How Much Money Do Twitch Streamers Make? (2024 Data)

Are you interested in learning about how much Twitch streamers make from the platform?

Twitch is one of the most active livestreaming platforms on the web, especially for the gaming industry.

Some of the web’s most recognizable influencers stream live on the platform, and plenty of small streamers broadcast exclusively there as well.

In this post, we take a look at data from a few different sources to see how much streamers make on this platform.

How much do Twitch streamers make? An Overview

How do Twitch streamers make money?

We have a dedicated post on how Twitch streamers make money if you want a more detailed take on this topic. It includes explanations on what a Twitch streamer is and the different types of streamers that make up the platform.

We’ll summarize it here.

On the platform itself, Twitch streamers, who may stream themselves playing video games live, chat live to their audiences or even work on art live, generate revenue through subscriptions, ads and bits.

They can do this so long as they’re part of the Twitch affiliate program or Twitch partner program.

Off platform, streamers generate revenue through sponsorship deals, affiliate marketing, selling their own products, selling branded merchandise and more.

For the purpose of this article, we’re going to focus on metrics that measure how much Twitch streamers make from the platform itself. Here are brief explanations for each:

• Subscriptions – Recurring monthly payments Twitch viewers make to individual streamers in exchange for exclusive emotes, which they can use in chat, ad-free viewing, and access to subscriber-only chats and Twitch streams.
• Ads – Ads play before and during live broadcasts. Companies pay to advertise on Twitch, and streamers get a cut of that revenue.
• Bits – Twitch’s in-house donation system. Viewers can use Twitch bits to “cheer” on their favorite streamers by sending them special messages and emotes.

Twitch affiliates and members of the Twitch partnership program can generate revenue from each of these models. Partners simply receive more benefits and streamer tools.

Let’s talk about how much Twitch pays streamers for each of these revenue models.

What is Twitch’s revenue split for streamers?

Here are a few facts about how much Twitch pays streamers for subscriptions, ads and bits.

Viewers can buy bits in packs ranging from $1.40 for 100 bits to $308 for 25,000 bits. Viewers can then use these bits to “Cheer” on their favorite Twitch streamers.

Cheers appear in the chat section of a livestream and are highlighted as such. Viewers can apply special emotes called “cheermotes” to their messages, or apply special messages to their cheers.

Viewers can send as many bits as they want per cheer, though streamers are allowed to set minimums.

Streamers are paid a fixed rate of $0.01 per bit they receive from cheers.

As for ad revenue, Twitch gives streamers a 55% cut of all ad revenue their channels generate so long as they run ads for a minimum of three minutes per hour.

Many Twitch streamers are also given special deals, which they can opt into from the streamer’s dashboard section of Twitch.

It’s part of the Ads Incentive Program. Streamers can opt into recommendations. When they do, they’ll earn specific amounts if they meet the recommendation’s requirements.

Here’s an example of an offer a Twitch streamer may receive:

• Recommendation 1: $900-$1,000 for running 3 minutes of ads per hour for 40 broadcast hours.
• Recommendation 2: $1,000-$1,300 for running 4 minutes of ads.
• Recommendation 3: $1,300-$1,600 for running 5 minutes of ads.

Let’s talk about Twitch streamers’ primary revenue source, subscriptions.

What is Twitch’s revenue split for subscriptions?

Twitch subscriptions come in three tiers viewers can subscribe to on a monthly basis:

• Tier 1: $4.99/month
• Tier 2: $9.99/month
• Tier 3: $24.99/month

All subscriptions come with benefits like ad-free viewing and exclusive chat emotes created by the Twitch streamer. Tiers 2 and 3 typically come with additional emotes but not much else.

Viewers can also pay for three or six months at a time. They’ll receive discounts when they do.

So, how much do Twitch streamers make from subscriptions?

Twitch has a standard revenue split of 50/50 for subscriptions in which streamers get 50% of the revenue they receive from subscriptions and Twitch gets the other 50%.

We say “standard” because in October of 2023, Twitch adopted an additional revenue sharing policy for subscriptions.

Now, certain streamers can receive a revenue split of 70/30 in which they receive 70% of the revenue they generate from subscriptions and Twitch receives the remaining 30%.

It’s part of a new program called Partner Plus. Twitch partners are eligible for this revenue split when they receive a total of 350 Partner Plus points, which are earned from subscriptions in the following amounts:

• Tier 1 Subscriptions: 1 Partner Plus point
• Tier 2 Subscriptions: 2 Partner Plus points
• Tier 3 Subscriptions: 6 Partner Plus points

Not only must partners receive 350 Partner Plus points, they need to do so for three consecutive months in order to qualify for the Partner Plus program.

How much do Twitch streamers make? (real data)

Before we get into these numbers, it’s important to note that there’s no set number for the amount Twitch streamers make based on follower count.

This is because the amount a streamer makes through each revenue model is based purely on engagement metrics, not follower count.

Even so, we can still look at data from a few different sources.

How much Twitch streamers make according to leaked data

In 2021, a user from the infamous imageboard site 4chan leaked the account data of 4.9 million Twitch accounts. The leak was made possible due to a security breach caused by an improper server configuration.

According to Twitch’s press statement, while passwords and credit card information were not exposed during the breach, payout information was.

The Wall Street Journal analyzed that payout information. Here’s what they discovered.

Twitch paid out $889 million to streamers between January 2021 and September 2021.

The publication excluded 896,261 accounts that made nothing in its data. Of the accounts that did earn revenue in the above mentioned timeframe, 75% made $120 or less, and around 50% made $28 or less.

Only 0.06% of the 4.9 million accounts included in the leak received payouts that went over the United States median household income of $67,521.

In fact, 25% of the $889 million paid out to streamers in 2021 was paid out to the top 1,000 Twitch channels.

The Wall Street Journal’s official statistic from the report states that the “top 1% of Twitch streamers made half of all money paid out in 2021.”

The publication also reported that the highest-paid Twitch channel made $5 million in 2021 and that a “group of Dungeons & Dragons players made close to $4 million” that same year.

The latter channel is most likely Critical Role, who stream their D&D sessions live to multiple platforms.

How much Twitch streamers make according to testimonies from streamers

Let’s go over some real-world figures on streamer earnings, all of which were exposed by streamers themselves.

YouTuber George Dunnett uploaded a video to his channel on August 23, 2023, in which he went over how much he made from his first month of streaming.

George has over 200,000 subscribers on YouTube, so he didn’t start with no audience.

After 30 days, he made a total of $228.61. Specifically, he made $17.30 from ads, $69.45 from donations and $141.86 from subscriptions.

On January 28, 2023, YouTuber Twatter published a video stating he made $590.54 over a three-month period in late 2019 and early 2020 from an average number of 37 viewers, 2,647 follows and 220 subscriptions. He streamed for 180 hours during this time.

The majority of the money was made through subscriptions. Only $22.83 came from ads.

He also helped manage another Twitch streamer’s channel. Over a seven-month period, she made $8,170.53 and received an average number of 42 viewers (her maximum number of viewers was 290 at one point), 5,961 follows and 2,609 subscriptions.

She received the majority of her income from subscriptions, but over $2,000 came from cheers and only $43.52 came from ads.

On September 5, 2023, Creative Finance uploaded a video to his YouTube channel in which he stated he made $191.37 in July of 2023 from 65 subscriptions and by streaming for 43 hours.

Unfortunately, he also made another $170.94 in August of 2023 from 51 subscriptions and by streaming for 75 hours. We say “unfortunate” because although he streamed for almost twice as much time as he streamed in July, he made less money in August.

The majority of his revenue in August came from subscriptions whereas $40.54 went to ads and $14 came cheers.

How much do large Twitch streamers make?

Let’s hear from a more successful Twitch streamer. On September 13, 2023, Mizkif, who has 2 million followers on Twitch, uploaded a video to his YouTube channel in which he broke down how much money he makes from Twitch.

This following a few days of bad press in which he accidentally leaked his earnings live on stream.

In the video, he states that on average, he makes between $20,000 and $25,000 per week on Twitch.

In August of 2023, he said he made around $80,000 and that over $42,000 of that revenue came from ads alone. He also made over $11,000 from Twitch Turbo.

Twitch Turbo is Twitch’s own subscription service, the main benefit being an ad-free viewing experience across the entirety of Twitch.

When you subscribe to Twitch Turbo and watch a livestream, part of what you paid for your subscription goes to the streamer you watch.

Mizkif streamed for just over 85 hours in August.

He also states that he has a higher CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions) on Twitch because the majority of his viewers are located in North America.

He also stated that streamer revenue from ads is higher (before taking a huge drop in January) in the later part of the year due to the number of ads that are bought during this time period.

In the United States, for example, August advertising is dedicated to back-to-school sales, September and October are dedicated to Halloween, and November and December are dedicated to Black Friday and Christmas.

Unfortunately, he’s including money he makes from sponsors in that $80,000, and because he didn’t get into exactly how much he made from subscribers, we aren’t sure how much of that revenue came from subscriptions.

However, he did get into how much he and other Twitch streamers make from sponsorship deals.

He says streamers typically negotiate for a rate of $0.80 to $1.00 per viewer. So, if a streamer receives 5,000 viewers per stream, they can charge a sponsor $4,000 to $5,000 for a brand deal in which the streamer advertises that brand on stream.

How much top Twitch streamers make according to data platforms

Let’s talk about how much the top streamers on Twitch make from subscriptions, according to data published by TwitchTracker.

According to their data, the top five Twitch streamers, as far as active subscriptions go, are Jynxzi, KaiCenat and HasanAbi.

The platform breaks down how much each streamer has of each sub type. The categories are Paid Subs, Prime Subs and Gifted Subs as well as Tier 1 Subs, Tier 2 Subs and Tier 3 Subs.

We can use this data to determine how much these streamers make from subscriptions since we know how much viewers pay for each subscription type as well as how much revenue Twitch takes from them.

Let’s start with Jynxzi, who has 130,492 active subscribers, according to TwitchTracker.

We’ll break the rest of these streamers’ earnings down in a table.

He has 39,420 Tier 1 subscribers. Because Tier 1 subscriptions cost viewers $4.99/month and we assume Jynxzi is receiving a 70/30 revenue split from the new Partner Plus program, we can estimate that Jynxzi generates $196,705.80 per month from Tier 1 subscriptions and keeps $137,694.06.

He has 42 Tier 2 subscribers. Because Tier 2 subscriptions cost viewers $9.99/month, we can estimate that Jynxzi generates $419.58 per month from Tier 2 subscriptions and keeps $293.71.

He has 27 Tier 3 subscribers. Because Tier 3 subscriptions cost viewers $24.99/month, we can estimate that Jynxzi generates $674.73 from Tier 2 subscriptions and keeps $472.31.

This adds up to $138,460.08/month from subscriptions, so long as he can maintain his subscriber count from month to month.

This amount gets cut down to $98,900.06/month if he’s on the standard revenue split of 50/50.

Here’s how much the other two top streamers make, according to TwitchTracker:

	Revenue from Subs	Streamer Cut	Total Subs	Tier 1 Subs	Tier 2 Subs	Tier 3 Subs
Jynxzi	$197,800.11	$138,460.80	130,492	39,420	42	27
KaiCenat	$180.558.99	$126,391.30	86,820	36,069	15	17
HasanAbi	$75,979.38	$53,185.57	60,047	14,982	52	28

Again, we’re assuming these streamers are receiving 70% of the revenue they generate from subscriptions.

And in case you’re wondering, here’s how many followers each of these streamers has:

• Jynxzi – 2.8 million followers
• KaiCenat – 7.3 million followers
• HasanAbi – 2.5 million followers

You can see how little follower count has to do with how much you can potentially earn from subscriptions. In spite of having almost three times fewer the amount of subscriptions as KaiCenat has, Jynxzi makes just as much as he does from subscriptions.

This data doesn’t include ad revenue, though, so KaiCenat may make much more depending on if his larger follower count translates to more live viewers.

According to SullyGnome, over a seven-day period, KaiCenat had an average number of 51,894 active viewers whereas Jynxzi had 32,408.

KaiCenat streamed for 19 hours whereas Jynxzi streamed for 29.

Final thoughts

Unfortunately, it’s hard to determine how much Twitch streamers can expect to make based on the number of followers they have.

Twatter’s video revealed that in spite of him receiving the same number of followers on a month-to-month basis as the streamer whose channel he helped manage, the latter streamer was able to generate much more revenue than him.

We do know that for top streamers, ad revenue makes up a good portion of the amount they generate from the platform, and that number is determined by the streamer’s CPM and live viewer count.

If you’re a brand looking to get into influencer marketing by sponsoring Twitch streamers, pay less attention to a streamer’s follower count and more attention to the number of live viewers they receive and how often they stream.