How Much Do Twitch Streamers Make?
Before we get into this chapter, we want to reiterate that live streaming is still a fairly new industry. Those that do this full-time are among the top streamers in the world. You should never go into streaming looking to make a quick buck. It takes months, and sometimes years to build up enough of an audience where you can reliably make a stable income.
Live streaming is something you do for the love of it. You should go into it expecting to engage with your viewers and create a real community. If you do that, the money will come — eventually.
This blog will go a bit more in-depth on each platform’s tipping/donation service, their rev share, and how much you could expect to make as a top Twitch streamer. Please note, every streamer is going to be different. How much money you make depends on your follows, subscribers, average concurrent viewership, how engaged your viewership is, and so on.
Platform Currency
Each major platform has its own specific currency viewers can use to tip their favorite streamers. Most platforms take a cut.
What are Twitch Bits?
Twitch offers affiliate and partner streamers access to additional revenue via ‘Bits’. Bits are described as “digital content” and used by viewers to cheer on streamers. Streamers receive $0.01 for every Bit used to Cheer on your channel.
Viewers can purchase Bits at incremental ranges and will earn badges depending on how many bits they send.
Streamers can also set the number of minimum Bits required to Cheer. For example, if you choose 30 bits, viewers will not be able to send a Cheer with 29 or fewer Bits.
A great way to incentivize your community to support you with Bits is by including a leaderboard. A leaderboard will display your weekly top supports that have cheered the most Bits.
What are YouTube Super Chats?
Super Chat and Super Stickers are ways to monetize your channel through the YouTube Partner Program. When a viewer sends a super chat, a colored message will display on top of the chat feed. Depending on how much a viewer spends will determine how long the message will remain pinned at the top of the chat. The more money they spend, the longer the Super Chat will stay in the chat.
Please note that YouTube/Google takes a 30% profit on all Super Chats through YouTube.
What are Facebook Stars?
Facebook Stars is a feature that allows you to monetize your live videos. Viewers can buy Stars and send them to you while you’re live or on past live videos that had Stars enabled. For every Star you receive, Facebook will pay you $0.01 USD.
Facebook Stars payouts will be issued to your account approximately 30 days after the end of the month in which Stars were received. For example, Stars earnings you receive in June will be paid out in August.
Please note we only send payments when your total balance reaches at least $100 USD or 10,000 Stars.
Facebook takes a revenue share from Stars packs. These fees are taken at the time a viewer purchases a Stars pack, not when Stars are sent to Creators. The revenue share will vary depending on the size of the Stars pack and where the viewer buys the Stars pack. If Stars are purchased in-app via Facebook’s mobile app, in addition to the revenue share, a portion of the Stars pack price also goes to the mobile platform (Apple for iOS and Google for Android). These in-app purchase fees are determined by the mobile platform and are typically 30%. If a purchase is made via Facebook’s website, these in-app fees do not apply. Because of the mobile in-app purchase fees, viewers buying Stars will get slightly more Stars when purchasing on Facebook’s website versus Facebook’s mobile app.
Streamlabs Tipping
If you want to create a tip page, your viewers can send you donations and Streamlabs will not take a cut. Excluding standard PayPal processing fees, 100% of every tip goes to the creator. You can set up one-time or monthly recurring tips and receive custom on-screen alerts anytime someone supports you.
Learn more about using a Streamlabs tip page and create one for free today.
How Much Money do Top Twitch Streamers Make?
Disguised Toast gave us a glimpse of what it’s like to earn revenue as a top streamer. In 2018 he published a no-holds-barred video that candidly gave us a look into his income. Keep in mind, the revenue described in this video comes from several sources including tips, sponsorships, subscriptions, and advertisements. He is also a top streamer, so you shouldn’t be expecting to make as much as him when you first start out. Still, this video gives us great insight on a baseline of what some top streamers make.
This is what Disguised Toast earns each month:
Donations — $2,500. Disguised Toast mentions this is on the lower side compared to others streamers that actively incentivize their viewers to tip.
Advertisements — Without running extra ads, Disguised Toast made $10,000 a month. The only ad revenue came from the advertisement that played as new viewers entered the stream.
Subscriptions — With 4,000 subscribers at the time, he made about $14,000 each month.
Sponsorships — Averaging 10,000 viewers at the time, he can get paid anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 per hour. He can also get $5,000 per 30 second Youtube video and $5–10k for live appearances.
As you can see, all of these revenue sources quickly add up. Hopefully, this breakdown gives you a better understanding of how much money you can expect to make. Keep in mind, everyone is going to have a different experience. Just because you make a certain amount one month, doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll make the same amount the next.
You shouldn’t go into live streaming expecting to make a career out of it right away. But with enough love and dedication to the craft, you may just get lucky enough to have a dedicated group of supporters that want to see you succeed.
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About Streamlabs
Founded on the belief that we want to help creators make a living doing what they love, Streamlabs provides a robust suite of features to help creators better engage with their fans, grow audiences, and improve monetization. Building on this mission, Streamlabs is expanding its product with 1) Melon, our browser-based streaming studio, 2) Willow, an all-in-one bio link tool, 3) Oslo, a video review and collaboration tool. And 4) Crossclip, the easiest way to convert Twitch clips to videos for TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.
