How Much Money Can You Make From Twitch?
Streaming live on Twitch can make you some pocket money, but making it a permanent job is not easy. You will probably need around 1000 regular followers before you want to quit your day-to-day job.
How much can you earn?
The good news is that there are many ways to make money with Twitch, including partnerships, sponsorships, ad revenue, tiered subscriptions and tips (known as Bit donations), plus Twitch live streams can later be repurposed to make money from YouTube (you can, however, I do not stream live between YouTube and Twitch at the same time – there is a 24-hour exclusive period for Twitch streamers).
The highest paid Twitch streamer, Ninja (aka Richard “Tyler” Blevins), has nearly 12 million subscribers and makes over $ 5 million a year from streaming popular games like Fortnite . Consulting.com provides the following breakdown of its estimated income:
- Subscriptions: $ 3,955,571
- Advertising revenue: $ 509,521
- Bit donations: $ 316,355
- Estimated Sponsorship: $ 600,000
- Estimated YouTube Reward: $ 36,000
It is difficult to estimate income
Figuring out the cost of living on Twitch is much more difficult. Concurrent views of a specific live stream are a key metric for measuring revenue, as Twitch (for partnerships) and advertisers strive to measure engagement. High views will also help you attract paid subscribers willing to shell out between $ 4.99 and $ 24.99 per month.
To complicate matters, while subscribers and views are important, they are not highly correlated. A streamer can have a lot of views and few subscribers, or vice versa, and this affects how much money you can make. It really depends on the streamer, the involvement in the live stream, the region and the topic of the streamer’s live streams.
Okay, how about a rough estimate?
Let’s say you’re a streamer who typically works eight hours a day, five days a week, and you have a consistent 1000 views per stream with 1000 subscribers ( pay an average of $ 3.50 since Twitch gets half that income). Account sponsorships can range from one cent to $ 1 per viewer as you approach 10,000 subscriptions – let’s say you’re on the low end and average three cents per view. A breakdown of your income might look like this:
- 10 streams per week (ad pricing typically pays $ 3.50 per 1000 views) = $ 140 per month.
- 1,000 subscribers at $ 3.50 = $ 3,500 per month.
- Bit donations (rough estimate) = $ 100
- Sponsorship (five streams of 1000 views at a rate of 3 cents) = $ 150.
- YouTube ( $ 5 per thousand views ) = $ 50
That equates to $ 3,940 per month, which equates to $ 51,220 per year . Of course, unfortunately, this comes before taxes and costs, so you’ll have to do your own calculations to see if Twitch streaming is right for you. However, audience growth should be considered: it can take years to build a loyal fan base, but Twitch continues to grow as well, so if you have 1,000 subscribers, you may already be on your way to making more money.
As a real life example of a Twitch streamer’s income,this YouTube video created by Twitch streamer Dekkster contains a good breakdown of how much money he made on YouTube and Twitch in his first year.
(Also check out this post on Nerdwallet for more information on sharing revenue with Twitch, for more details on how partnerships, tiered subscriptions, and Bit donations work). This post has been updated to clarify and add new information.