Imagine speaking into a microphone as you play your game to a live audience. You don’t need to worry about a job or a boss because that is your job and you’re your own boss. Welcome to Twitch streaming where people can make a living with live streams.
Don’t believe me? Let’s find out how you can make money from Twitch. If you can do it well, you can retire in 6 months to a year.
Table of Contents
What is Twitch?
First stop, what is twitch? If you don’t know, Twitch is a streaming platform that allows people to film themselves and steam real-time. People can tune in to watch and subscribe to them or donate money to them. You don’t always have to be playing a video game on Twitch. In fact, you can be simply talking while you stream. And if you got an interesting character or a pretty face, it’s enough to garner quite a bit of attention from viewers.
What can you stream on Twitch?
You can stream a variety of games or a single game. You can also just talk and get people to tune in although this method is rarer. There are also eSports that you can tap into. It’s really up to you what you want to stream on Twitch.
How many Twitch streamers are there?
There are currently more than 4 million streamers on Twitch.
How many people use Twitch?
About 17.5 million people are on Twitch each day. The people who are on Twitch are either playing videos games or watching others play video games. Many gamers make money on Twitch with their hobby.
How much can you make on Twitch?
Some people are able to make a 7 figure every year on Twitch from subscriptions, sponsorships, and ad revenues among other things. Many of these people who are able to make a lot of money on Twitch spend hours each day on Twitch streaming and have tens of thousands of followers. They also hold games on their channel.
An average expert Twitch streamer can make between $3000 — $5000 every month for 40 hours of work. The ad revenue is an additional $250 for every 100 subscribers.
We don’t know how much the average Twitch streamer makes since that is private info but if you can grow a good number of followers you can make quite a bit of money on Twitch.
How much do small Twitch streamers make?
It’s not uncommon to see a small Twitch streamer makes around $100/month on Twitch. The amount of money a small Twitch streamer makes depends on how loyal his or her viewers are.
If you have 10 average views, you can expect to make $50 per month and if you have 100 average views, you can expect to make $1500 per month.
How many Twitch followers do you need to make money on twitch?
You can make money on Twitch right away without a minimum number of subscribers but your monetization methods would be limited.
You can allow people to donate money to you, have sponsorship deals to promote on your channel, or sell merchandise off Twitch on sites like Teepsring or Printful. It’s free to sell these products and they handle all the shipping so you don’t have to. All you have to do is to direct people to your store.
With a small following and views on Twitch, you’re unlikely to sell any merchandise however or to attract good sponsorship deals so, in the beginning, your best bet for making money on Twitch is to present a good character so that people who come across your stream would want to donate some money to you.
How many viewers do you need to make a living on Twitch?
You should aim to have 300–500 concurrent viewers before you can expect to make a decent amount of money on Twitch. It most likely wouldn’t be enough to live off of but it’ll be a start.
Most streamers who are average would make roughly $250 for every 100 subscribers and roughly $3.50 for every 1000 views.
Say you have 1200 subscribers and you’re streaming regularly, you’ll need roughly 285,714 views per month to make $4000 per month. That comes down to 14,285 views per steam if you steam 20 times a month.
And if you have 1600 subscribers, you will make $4000 without counting the money you would make from the views.
In other words, to make a living on twitch, you should aim to have between 1200–1600 subscribers and if you have less, you’ll have to make it up in other ways through views, selling merchandise, sponsorship deals, and ads for instance.
If you’re able to leverage other ways to make money on Twitch, you can make a living with Twitch with only a few hundred subscribers.
How long does it take to start making money on Twitch?
You can start meaning money on Twitch right away if you got people willing to donate money to you or buy your merch.
How much are 1000 subscribers worth on Twitch?
You make about $250 for every 100 subscribers so 1000 subscribers would make you roughly $2500 per month on Twitch.
How do you make money from a Twitch channel?
There are several ways to make money from your Twitch channel. We’ll look at what those methods are.
- Become a Twitch affiliate
- Have brand sponsorships
- Generate ad revenues during streams
- Create a store on Twitch
- Get paid in virtual currency
- Let people donate money to you
- Build a recurring income with Twitch subscriptions
- Sell merchandise off Twitch
We’ll discuss each of these methods in detail next.
1. Become a Twitch affiliate to make money
This method of making money on Twitch is reserved for those who have been on Twitch for some time so if you’re just starting out, look at other methods for monetization.
To join the Twitch affiliate program, you need to meet the following criteria:
- Have at least 500 minutes of broadcast (you can add up across different streams) in the last 30 days
- Have at least 7 unique broadcast days in the past 30 days
- Have an average of 3 or more recurring viewers in the last 30 days
- Have at least 50 followers
No need to apply, it’s automatic for Twitch affiliates
You don’t need to apply to be a Twitch affiliate. It’ll automatically tell you that you’re a Twitch affiliate once you hit all the criteria.
It’s the primary way to earn through Twitch
Becoming a Twitch affiliate is one of the primary ways that you can generate income through Twitch. Once you become an affiliate, you can make money from certain games and game sales.
More monetization methods with Twitch affiliates
Those who are Twitch affiliates have access to more monetization opportunities and additional perks that aren’t open to those who aren’t in the Twitch affiliate program.
Once you become a Twitch affiliate, you can open up the following monetization strategies:
- Subscriptions: your viewers can choose to subscribe to your channels to unlock things such as exclusive chat rooms, extra emojis, and merchandise discounts. Unlike Youtube where you can subscribe for free, Twitch costs money and it starts at $4.99, $9.99, and $24.99. You will receive 50% of the profit.
- Virtual Cheers: Virtual cheers are called bits. Viewers can buy bits from Twitch that look different in sizes and colors. Viewers can get 100 bits for $1.40. You receive 1 cent or every bit that is sent to your chat.
- Game sales: if you’re playing a game, viewers have the option to purchase the game and/or in-game add-ons by clicking the “buy now” button from your channel. These buttons would appear when you play games that are being sold in the Twitch store. You’ll receive 5% of the sale from your channel.
Become a twitch partner next
Once you become a Twitch affiliate, your next step is to try and become a Twitch Partner. It takes more time to become a Twitch partner but it does come with more benefits.
Larger profit share as a Twitch Partner
You’ll make $3.50 for every $5 subscription as a Twitch partner rather than $2.50 if you are a Twitch affiliate.
Earn money from ads
You can earn money from ads as a Twitch Partner. If you choose to show more ads to your viewers, you make more and if you choose to show fewer ads to your viewers, you make less.
A popular streamer called Disguised Toast says that he has an average of 10,000 concurrent viewers and only shows the ads once when the viewer first comes into the stream and makes $4000/month from just the ads alone. Of course, you’ll make less with fewer views.
2. Use brand sponsorships on Twitch to make money
You can make money with brand sponsorships on Twitch without becoming a Twitch Affiliate or Twitch Partner first. This means that you can basically find brand sponsorships off of Twitch if you wish.
Many Twitch streamers have sponsorships with companies that make games to promote their games. What you would do is to play games and live stream them to promote their games.
If what you’re steaming isn’t games, there are still other sponsorships that aren’t based on gaming.
3. Generate ad revenues during streams on Twitch
If you aren’t a Twitch affiliate or a Twitch Partner this option wouldn’t be available to you but there are quite a bit of people making lots of money by placing ads on their Streams.
Start streaming and work your work to a Twitch Partner to open this option.
4. Create a store on Twitch to make money
Another way to monetize your Twitch account is to create your own merchandise to sell. You can sell your merch at the Twitch store. This can include t-shirts, hats, mugs, hoodies, and more.
You only need 100 true loyal fans to make quite a bit of money from your merch each month. These are people who are willing to buy anything you put out. Say you release 4 new merch each month and each earns you an average of $10 per sale, you’ll be making $4000 from just selling merch each month.
5. Get paid in virtual currency on Twitch to make money
As a Twitch affiliate and/or Twitch Partner you can make money by accepting the virtual currency called bits on Twitch. You’ll make $0.01 for every bit that is sent to you on your channel by a viewer.
6. Let people donate money to you on Twitch
You can allow people to donate money to you on Twitch. Those who like you will want to support you. You can add a button to donate through Paypal or Streamlabs on your channel.
And no, you don’t need to be a Twitch affiliate or Twitch partner to allow and receive donations.
7. Make money with twitch subscriptions
Again, this is only available to those who are Twitch Affiliates or Twitch Partners. Users can pay you a recurring income each month ranging from $4.99 to $25.99 to support you as a content creator.
You have the option to give your subscribers ad-free viewing, exclusive chat rooms, and other perks to keep them on the subscription list.
This is to me, the best way to make a consistent income with Twitch. With donations, you never know what you’ll get each time you stream but with a Twitch subscription, you can expect a certain amount of income each month. sure, your subscribers can unsubscribe to you but most of the time people are too lazy to do so and would just keep it on especially if you’re providing value to them. These subscriptions can add up to a lot over time.
8. Sell merchandise off Twitch to make money
Another way that you can make money from Twitch is to make it off Twitch by selling merchandise at print-on-demands stores.
It doesn’t cost any money to sell merchandise at print-on-demands stores. There are many options to choose from including Printful, Teespring, and Steamlabs Merch Stores. You can pay someone on Fiverr to design merchandise for you or you can design it yourself for free on Canva.
Simply upload your design and start selling! No, you don’t have to worry about the shipping. They handle everything else and the only thing you have to do is to promote your products and store.
How do you build an audience on Twitch?
There are many different ways to build an audience on Twitch.
Don’t use viewbots or pay other people to manage your Twitch channel Those tactics may increase your views but the view itself doesn’t mean anything, it’s the actual people attached to those views that would mean something because they have an actual wallet to donate money to you.
Interact with other streamers
You can interact with other streamers as a way to build a support network and access other streamers’ viewers who may also become your viewers. Networking is important as it can bring you in front of an audience that you may not have had access to otherwise.
Upload streaming videos on Youtube
You can upload your steaming videos on Youtube to access people on other platforms who may come to watch to stream live.
Have giveaways for your viewers
People love giveaways. Holding giveaways is a way to increase engagement in your channel.
How do you get paid by Twitch?
To get paid by Twitch, you need to have $100 or more in bits, ad revenue, and subscriptions combined.
Twitch will hand out the payment on the 15th of each month. But may take several days for the fund to arrive in your account.
You can choose to have to funds delivered in the following ways:
- Paypal (takes 1–2 days)
- Direct deposit (1–2 days)
- Wire transfer (3–5 days)
- Paper check (1–2 weeks)
Final thought
Twitch is for sure a good way to make a living online. If you can be persistent, have an attractive personality, have an interesting character, or is good at gaming, you should at least give Twitch a try.
It’ll probably take you some time to start making good money from Twitch but the result would be worth it. If you already play games, why not stream it? Who cares if nobody watches it? If you luck out, you can make quite a bit of money with it.
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