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Do Twitch Streamers Get Paid? You Bet Your Ass They Do…
How much do Twitch streamers get paid? If you’re big and have a decent following you can make A LOT of money…
Twitch is a big deal these days. The platform, until very recently, was very cagey about how much it paid its most valuable streamers. The recent Twitch hack ruined all that though, revealing just how much the top streamers on Twitch earn per year.
As you can see below, the biggest streamers on Twitch earn A LOT of money from their channels – most of them over $1 million per year.
Highest Paid Streamers on Twitch
- CriticalRole – $9.6 million
- xQcOW – $8.4 million
- summit1g – $5.8 million
- Tfue – $5.2 million
- NICKMERCS – $5 million
- ludwig – $3.2 million
- TimTheTatman – $3.2 million
- Altoar – $3 million
- auronplay – $3 million
- LIRIK – $2.9 million
- unknown – $2.8 million
- Gaules – $2.8 million
- HasanAbi – $2.8 million
- Asmongold – $2.5 million
- loltyler1 – $2.4 million
- RanbooLive – $2.4 million
- MontanaBlack88 – $2.3 million
- ibai – $2.3 million
- Castro_1021 – $2.3 million
- MOONMOON – $2.2 million
- TheRealKnossi – $2.1 million
- moistcr1tikal – $2 million
- Mizkif – $2 million
- CohhCarnage – $2 million
- shroud – $2 million
Do All Twitch Streamers Get Paid?
Twitch is a platform just like anything else. You need an audience to monetize your traffic. You can’t just sit there and play games and get paid. You need eyeballs on what you’re doing and you need personality too – audience and personality go hand in hand.
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Once you have a channel, though, and it is growing you can start monetizing your content, either via the Twitch Bits and Twitch Subscriptions. This is the first step. Once you’ve made your bones in the Twitch Affiliate program, you can then progress to Twitch Partners where the earning potential is much, much higher.
However, even before you get to stage one of monetizing your Twitch account, joining Twitch Affiliate, your channel needs to meet a specific set of criteria, otherwise, you won’t be allowed to join.
What’s the criteria for joining Twitch Affiliates? Here’s a complete breakdown:
- Minimum 500 total minutes broadcast in the last 30 days
- Average of 3+ simultaneous viewers over the last 30 days
- Minimum 7 broadcast days in the last 30 days
- At least 50 followers
How Much Do Twitch Streamers Get Paid?
The amount you get paid on Twitch depends on the size of your channel and how many people are watching. For example, if you’re just starting out and you have 50 to 100 loyal subscribers, you could theoretically make around $500 to $1000 per month with Twitch Affiliates. Not bad, right?
Most Twitch streamers, on average, tend to make around $250 in ad revenue per 100 subscribers or $3.50 per 1,000 views. If you get more views, you make more money. As with most things pertaining to advertising, the more visible you and your content are, the more money you’ll make from your content.
But once you get to Ninja levels, you’re talking MILLIONS of dollars in revenue. That’s why Ninja can afford to spend $50,000 on his Twitch streaming setup.
But where Twitch gets really interesting is that you don’t need a massive following to earn a full-time income. For instance, if you have just 500 paid subscribers on the lowest tier, you could make $2500 a month. That’s a lot of cash for someone under the age of 18 and living at home. And it sure beats working in McDonald’s.
And that’s just the beginning. You get that fee every month, so long as your subscribers stay subscribed. You then have the potential to make even more with things like Affiliates and sponsorships. And once you hit a certain level, you’ll be invited into the Twitch Partners program. That’s when the real money starts dropping.
However, keep in mind that only about 1% of Twitch accounts are ever invited into the Twitch Partner program. For this reason, you’ll need to grow your following massively – we’re talking hundreds of thousands of followers and subscribers. It is doable though if you know what you’re doing.
How Do Twitch Streamers Make Money?
Twitch streamers make money from a range of sources. Here’s a quick breakdown of the most common ways Twitch streamers make money on the platform:
- Donations – If you have a channel, your subscribers or fans can make contributions via Twitch Bits. On average, Twitch Bits are worth $0.01 each. But if you get A LOT of them, it can soon start adding up.
- Adverts – Like YouTube, Twitch runs on ads. And like YouTube, Twitch streamers get a cut of the revenue generated by ads. You’re paid on a CPM (cost per thousand), so the more views you get, the more money you make from adverts running on your channel.
- Subscriptions – Twitch streamers earn 50% of the subscription fees, and with multiple subscription options for Twitch ($4.99, $9.99, and $24.99), the earning potential here is MASSIVE. This is one of the best ways to quickly make a full time living on Twitch.
- Sponsorships – If you have a fairly large following on your Twitch channel, companies will start reaching out to you to promote their products. You can charge them a fee for this. And it can be anywhere from $100 to $10,000 and more. Again, it all depends on the size of your audience. Bigger is better.
Can Anyone Make Money on Twitch?
Twitch is a massively popular channel, and the potential to make money on it is massive. Even if you’ve only just heard about Twitch, there is literally nothing stopping you from signing up and starting an account. Put the work in and, who knows, this time next year you could be making a few grand a month from your channel?
Are you guaranteed to make money? Absolutely not. In order to be successful on Twitch and make money, you need good content, a unique personality, and you need to put the hours in. Like anything, it requires plenty of hard work, marketing, and graft. But it can be done and it is a hell of a lot easier than setting up a blog.
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