How Much Twitch Pays per Sub in 2021 (Normal, Prime and Gifted)
Twitch subscriber system is one of the oldest ways to make money as a streamer. But there can be a difference between how much each streamer makes. Below we go through how much Twitch pays per sub. Be it a normal or a Twitch prime sub, and also how much affiliates and partners receive for each subscriber.
The Subscriber System
A long time ago, back when Twitch Chat would spam BibleThump emotes, the Subscribe button was a feature exclusive to partners. Since the creation of the Twitch affiliate program, this is no longer the case and a lot more broadcasters can now have subscribers to their channels.
Subscriptions on Twitch work a bit differently from other websites. Viewers can choose to pay a small price and become a sub. The subscription is usually renewed monthly, and gives perks to viewers, like watching without ads, access to exclusive VODs (videos on demand), a subscriber badge and new emotes to be used across Twitch. This allowed for more and more people to make live streaming a job, instead of just a hobby.
Apart from making money to the streamers, having more subs also allows for more emotes in the channel. Affiliates can have up to 5 emote and partners can have up to 60, depending on how much and what tier the subscribers are.
There is the possibility to sub at tiers 1, 2 and 3. In 2021 Twitch started localizing sub prices and currencies, so values might change depending on where viewers reside. Before localization, a sub would cost the viewer U$4.99, U$9.99 or U$24.99 regardless of the country of residence. Now that's the price for some countries only, like the US and Canada and other countries have different pricing.
Most examples given here are for US-based subscribers but can be adapted to other countries following this table.
How Much Twitch Pays Affiliates per Sub
Affiliates are the lowest tier of streamers that can have a subscribe button. They start by being able to upload 1 emote for each subscription tier.
Twitch pays all affiliates the same amount per sub. That happens because the affiliate contract is standard for all streamers in this category.
Twitch pays affiliates in a 50/50 split. That means that for each tier 1 US-based subscriber, an affiliate should get around $2.50, right? Well, not exactly. Before splitting the money, Twitch first takes out some costs, taxes and fees.
Also, on payout day there is a transaction fee that changes depending on your payout method and your country of residence. Let's take Paypal payout as a baseline. US-based streamers will pay a U$0.75 fee, while non-US-based streamers will pay a 2% fee (up to U$20) + U$0.50.
After the sub money is split, Twitch still accounts for tax withholding. All the items stated above make the final net payout a bit lower. It is estimated that to the average affiliate streamer, Twitch pays around U$2.00 ~ U$2.30 per tier 1 US-based sub and around £1.60 ~ £1.80 for tier 1 UK-based sub.
How Much Twitch Pays Partners per Sub
First, we need to understand that there are two types of partners for Twitch. The first type is those streamers who complete the Path to Partner achievement and got invited into joining the program. Their contracts are standard and they get many benefits related to emotes, VOD storage, video quality, etc. For those partners, the split is also 50/50, the same as affiliates.
The other type of partnered streamers is those who got big enough to catch Twitch's attention. Those broadcasters have special contracts, and their split can be negotiated to 60/40 or maybe even 80/20. All the additional costs like taxes and fees also apply to partners.
In this situation, a Twitch partner could make U$2.60 ~ U$2.80 or even U$3.60 ~ U$3.80 per tier 1 US-based subscriber.
How Much Twitch Pays per Gifted Sub
Subscription Gifting is a feature on Twitch that allows a non-sub viewer to become a sub for free, as long as a generous soul is willing to gift it to them. The gifter can be both the streamer or another viewer. There is a way to gift a sub to a specific person, or just to randomly give one or more subs to that community.
Since the streamer receives some of the money back from a sub, it can be a good strategy to do so as a way of rewarding a loyal viewer. It is like a sub costs a US-based streamer around U$3.00 instead of the usual U$5.00.
The payout from gifted subs remains the same, respecting the standard 50/50 split that can change depending on the contract.
Something for streamers to consider when calculating revenue is that the base value of the gifted subs is from the gifter's country of residence and not from the receiver's. Refer to the table linked in the intro of this article to check values per country.
How Much Twitch Pays per Twitch Prime Sub
Twitch Prime is part of the gaming side of Amazon Prime. It allows anyone who has an active Amazon Prime membership to get benefits. Among those benefits is the possibility to get 1 free subscription to a channel on Twitch every month. All the viewer has to do is link his/her Twitch account with the Amazon account.
It is a great deal for viewers and for streamers as well.
Something important to be mentioned is that Prime subs were localized as well, so the payout will depend on the viewer's country. The split remains 50/50 for those with no special contract. So, after costs, taxes and fees, a streamer will also get around U$2.00 ~ U$2.30 for US-based Prime Sub.
The most relevant change for streamers is that, after Twitch Prime, channels started seeing big growth in the number of subscribers. Everyone's happy, even Amazon.
Thinking Beyond Subscriptions
Although gifted subs and Twitch Prime increased the average number of subscribers, Twitch still takes a fairly big slice from this pie. Broadcasters can have sub goals, but should also think of ways to diversify their income.
Bits, direct donations, merch and even sponsored content can also be a valuable resource in composing one's paycheck. Different from what some people think, most viewers don't mind the streamer selling out from time to time.
This is especially the case for small streamers thinking about going full-time. Every penny counts.