Becoming a Twitch streamer can bring in a fair amount of money, and with some changes over the last year, it’s now easier to become a Twitch affiliate. There are plenty of streamers out there that are pursuing streaming as their full time career. Depending on how much you’d like to make a year, you also may be able to pursue Twitch streaming as a career.
In order to become a Twitch affiliate, you will need to have the following stats.
- At least 500 total minutes broadcast in the last 30 days
- At least 7 unique broadcast days in the last 30 days
- An average of 3 concurrent viewers or more over the last 30 days
- At least 50 Followers
These requirements are actually pretty easy to achieve. Over a month time frame, you only need to commit 8.3 hours to your stream, and stream 7 or more times. A unique stream is pretty much anytime you stream actual content, so no replays or hosting will count. Gaining viewers may be tough at first, but three unique viewers a stream will come naturally after a week or so of streaming, so you can expect to achieve this requirement in the first month as well. Also, 50 followers isn’t much. If you get one or two followers a day just starting off, you’ll hit the threshold in the first month easily. If you are a great streamer then you’ll hit these numbers right away, but even the average or mediocre streamer can get these numbers! It is much easier to get sponsored of Twitch than it is to become a partner on YouTube.
So, how much do Twitch streamers make while being partnered? It’s a pretty easy breakdown. The basic level streamers make a 50/50 cut. For a $4.99 sub, the streamer will take home $2.50. For the $9.99 sub, the streamer takes home $5, and for the $24.99 sub, the streamer takes home $12.50. Also, for the free Amazon Prime sub, the streamer takes home $2.50 as this is the $4.99 tier sub. Bigger named streamers may have a 60/40 cut, so for the $4.99 sub they would take home $3. This isn’t a bad deal if you really think about it. For someone on the 50/50 split with 1,000 subscribers, this means they make $2,500 a month or $30,000 a year off subscribers alone. This isn’t bad for a side gig, or a college hobby. Keep in mind though that this is just income off of subscribers. Streamers also make money off of sponsorships, sales of items they’ve made, commission on items they are promoting, their YouTube channel if they have one, which does provide a nice chunk of money as well, and of course the donations that come naturally while streaming as well as receiving bits.
You can become a full time streamer and make a career out of it, all you need to do is the math on what you want to take home. Consider the donations as a side amount as you cannot depend on these tips. You can easily calculate how much you are going to make a month off of your current subscribers. Ask any streamer now and they will prefer you to subscribe for $4.99 than to donate for $4.99. Why? Because you are likely to continue to subscribe month after month which after just two months covers that donation return for the streamer.
It may not be easy to get those 1000 or 2000 subscribers but it is doable to get a few hundred subscribers and on top of any donations, sales, sponsorships, commission, and YouTube promotions, you may be able to make a little extra money on the side just by playing the games you love. Keep on streaming and maybe one day your hobby can become your career!