How to Make Money on Twitch? Twitch Monetization Guide

First thing you need to know is that Twitch revenue is not limited to Twitch payouts. It also includes other income sources such as sponsorship deals and affiliate revenue. So you should look at it as the sum of all the revenue streams you are able to create leveraging your audience. That’s why you should think more about how to get paid on Twitch by creating multiple revenue streams instead of just thinking how much does Twitch pay. 

Let’s explore ways the highest paid twitch streamers use to maximize their Twitch earnings.

Can you make money on Twitch? Yes! And Becoming a Twitch Affiliate is the first step into your Twitch monetization journey. While the Twitch affiliate program does not constitute the biggest part of how much do streamers make (spoiler: it’s often sponsorships), it will be your very first step towards making money on Twitch. 

By becoming a Twitch affiliate you will get access to many monetization tools as well video and community tools. On the monetization side you will be unlocking: Cheering with Bits, Subscriptions and Twitch Ad Revenue. These are some of the staples of a Twitch streamer salary.

How to get Twitch affiliate is fairly simple. You’ll need a certain amount of subs and meet a few other criteria. First, how many subs do you need to get paid? 50 subscribers. But that’s not enough by itself. You’ll also need to stream for 8 hours, as well as stream on 7 different days and reach an average of 3 viewers. Once you check all these boxes, you’ll be almost ready to monetize. 

In addition to the above criteria, you need to conform with Twitch terms and services. These are mostly rules of common sense prohibiting obscene content but there are a few things you always need to keep in mind when streaming, mostly about how to play music on Twitch stream without copyright. Because what all top earners on Twitch will tell you is that using copyrighted music is one of the fastest ways of hampering your monetization. 

Twitch might suspend your livestream, issue a warning or remove a VOD content if they find a copyright infringement. That is why you should always use Twitch music that’s royalty free from a reliable source. You can check our library for royalty free twitch music and SFX, and avoid any copyright related problems.

Merch is not only a wonderful way to bring together your community and get them to rep your brand but also a great way to maximize your twitch profitability! If you are worried that this might be a complicated process, we are here to tell you that this fear is misplaced. There are websites today that make designing and selling merch as easy as a few clicks.

If you don’t feel super comfortable about your design skills you can use an AI image generator such as Dall-E or Midjourney to create your own design. Or you can use an all in one simplified design platform like Canva or Adobe Express to easily create your designs. Then all you have to do is to go on Etsy, Streamelements or Streamlabs’ merch tool and add your designs on their available merch. These platforms offer well designed and super simplified flows to get you from logo design.

Once you establish a strong merch line, you should start by repping your own merch. Make it a meme amongst your community to rep your channel, let them see how cool it is! In addition to weaving a tight knit community, merch gives you the opportunity to worry less about when does Twitch pay you because you’ll have a parallel revenue stream.

Don’t forget that in the end what makes the strength of a streamer is their community. Hence, you should use every opportunity to turn your subs into your community and that’s done through repetition and memes. So go ahead, create your merch, pick a channel soundtrack from copyright free music for Twitch libraries and stream baby, stream!

Donations aren’t part of the average Twitch streamer salary. As the name aptly indicates, this is a tool that you would use to make charitable donations to a cause that’s relevant to you. You can use Twitch’s built in charity tool to collect donations and get a tax deductible receipt where applicable. There are also additional tools at your disposal such as Tiltify that allows you to collect donations. Bear in mind that you won’t be able to use your subscriptions and cheered bits to donate to charity directly. Instead you can withdraw your Twitch revenue and then donate to charity but in this case you won’t be getting a tax deductible receipt from Twitch. The main reason Twitch makes donation easier on it’s platform is to increase transparency, and protect the relationship between the streamers and fans. 

Subscriptions are a sign that you are doing something right. Subscriptions are at the heart of Twitch’s community model. Your audience will subscribe to your channel in exchange for certain perks such as custom emotes, sub-badges, sub only chats or ad free viewing. Additionally you can offer benefits that your subscribers can enjoy outside of Twitch as well, such as a different role on your Discord channel. It’s important to make sure that your subscribers have perks they can enjoy and feel special. Subscriptions really determine how much do twitch streamers make per sub.

Your subscribers will also be able to gift you subscriptions which you can then gift to your audience. This is a great way to supercharge your Twitch sub calculator!
 

Eventually you’ll also be able to create multiple tiers of subscriptions and offer different levels of perks. This will allow you to onboard a larger audience. But for that you’ll need to be a Twitch Partner.

The Twitch Partner Program is for those who are ready to step up from affiliate. If you are looking to make Twitch a source of income as a creator this is where you’ll strive to be. To be a Twitch partner you’ll need to be committed to streaming because you are required to stream for 25 hours minimum, on 12 different days and have an average of 75 viewers.

Once you are a Twitch partner you’ll be able to create multiple levels of subscriptions. Get to play ads on your channel and earn revenue from the ads that run on your channel. Custom bits, badges as well as a verified user badge. 
 

Once a partner you can really bring out your Twitch money calculator. That is of course, if you are using royalty free music for Twitch to make sure your income is not hampered by copyright issues. 

Your journey to stardom is really starting.

Bits are the way for your community to make some noise. It is also a great way for you to fire up your community while increasing your earnings.
 

Your community can use bits to Cheer, send animated Bit gem emotes or Cheermotes to stand out in the chat. For every Bit used, you will receive 0.01$. If the Bits are used through and extension you’ll receive 0.008$ while the extension gets 0.002$.

Focus more on engaging with your community and the Bits will follow. Instead of asking for bits, focus on creating engaging content so that people come in hoards to watch you. Once you have a loyal audience, the Bits will follow. 

One of the holy grails of creator income is brand sponsorships and partnerships. If you are already getting subscriptions and bits, but you still find yourself asking is Twitch profitable, sponsorships are what will tip the scale to a more profitable balance. While not always as steady and reliable as subscriptions and bits, brands provide a great opportunity for you to earn larger amounts in one off or yearly contracts. 

If your channel is successful, you can expect brands to find you and offer sponsorship deals to give their products more visibility. Consider this as a way to create value for your community as well and try to opt for brands who offer products you can vouch for, or are comfortable with. Having a selective approach and keeping your community in mind will help you safeguard the special relationship you have with your audience. 

As your channel grows, you can also be proactive and get in touch with the brands to be in their radar. If you use a certain product in your streams or if a product or service plays a central role in your online presence, then let them know! Send an email or a DM. Chances are, some might not reply, but others will and brick by brick you’ll build your partnership network. 

One key thing to keep in mind when making sponsored or branded content is to use royalty free music. When a brand contacts you for sponsored content, they are likely to also want to use your clips from your content in their own social media channels, even boost these clips for more traction. So this is a good time to ask can you play copyrighted music on twitch. 

The simple answer is no. Moreover, the brands won’t be able to boost clips from your stream on other social media platforms if you use commercially released music in your stream. And if you are now wondering how do streamers play music without copyright, it’s pretty easy. Platforms like Snapmuse or Artlist offer royalty free music for streaming that will enable you to create streams that conform with twitch copyright music rules. 

Affiliate marketing is one of the earliest sources of creator income you can tap into. With affiliate marketing you can avoid wondering how many followers on twitch to get paid, and get straight to creating a source of income. 

It’s not part of your Twitch ad revenue calculator. It’s rather a way for you to make money on Twitch but not through Twitch the company. Affiliate marketing consists of sharing links to certain products or services and getting payed a certain percentage for every successful sale. 
 

Here your affiliate income depends solely on the amount of sales you are able to make. While it’s crucial to have a high number of people watching your stream, with affiliate marketing you can start earning way before you are able to become a Twitch Partner. 

Simply sign up to an affiliate program on your platform of choice to begin your affiliate journey. Amazon has one of the most popular affiliate programs because it’s easy to sign up and it offers a wide range of products. Snapmuse also has an easy to sign up affiliate program. Snapmuse’s affiliate program entails anything from free months of non copyrighted music for Twitch, to a percentage of revenues generated by your link.

There are 4 criteria to become a Twitch Affiliate: 

• Reach 50 Followers
• Stream for 8 Hours
• Stream on 7 Different Days
• Reach an Average of 3 Viewers

Once the criteria is met, you’ll be invited to joi Twich via email or Twitch notification, so keep an eye out!

Social media platforms differ significantly in terms of audience. Some have a younger audience looking to watch gamers while others have an audience that are a bit older and enjoy different streams such as politics. That is why diversification is a good strategy for most creators.
 

By diversifying the platforms you stream on, you get to grow your potential audience size exponentially. Not only will it help you find the right audience faster but it will also enable you to appeal to a wider audience. This is good because you are able to appeal to different demographics at the same time. It’s also a smart way to hedge against the platforms shutting down. The recent example of Twitch shutting down in Korea is a good lesson about the importance of diversification for creators that aim to build a career as a creator.

No creator is an island and no matter where you are in your career journey, you are one step ahead of someone else. Sharing your experience is a valuable endeavour. You can choose to do this for free, but it’s also completely ok to want to monetize the time you put in helping others. After all you’ll be putting in time to coach someone and you’ll be sharing experience you acquired by taking risks, walking a path less taken by others. 

The question is when you should charge and when you should extend a helping hand. You’ll see that you’ll start getting questions from people around you as well as other creators as soon as you press “go live” for the first time. At the earlier stages of your career people might not be willing to offer you remuneration for your know-how but they’ll surely ask questions. 

The simplest thing you can do is to create a video course about becoming a Twitch creator and sell direct people to your course’s link. One on one consulting options will likely present themselves as your channel grows. However, the bigger your channel gets, the less time you’ll find to help people out. Having an online course available for Twitch beginners will allow you to make passive income and you’ll also be able to fit in a couple of one on one consulting clients depending on the time you’ll have available. 

Keep in mind that there will be instances where collaborating with certain creators will provide you a greater return in terms of followers than it will in terms of cash. You’ll be better able to judge each situation based on its specific conditions but your followers count is an important metric of your creator journey in the long run. At the end of the day the question is about how many followers on twitch to get paid.

Is Twitch profitable? Is not an easy question because the answer is both yes and no. If you are able to create an engaging stream, and use that momentum to monetize your success using the above mentioned methods, then yes. Twitch can very well be profitable. However this is not an easy task and it will take most people a while to grow their channel to the point where it becomes profitable.

It also depends if you build your channel on a safe base in terms of copyrights. For instance whether you are using non copyrighted music for Twitch in your streams and intros/outros. Because can you get copyrighted on Twitch? Yes! Absolutely and that will seriously affect your channel’s profitability.

How much does Twitch Pay is a very case specific question. The amount Twitch pays to creators depends on your country, audience size and how many ads you are able to play. Additionally Twitch might pay you for attending its events and conferences based on your audience size.

The average streamer Twitch income depends on the country. For the United States this is $56,375 a year for 2023. Based on location the income can vary drastically. This is because ad revenues depend based on country. 

The Twitch top earners in 2023 are Ninja, Auronplay, Rubius. These streamers mostly stream Fortnite, League of Legends, Among Us and Just Chatting.

Once again this depends on the subscription cost of Twitch in a given country. Twitch and the streamer split the cost of a subscription per each sub. Meaning that per each subscriber the streamers make roughly between $2.50–$12.50. Of course this excludes the bits each subscriber spends or other additional revenues generated by each subscriber from merch sales. 

You need 50 subscribers to apply for Twitch Affiliate. But the subscriber count by itself is not enough. You’ll also need to stream for 8 hours, as well as stream on 7 different days and reach an average of 3 viewers.

Twitch will pay you on the 15th of every month. But if you diversify your revenue sources using the suggestions we made on this post, you are more likely to have a constant revenue stream throughout the month. Just make sure to know how to play copyrighted music on Twitch so that you avoid any bad surprises. Or simply use Twitch royalty free music and stream without worrying about losing your Twitch revenue, because playing copyrighted music and getting away with it is very tricky.