Change revenue split between streamers and lower payout minimums
I believe these recommendations combined would positively make a huge impact for every streamer and supporter.
Change the payout split between streamers and Twitch. Right now affiliates and most partners only get a 50% split from a Twitch subscriptions ($2.50 USD). I would like to see all streamers get a minimum 70% revenue split from subscriptions with a higher revenue split for all partners 80%. Currently both Facebook and YouTube streamers get a 70% split from subscriptions (and they have the option to create custom subscriber tiers with Youtube).
In addition, I would like to see Twitch lower its payout minimum which is currently $100 USD to $10 - $20 USD. A $100 USD payout is the equivalent to 40 subscriptions not including bits or ad revenue. For the smaller streamers to benefit from that financial support a viewer gives them, they need to be able to actually receive it in a reasonable amount of time.
To put this in perspective: Amazon Affiliates monthly payout minimum is 10 USD (they also give the option to pay out with gift cards) and Patreon's monthly payout minimum is only 3 USD.
Hey everyone -
Firstly, we want to thank SaltyWyvern for posting this request, and the 22k+ of you who have supported it with your votes, comments, and shares. We have been blown away by the response to this post, and have been carefully considering it for the better part of the last year. As there are actually two asks in this post, we will address them individually.
For the primary request of increasing the revenue share split to 70/30, the standard revenue share for subscriptions is 50/50, and we do not have plans to change the standard revenue share. We understand that this is disappointing for many of you, but we’d like to provide some reasoning behind the decision. To quote our President, Dan Clancy, from the blog we posted today:
“When we first established a 50/50 revenue share split, it was to signal that we’re in this together. You all do the amazing work you do to create great content, engage with your audience, and grow communities. On our side of the partnership, it’s our responsibility to make continuous investments in the products and people that make your growth possible.
As you probably heard by now, we’re in the middle of rolling out the largest change to payouts in years by cutting the payout threshold in half to $50. This is an important middle step that will help streamers put money in their pockets now, while getting us closer to our goal of same day payouts and lower thresholds.
Investments like these are paying off for streamers. Products like Prime Subs, Community Gifting, Hype Train, and the Ads Incentive Program, to name a few, have driven an increase of 27% more streamer revenue per viewer hour every year over the last five years. This means the same viewer hour now earns you three times more money than it did five years ago, on average. Our investments into your monetization options have already and continue to put more money into streamers’ pockets than 20% more subs revenue share would have.
Prime Subs often get lost in the conversation when it comes to revenue share. For Prime Subs, we pay streamers the same amount they’d receive for a regular subscription even though it is included as an added benefit of their Prime subscription. Combined with other monetization products, Prime Subs increase your effective revenue share by approximately 15%, to about 65% total. This number varies by streamer size and location, but subscription revenue share is not the full picture on revenue share for streamers.
Lastly, we have to talk about the cost of our service. Delivering high definition, low latency, always available live video to nearly every corner of the world is expensive. Using the published rates from Amazon Web Services’ Interactive Video Service (IVS) — which is essentially Twitch video — live video costs for a 100 CCU streamer who streams 200 hours a month are more than $1000 per month. We don’t typically talk about this because, frankly, you shouldn’t have to think about it. We’d rather you focus on doing what you do best. But to fully answer the question of “why not 70/30,” ignoring the high cost of delivering the Twitch service would have meant giving you an incomplete answer.“
As mentioned above, we recently started a rollout for reducing the minimum payout threshold to $50. Although this does not fully meet the request of $10-20 today, we will continue exploring ways to bring your hard-earned money to you faster, and more efficiently and aim to continue to lower the payout threshold in the future.
While we are declining this request, it’s still crucial to know that the primary value of sharing your feedback on UserVoice is to have your voices heard and suggestions considered. We will not always be able to provide the desired outcome, but it’s important to us to be transparent and open when we can, and we will be focusing on providing more consistent updates on UserVoice as time goes on.
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Krewlex commented
Replying to this (possibly again) - every other comment about this has been completely true. You want streamers to embrace the platform they stream on? Taking half of their earnings for the methods that give the biggest rewards is not the way to do that. Subscribers are the backbone of it, and you want to give people a reason to be a sub. Many exist, but upon telling them half the money doesn't reach the streamer, it's off-putting. This NEEDS to change.
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velvetmilfman commented
A 50/50 split hurts Twitch as well as streamers. I'm not subscribing to anybody so long as Amazon (a 1.5 trillion dollar company) is going to try and take half, I'll find other ways to support creators directly.
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thedanofdans42 commented
[Viewer/Subscriber - I don't stream]
70/30 for all streamers is both fair and logical. More streamers = More variety = More viewers = More revenue for Twitch, less for your competitors.
Interactivity is what makes Twitch, and it is the small streamers that provide that. Without it we may as well be watching VODs and YouTube has a thousand times the content and variety versus Twitch in that department.
Helping people cross the income threshold necessary to become a full time streamer is in Twitch's best interest
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TheAlkaris commented
70/30 should be the standard cut to complete with the likes of YouTube and Facebook when it comes to revenue shares. Twitch can still operate fine on a 70/30 cut, as evident by both Facebook and YouTube. I'd still be comfortable with the $100 payout threshold. However having a slider control to choose a payout threshold would probably be nice, with base minimum of $30-$50 for those who want a lower payout threshold less than $100.
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GEEGA commented
I know this is an expensive site to run. Really, I do. But reaching partnership and still not being able to eek out a comfortable amount to live off of really hurts your chances of many smallish to medium sized streamers ever becoming big. Updating the sub split would, I believe, increase the amount of good content existing on the platform.
I'd like to suggest doing thresholds that work just like tax brackets to start, and having those thresholds start relatively low - somewhere around where a 45 CCV would have their sub count be, on average. Every sub under X total subs gives 50/50. Beyond that, 60/40. Beyond the next threshold, 70/30 and so on. This incentivizes certain sub goals, rewards streamers who bring in more money to the platform, and doesn't punish the site too hard by changing the split evenly across the board.I know this wouldn't be popular with small streamers, but you could easily set those thresholds somewhat low to incentivize streamers taking the right steps toward going full-time when the time is right. At the very least, it's an improvement upon the current system and will help you keep large streamers from taking deals to jump to other platforms.
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euyeonline commented
Maybe the Affiliate contract would actually be worth it now.
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ReUpHD commented
Afternoon,
I would have to agree. Being a previous Mixer partner and now a Twitch Partner, there aren’t really too many incentives for creators to continue to stream or create on Twitch. However twitch has a ton to offer as in it’s the common place people search for content creators who are live. If twitch is going to stay the live streaming platform it is currently with no “game changing” ideas or implementations their needs to be some form of incentive for creators not to leave and go to other platforms. One thing I enjoyed the most about mixer were the opportunities they would give us partners and content creators were ways to monetize our self’s as well as exposure to a larger audience. Now I’m not saying we need to do the same but it feels as twitch has hit its peak. What’s next for twitch is a question I often ask myself. I don’t have an answer atm. However I feel this is a great first step with incentivizing people to stream here versus other platforms. Revenue will still increase because of the mass movement of creators and the investment in game changing services can still be on the forefront of the business to move twitch to still be “the” place to stream. Idk, I always say it’s better to live, rather than just exist. Just my thoughts.
Happy streaming.
ReUpHD -
Lechucckk commented
Twitch your community has spoken!
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CasasPlaysTV commented
If approved, the affiliate contract would potentially be worth singing again. Until then, I highly suggest multistreaming as you can multistream and monetize on other platforms such as Facebook, which takes no % until 2023, and YouTube which is 70% as stated.
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Jghstar101 commented
This would provide a much healthier environment for Streamers and Creators alike. Overall it would be a fantastic change for the better for everyone.
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Adufresne99 commented
I feel like by making the split better for creators, it would gather not onlybmore respect but traffic on the site. It would actually mean more to creators and views to see a very well off company be user friendly and down to earth for once.
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clarionDURIAN commented
Amen! Twitch needs to realize that while they're the hottest site for streaming now, that won't always be the case. And they have to treat their streamers better for their own long-term survival to ensure a win-win scenario for all.
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euyeonline commented
Weekly or fortnightly payments would be amazing, as well as a higher cut for OUR OWN work. Even record labels don't pull **** like this.
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BriarFire_ commented
Please do this. A 50% cut of OUR work just for hosting our stream, is disgusting. Especially when our discoverability on twitch is next to nothing. I grew my following entirely OFF of twitch. My followers all came from advertising on other platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Twitch is the best platform for the stream itself. I love your interface. But to get to where I'm at I did it all myself and you take half of my income. It's not right.
Also to add *You also make TONS of money off of ads that we CANT turn off even if we wanted to (I'd turn every ad off on my channel if I could) we make pennies off of ads and they make it harder for small streamers to grow. Keep all of your ad revenue, keep the ads on, but give us more of a split of our income. It's only fair.
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Jragula commented
Yeah at the very least bi weekly pay would be nice. I'm personally not that big of a streamer for that to matter as I manage a payout every 3-4 months currently, that being said though I plan on having much growth in the future and this would be a welcomed change to the policy. As far as the amount needed to be reached I find that $100 is a fair payout goal. However as twitch is part of Amazon and the company now does weekly pay as well as anytime pay for their warehouse employees I feel this would be a good thing to offer to twitch streamers as well.
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twitch.tv/MonicaElleRose commented
Increasing payout frequency to be more than once a month to once a week for people who hit quota would also be a huge improvement.
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Jedy_ree commented
I 100% agree. I am definitely on board with this!
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SweetNixPlays commented
This is legit insane. I understand taking a decent cut, but not only taking HALF, but also keeping money given to creators under $100? This is ridiculous.
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nikozzz88 commented
I agree, I have been streaming continuously for several months and at the moment I don't see room for growth that could entice me to continue streaming. Luckily I stream as a hobby and without thinking about profits, but I imagine how, for those who want to try to have a small income, the current system can be really ridiculous
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NoraSpellman commented
Agreed. I havent even hit 50 as a small streamer. 100$ is ridiculous