Twitch has become the biggest platform for live streaming. While gaming dominates the platform, recent additions include Talk Shows, Creative and an IRL category. They’ve also added new ways for streamers to make money by opening an affiliate program with a relatively low barrier to entry. But can you make a full-time income out of streaming as an affiliate? It’s a question that Omeed Dariani of the Online Performers Group asked on Twitter last month and the results are pretty interesting.
50% of Affiliates Make Less than $100 Per Month
Twitch Affiliates! I’m curious as to what your approximate monthly revenues are directly from the affiliate program.
Subs/bits/ad revenue only!
If you’re comfortable sharing general ranges, please answer this poll and/or DM me.
— Omeed (@Omeed) February 1, 2018
Unsurprisingly, the majority of streamers will only see a small payout monthly. That can be explained by the fact that the affiliate program does have that low barrier to entry. As we move up the income scale, the percent drops in the next two categories. Then explodes to 33% in the final option. Now, there is a problem with this distribution because over $750 is a huge category, while $100-$250 is very small. There’s also comments on it about non-streamers answering to see the results. So while inaccurate, it does provide some insight!
How Twitch Affiliates Make Money
Twitch Affiliates make money from the platform in three different ways, with one other coming soon.
- Subscriptions. Viewers can subscribe for $5, $10 or $25. Affiliates get 50% of that revenue.
- Bits. Viewers can cheer bits for their favourite creators. 100 bits generates $1 for Affiliates.
- Game Sales. If people buy the game you’re playing by clicking your link, you earn income from the sale.
- Ads. While not yet implemented for Affiliates, they have said it will be coming soon – earning you a cut of the ad sale.
Back in February, Twitch announced that the platform has over 27,000 Partnered streamers. They also shared that there were 150,000 Affiliated streamers. This means there is a LOT of competition out there. But we’re convinced that Twitch is about to do for streamers what happened for YouTubers in 2011-2012. The timelines work out, and yesterday’s huge leap by Ninja (who streamed to 600K+ viewers with Drake), is a tipping point. (Read Malcolm Gladwell’s book about them to understand the importance). We’ll do a whole other post on this later, but for now – we’ll leave you with two graphs.
What this all means is that CURRENTLY… Twitch Affiliates will not make any kind of full-time income at the moment. BUT, if you dedicate the time, effort and keep streaming – you have a good chance to turn streaming into a full-time career. Keep in mind, Twitch is still very much unknown to the masses and hasn’t yet entered the public consciousness. Once it does, we’ll be looking at 10’s of millions of active viewers. That influx is likely on the horizon, and will benefit any streamer already on the platform (and those who are considering joining now.)
Good stuff. Great reference to the tipping point book. I loved reading it. I hope you are correct in your analysis. As a newly minted Twitch Affiliate, I am hopeful that any Twitch growth will help us all
Congrats on your affiliation! Stick with it, build your community and you definitely will go places! The future is bright!
Realistically what do you think a newbie can make in their first year as a streamer?
In their first year? Well, it depends on the streamer… I know a woman who started streaming this year who will make $20K by end of year. I’ve also seem some character streamers blow up as well. So, it really depends on what you do with the platform.
That said, I think even the most average of streamers can build an audience. So, realistically – $5000 doesn’t seem out of reach.
i make roughly anywhere between $3-$10 a day before tax and i only have 60 followers
you get the money from ads or subscriptions?
[…] to a Twitter survey, half of Twitch affiliates make less than $100 per month. About 33 percent earn $750 and up. It may […]
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