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How Do Twitch Streamers Make Money
Ever thought about how do twitch streamers make money? For those of you who do not know what twitch is how do twitch streamers make money, twitch is the home of video game lovers from young to old people living anywhere in the globe.
Twitch appeared for the first time in the year 2011 and it’s probably a decade for your favorite platform. This platform has gained more than 2 million broadcasters in such a short time which are popularly known as streamers.
These streamers perform live steam to show themselves and share with their followers everything from making music to sharing information about household jobs. Mostly they do so by playing video games. There are a lot of video games played and telecasted on twitch. Per month it is estimated that there are nearly 5.5 million twitch broadcasts.
Twitch is highly popular for its generous money-making options for various creators who use it. This is a great opportunity for those who love playing games and have fueled the options for video game players to earn money online. In spite of having so much fierce competition from the Facebook gamine platform and youtube gaming platform, Twitch has done exceptionally well.
Video game enthusiasts usually flock to twitch for watching elite players playing their favorite games and reward them by becoming channel subscribers via paid mode or sending them Bits. Bits is the virtual currency of the twitch platform.
The top streamers on twitch do not earn money as much as top YouTubers do but they are not far behind them. There are few twitch streamers that do make more in millions per day. But earning so much in a single day is quite rare, then how do Twitch streamers make money? Let’s find through different sources of their income.
There are several methods via which one can figure out how do twitch streamers make money. Let’s find out each method to know how do twitch streamers make money.
How Do Twitch Streamers Make Money?
There are probably 7 ways through which one can monetize their channel on this platform to make good money once they gain enough subscribers or people who pay for their channel via bits.
1. How Do Twitch Streamers Make Money Using Channel Subscription Revenue
This is the most primary way through which you can find out how do twitch streamers make money. They earn money through their channel subscriptions. Twitch also explains that subscriptions on the channel will let their community support the channel consistently and get rewarded by giving some exclusive perks. Twitch splits the revenue through subscriptions which the gamers or players have which indicates that the streamers on twitch will earn half the money or fees gained through subscriptions.
One more thing is that twitch streamers can also apply for becoming the Twitch Partners. This is a program generated by twitch. This is an official designation by twitch given to some of the most popular or subscribed video game streamers and broadcasters.
Once a person becomes an exclusive Twitch partner, they receive a lot of exclusive features from the Twitch platform that helps them in the future to monetize their channels. Other than twitch partners, twitch also has a twitch affiliate program that allows te gamers having a more modest following to earn money through their subscriptions or other means of generating revenue.
Here is a list of pricing for Twitch subscribers from which the viewers can choose. This is a 3 tier plan for those who want to subscribe to their favorite gamers or other people monthly. The plans are 4.99 dollars, 9.99 dollars, and 24.99 dollars per month.
The fees generated through subscription grant the viewers some additional perks of being on the platform with all these subscription plans. Not to say, the more you pay the better the rewards are. Some of the important perks of subscription include the usage of custom cheermotes, the ability to watch their favorite live-streamers without bothering of ads, and only chatroom created for the subscriber.
Twitch users can also buy and gift their subscriptions to some other members. Those who are members of amazon prime will receive a subscription-free for a period of one month although you must know that the subscription would not auto-renew. Normally the subscription auto-renews after completion of one month. In spite of this, the amazon prime subscribers get a foot inside the door which enables more potential paid subscribers to present down the line.
2. Donations And Cheers From The Subscribers
This is another method via which you can figure out how do twitch streamers make money through this amazing platform. The people who subscribe to your channel on twitch and enjoy the live streams you play for them can support your channel through their wish by purchasing the virtual currency given by twitch in the form of bits. They can later use these.
The value is as follows:
- 1000 bits equal 10 dollars
- 100 bits equals 1.40 dollars
- 500 bits equals 7 dollars
- 1500 bits equals 19.95 dollars.
- 5000 bits equal 64.40 dollars
- 10000 bits equal 126 dollars
- 250000 bits equal nearly 308 dollars
These bits can be purchased and redeemed to cheer their favorite streamer. Use can simply type the word “cheer” in their chat box and then they will have to enter the number of bits they wish to spend for their favorite streamer to be paid.
The cheer option is displayed in the chatroom in the form of an animated gif, either a Cheermote or Bit gem, these are twitch’s versions of normal emojis. Twitch partners may also create customized cheermotes for their subscribers to be used superficially for them. These emojis created by bits are in different shapes and forms than the normal emojis we use on other platforms.
Streamers make good money and earn more money when their fans cheer on them. They may earn 0.01 dollars for every single bit. Fans usually use the cheers for celebrating some exciting moments during the gameplay they see like when their favorite gamer beats the boss or completes an impressive battle within the video games.
Streamers can also show their appreciation for cheers by making and posting a leaderboard on the profile page they use to encourage other people as well.
This was all about cheers, another thing mentioned above through which the twitch streamers make money is the use of donations.
Twitch fans can also give pure donations to their favorite live streamers and gamers via Paypal, Patreon, or some other donation platform specially designed for creators. These donations are not simply mentioned as “donation” on the platform, they are instead named as “tips”. These tips are anywhere between a few dollars to even thousands of dollars for your interest. If you are already a live streamer or you are a fan of other live streamers whom you wish to donate or give tips, you can simply see an option called “donate to PayPal” for paying, These icons are simply present in the chatbox or directly on the homepage of that streamer.
These donations can be lucrative because twitch live streamer will earn 100% of these donations with a reduction of transaction fee only. There are several niche platforms that have cropped up within the economy of twitch to help the streamers bring these donations and funds like stream elements and stream labs. Some players and streamers use other means of payment platforms to solicit all the donations they receive in cryptocurrency which is a good means nowadays.
There are some streamers who also set up Milestones for their donations or donations on their homepage with a goal to receive aspirational amounts in dollars for their work. You can also set these goals as they are ordinary like you may mention college tuition or paying rent or mention some playful reasons like getting a tattoo done or require cash for eating pizza.
When your fan donates or uses cheer as a medium to transfer money, it will be broadcasted on their chatbox with a simple message by the streamers. Twitch streamers read these messages frequently aloud and respond to their fan while they are on the broadcast to show gratitude for donating the money.
This was all about how does twitch streamers make money via donations and cheers on their chatbox and homepage of their channel.
Let’s proceed towards the third option which you should know in how do twitch streamers make money to find out more and become a successful twitch streamer by yourself.
3. How Do Twitch Streamers Make Money By Ad Revenues
This is another highly popular way of monetizing your channel if you are a successful Twitch streamer. This is quite similar to the one we already know which is YouTube ad revenue or video ads available on youtube as soon as we play a video. Both interstitial ads and pre-roll ads play whenever a person tunes in to a live stream by the gamers or creators or whenever they play any prerecorded game or clip present on someone’s channel. This ad revenue option in Twitch generally falls under a flat-rate CPM model which you should know if you wish to know everything about how do twitch streamers make money.
All those users who already have registered for twitch prime membership or use some sort of ad-blockers would not see ads. Also, the channel itself would not show ads for all those users who have subscribed to them or paid for subscriptions. One more interesting thing to note is that twitch has announced recently that they are going to phase out ad-free viewing on twitch as a Prime perk. This is done to support the efforts of crucial revenue streams for various creators.
There is another useful way one can use to save time and earn through platforms. You can repost your videos from the twitch platform frequently on other platforms like Facebook gamine, youtube gaming, or other channels, and earn money from those. Many creators do edit lengthy live streams and link their gameplay into compilation videos but just the highlights of gameplays. In this manner, streamers will generate additional revenue from the same video or gameplay by reaching out to different audiences who are not available on Twitch.
Isn’t this an amazing source of income for all those people who enjoy gaming and love spending their time making videos on different platforms?
Let’s proceed to the next way through which you will know how do twitch streamers make money online by sharing videos.
4. Partnership With Brands
Most of these money-making ways are quite the same as the ones you already know for other huge platforms like Instagram and youtube. Twitch streamers also partner with various brands frequently. This is a niche of influencer marketing that is quite specific to gamers.
Streamers may easily work with popular brands as either a one-time camping or signal contract about ongoing partnership and become long-term brand ambassadors for promoting their content and products. If you know about gaming, you must know those video game advertisers or who belong to the industry are the most common sponsors. As Twitch is still gaining a lot of fame and popularity, many non-gaming brands are partnering increasingly with creates or streamers on twitch for influencer marketing campaigns.
There are few types of sponsorships from brands that one must know. These include:
Product sponsorships- In this type, the streamers on twitch have to promote the product sent by specific brands, this may include streaming software, computer gears, or game titles.
Tournament Sponsorships- Brands usually cover the cost of specific creators for partnering with contests they create and competitions held. They will also cover various expenses like sign-up fees and travel costs.
There are many video game companies that host their own tournaments and they select sponsor creators to promote their tournaments and play in them so that more people can join based on their fan following. Once you see your favorite gaming streamers participating and playing a tournament that you feel is your genre, you are more likely to participate in it.
There are several ways through which brands work with twitch streamers and get them paid for promoting their content. These include:
Content Creation- In this mode of working, the brands collaborate with various content creators on twitch to make content like unboxing, sponsored live streams, tutorials, giveaways, review videos, etc
Product Development- In this mode, brands solicit feedback on their products from the creators to influence others into using the same products.
Driving Affiliate Sales- In this mode of working of brands and creators, the brands work with different creates for selling some products to the twitch community or the fans creator has. The streamers on twitch are given special codes for discounts and tracking the links which will allow them to earn good commissions whenever they sell products through links generated by them. Affiliate links are a good way to generate money for twitch streamers.
5. Sponsorships
When twitch streamers join the esports league and partner with huge brands, they can generate good income. Professional video gaming is a successful and bug business. eSports which means electronic sports is the colloquial name assigned to the internal competitive community of video gaming.
It is briefly estimated that the total revenue generated by the esports industry is somewhere between 900 to 906 million dollars current. By the end of this year, it is estimated that the revenue generated will reach nearly 1.5 billion dollars. This clearly explains the popularity.
eSports have gained immense popularity and have become their own subculture after evolving so much. esports leagues have grown so much over the past years that they are compared to certain mainstream sports like tennis and soccer. Taking a casual glance at ESPN’s esports portal, one can easily confirm that esports has turned into a worldwide phenomenon with its own rivalries and superstars on both team level and individual levels.
Twitch streamers also compete with each other competitively. Twitch streamers can attract different sponsorships both on individual levels or by making a team of players that becomes a part of the esports league. You can easily get sponsorships which range from several hundred to thousand dollars depending upon the type of deal they manage to receive from the leagues.
The biggest teams in esports operate as business which employs both management staff for full time and professional gamers. To train themselves for tournaments, the gamers or streamers on twitch practice for more than 8 hours. As far as income is concerned, those who are already a part of such tournaments and coming gamers generally receive a baseline salary to play these tournaments on a sponsorship basis.
They also receive all the expenses for their traveling and sign-ups along with gamine gears. The gamers or streamers who are skilled exceptionally receive all the benefits along with more salary and bonuses once they sign up and attract more people into playing the tournaments they sponsor.
There are amazing cash prices too for winning these tournaments which are there are online and offline tournaments. If the competition or tournament is elite, you can expect the winning prizes to rise up to millions of dollars and become a great source of income for twitch streamers.
The winning prize or bounty is generally distributed or split between the players and staff that managed all the tournament basics. The owner of these esports leagues has the liberty to adjust the roster strategically. The gamers inside these tournaments operate as free agents which means that they are not bound to the specific league and can play more outside the preset contracts set.
6. Affiliate Sales
Practically speaking, mostly the creators or streamers In twitch make money through affiliate programs. For those of you who do not know what affiliate programs are, affiliate sale is broadly defined as an online transaction that is driven by a third-party promoter. When we talk about the twitch community, the twitch users click ad banner on any streamer’s profile or home page, and then when they make a purchase on the retailer’s site through that link, the streamer will also receive a small fraction of the overall revenue generated from the product’s sale.
You might have heard about affiliate programs of Amazon or some other websites that offer. Twitch platform offers a catalog of these extensions which the streamers can embed inside their profile or homepage for users to click. The 3 most common types of affiliate programs one can use to generate money include:
Amazon Affiliate Program- Amazon affiliate extension or program allows the creators to list down all the favorite products, pc setup, and broadcast gear they use.
Amazon’s Wishlist- A list of all the streamer’s desired gear includes technology upgrades that can benefit the quality of their channel and attract more viewers. If the fan buys any item in their wishlist, the streamer will also receive the item itself and a commission through the affiliate link too.
Banner Or Text Ads- Creators also post text advertisements and banners with affiliate links for encouraging their fans and people they often engage with to make a purchase through that. Although the products given by the gaming industry are most often advertised, they also use twitch to advertise other products. Not only the gaming industry, but other industries also use twitch too for advertising and selling products with the help of twitch streamers.
Twitch also allows their streamers to customize their home page or profile page to include text links as well as banners to their site. Each creator has total control over how their profile page will appear to the users which injects a variety of banners and ads for selling products from links and gaining commission.
G Fuel Energy is the official energy drink used by esports. They usually partner with twitch streamers who will put their spin on the ad to increase or escalate the number of sales generated through that drink.
This was all about affiliate links that one should know when knowing about how do twitch streamers make money.
There is another way one can earn money while using the twitch platform, that is using twitch merchandise sales. Let’s see what it means and how do twitch streamers make money using it.
7. Twitch Merchandise Sales
This is probably the last way streamers make money using the twitch platform. Streams can also design and sell some customized merchandise with the help of their channels. Some popular kinds of merch include hats, apparel like hoodies and tees, coffee mugs, phone cases, and stickers.
There are also platforms to produce custom twitch merchandise. The rise of social media sites these days has spawned many huge companies that specialize in helping small creators to design and sell their products to the fan communities they have.
The platforms involved in helping people just simply each step by providing drag and drop modules and manufacturing the products for twitch streamers along with managing the order fulfillment and checkouts.
This was all about how do twitch streamers make money. If you are a college student and looking for other means to earn money, check these amazing ways through which you can earn money at home.
