It's no secret that one of the biggest perks of being a streamer is the ability to earn money merely by chatting with the audience or playing video games. In the new article, Streams Charts will tell you just how much streamers earn on Twitch and what their income on the platform depends on.
How Twitch streamers make money
There are many ways to earn money on Twitch, including signing an exclusive contract with the platform, but the factors responsible for the largest share of the streamers’ income are the following:
- Donations
- Advertising
- Subscriptions
- Sponsorship
Donations
Donations are one of the most ancient forms of support ever known to mankind. Essentially, the viewers simply send their money to a streamer with the help of specialized services. Some of these services charge a certain percentage of the transferred funds and also allow displaying a message on the streamer's screen, turning on a video, and much more. Other services, such as Streamlabs, charge no fees for donations to streamers, while offering similar functionality.
Twitch also has its own virtual currency called Bits. It can be purchased with real money and used in your favorite streamer's chat via Cheer messages and other methods that tend to stand out more.
Advertising
When one starts streaming, there will almost always be a thirty-second ad, and sometimes two ads in a row can be shown at once before the start of the stream.
During the broadcast, the streamer himself can run ads that will last 30 seconds. Usually, creators do this when they need to take a break and step away from the PC. Abusing the ability to run ads on broadcasts usually leads to losing the majority of one’s viewers.
The ad revenue of streamers tends to vary greatly and is entirely dependent on the value of the ads shown. All in all, it is far from being the biggest part of their total income. For example, in Eastern Europe, the price tag for 1000 ad views is about $3-$4 (which is quite small compared to the cost of advertising, for example, in Western Europe). However, this can bring the streamer around $200-$400 per month.
Subscriptions
A much bigger and oftentimes the main part of the streamer income comes from the paid subscriptions.
Found in the lower right corner below the Twitch broadcasts are three buttons: Follow, Notifications, Subscribe. The first two are free options that allow one to keep track of when a streamer has started streaming and receive notifications about it. The latter is paid and allows the streamer to earn money. Unlike the number of followers, the number of paid subscribers is not published anywhere and is known only to the streamer.
Check out our new Twitch subs count tool for more information on subs, earnings.
Viewers with paid subscriptions get access to exclusive global emojis, special badges, ad-free streaming, and more.
There are up to three subscription tiers (all auto-renewable), and starting from August 2021 each of these is priced based on the region where the streamer operates. While earlier the standard price for a monthly subscription worldwide was $4.99, now it can be $4.49 (Singapore), $3.99 (Spain), $3.49 (Belarus), $2.99 (China), $2.49 (El Salvador), $1.99 (Afghanistan) and $1.49 (Moldova). You may check out all the regional prices for Twitch subscriptions here.
This leads to the conclusion that streamers that earn more come from the regions where a paid subscription is more expensive. For example, in the US prices look like this:
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Tier 1: $4.99 per month
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Tier 2: $9.99 per month
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Tier 3: $24.99 per month
The more subscribers a channel has, the more exclusive emoticons it can have. Twitch streamers earn a minimum of 50% of subscription fees. The more subscribers, the higher is the percentage that the channel owner can take. The most popular streamers can receive up to 70% of the payment for a subscription.
Here's how much you can earn per month with paid subscriptions:
- 100 subscribers – $250
- 500 subscribers – $1,250
- 1K subscribers – $2,500
Sponsorship
In regions where subscription costs are low, external sponsorship contracts account for a large share of streamers' income. Companies are willing to generously pay Twitch channel owners to promote their brand. Some ask to place a banner under the broadcast, tell the viewers about their products, or even just play their game on the stream. For example, Electronic Arts allegedly paid Ninja about $1M for the Apex Legends streams.
How much do the newcomers to Twitch streaming earn?
According to StreamerFacts, aspiring streamers can earn anywhere from $50K to $1.5K per month depending on the number of Average Viewers they have. For example, a creator with 10 Average Viewers can earn about $50 a month, while a streamer with hundreds of viewers can earn up to $1.5K per month on average.
Of course, these are just estimates. Real earnings will depend on the streamer's charisma, the wealth of his viewers, regional subscription prices, and many other factors, including luck. For example, in April 2021, cryptocurrency trader CryptoCobain, along with subscribers, donated more than $85K to aspiring music streamer Cameron Ferguson during a raid.
In turn, the example of the novice female streamer QuirkyPixel showed us that earning $64.81 in 30 days while having five Average Viewers and 26 paid subscribers is a real possibility. Most of the girl's profits were donations from the audience. Note that one may find many inspiring videos of this kind on YouTube.
How much do the established Twitch streamers earn?
Large streamers with over 1K Average Viewers can earn $5K-$30K per month. At the same time, to earn $30K, one needs to gather around 10K Average Viewers.
These streamers include Fuslie, who earns about $30K a month while having over 13K Average Viewers and several thousand paid subscribers.
How much do the top Twitch streamers earn?
The incomes of the most famous Twitch creators start from $100K per month and can reach as much as $1M. Paid subscriptions alone can bring in several hundred thousand dollars, given the increased share received by the streamers from each such subscription. At the same time, found on the broadcasts of creators from this category are not tens but even hundreds of thousands of viewers. For example, broadcasts in which xQcOw played the Valorant beta version gathered 130K Average Viewers in April 2020, while one of the streams also gathered 229K Peak Viewers.
How much do the girls earn on Twitch?
There is an opinion that it is easier for girls to make money on Twitch, and this is partly true. A significant part of the platform's audience is made up of men, so a good-looking female streamer can easily find her audience and receive signs of attention in form of large donations. The behavior of some female streamers during the broadcasts is downright provocative, which serves to attract even more attention from the male audience.
In the summer of 2021, the infamous female streamer Amouranth admitted that she receives no more than a total of $130K a month from Twitch, YouTube, and TikTok (the girl regularly gathers around 10K Average Viewers on Twitch). At the same time, she earns more than $1M a month from an account with candid photos and videos on OnlyFans. Note that it was Twitch that became the starting point for Amouranth to reach such a level of income.
Most wealthy Twitch streamers
October 2021 was marked by a Twitch data leak, as a result of which the income of most partners of the website became known, starting from the end of 2019. Some streamers have reported inaccuracies in the data, but many have confirmed that the leaked numbers are similar to actual pre-tax payouts.
According to the leaked information, the streamers from the USA and Canada earn the most on Twitch (excluding donations), and following them are creators from European countries. For example, the Canadian xQcOW earned more than $8.4M in this period spanning less than two years, while the Spaniard auronplay earned about $3M over the same period. Gaules stood out strongly when compared to other Brazilian streamers, as his earnings during this period amounted to $2.8M.
How to become a Twitch partner?
Anyone can start streaming immediately after registering on Twitch, but monetization options will not be available to them. For the platform to start paying a streamer, the latter must participate in the partnership program by fulfilling certain conditions for each level.
To become an Affiliate, you require:
- 50 subscribers
- 500 minutes of streaming in the last 30 days
- 7 unique streaming days in the last 30 days
- 3+ Peak Viewers on average in the last 30 days
To become a Partner, you have to:
- Spend at least 25 hours on air over the last 30 days
- Stream for at least 12 days of the last 30 days
- Attract at least 75 Average Viewers over the last 30 days
Note that this last level of the Twitch partnership program has a significant advantage. For example, unlike the Affiliates, the Partners of the website can have custom Cheer emotes, create up to 60 emojis for subscribers, set a broadcast delay of up to 15 minutes, store stream records for up to 60 days, as well as avoid the payment fees altogether. The full list of differences between a Twitch Affiliate and Partner can be found here.
As you now know, streamers make pretty good money on Twitch. With more than 100 regular viewers who donate generously and sign up for paid subscriptions monthly, one can earn more than $1K. Advancing just a little bit allows one to discover that there’s no need to go to work anymore: streaming is a viable replacement. If one’s broadcasts gather more than a thousand viewers, one can be called a successful streamer and earn above $5K. It will take more than one year to reach the income level of the most popular Twitch creators ($200K+), but having some luck, charisma, and creativity can speed up this process.