins. Best when most tips are small and you want maximum engagement — every dollar gets a moment.
• Threshold spins. Set a minimum (say $5 or 50 bits) and only tips at or above it spin the wheel. This keeps the wheel feeling special and stops a flood of micro-tips from spamming the overlay. You can frame it cleanly in chat: "tip the threshold to spin."

There's no wrong answer — small communities often start on "every donation" for momentum, then switch to a threshold once tips pick up.

Step 4 — Optional: read the result aloud with TTS

You can turn on text-to-speech so the wheel's result is spoken out loud the moment it lands. This is a big deal for accessibility and for anyone watching without looking at the screen — the outcome is announced, not just shown. Combined with the donor's name, it makes the whole moment feel like a personal thank-you. TTS is optional and lives right next to the donation settings in the streamer tools, so you can toggle it on without touching anything else.

Step 5 — Add the wheel as a Browser source in OBS

Copy the widget URL from the streamer tools — that's the link OBS will load. Then in OBS Studio (or Streamlabs Desktop):

• Click + under Sources → Browser → Create new.
• Paste the widget URL into the URL field.
• Set a width and height that fit your layout (for example 800 × 800 for a square wheel).
• Leave the background transparent — the overlay already ships transparent, so the wheel floats over your scene with no green box.

Position and scale it where you want. Keep the widget URL semi-private — anyone with the link can see your overlay — but it's perfectly safe to paste into your own OBS.

Step 6 — Test with a test donation

Don't wait for a real viewer to find out it works. Every alert service has a test donation (or test tip) button — Streamlabs and StreamElements both have one in their dashboards, and Ko-fi lets you send yourself a small real tip to verify the webhook. Fire one and watch the wheel spin on its own in OBS. If you set a threshold, send a test below and a test above it to confirm both behaviors. When it spins, lands cleanly, and (if enabled) reads the result aloud, you're live.

What to put on a donation wheel

The wheel is only as fun as the slices on it. A flat list of "thank you" outcomes gets stale fast, so mix a few categories so every spin carries a little suspense:

• Gameplay forfeits — "play one round blindfolded," "swap to the worst weapon," "no jumping for five minutes." These are the bread and butter because they change what's happening on screen right now.
• Viewer-directed picks — "donor picks my next map," "donor names my character," "donor chooses the next song." The tipper feels ownership of the moment.
• Shoutouts and perks — a chat shoutout, a Discord ping, their name on a thank-you slice. Cheap to give, genuinely appreciated.
• Rare jackpots — weight one slice low so it lands rarely ("I do the whole next stream in a silly voice"). The small chance of a big payoff is what keeps people tipping for "one more spin."

Keep slice text short so it's readable on the overlay, and avoid promising anything you can't deliver on the spot — a donation wheel lives or dies on whether you actually honor what it lands on.

Troubleshooting: the wheel isn't spinning

If a test donation doesn't trigger a spin, work through these in order before assuming anything is broken:

• Is the alert service actually connected? Re-open the streamer tools and confirm Streamlabs, StreamElements, or Ko-fi shows as linked. A token that expired or a half-finished connect is the most common culprit.
• Did your test tip clear the threshold? If you're in threshold mode and sent a test below your minimum, the wheel will correctly ignore it. Send one at or above the minimum.
• Is the OBS browser source loading the right URL? A stale or mistyped widget URL shows a blank box. Right-click the source → Refresh, and double-check the URL matches the one in the streamer tools.
• Are you testing the same account? The wheel listens to the donation account you connected. A test fired from a different Streamlabs or StreamElements login won't reach it.

Once a test donation reliably spins the wheel, you've verified the whole chain end to end — tip in, spin out — and real donations will behave the same way.

Keep reading

Disclosure: this guide is published by the team behind Wheel of Item. We obviously think it's a good fit for a donation-triggered wheel, but the OBS browser-source and alert-service steps work with other overlays too — use whatever serves your stream best.