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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bishoukun commented
Y'all are owned by a megacorporation, you're not going under by paying people more fairly. Sorry not sorry, but streamers are the ones putting the time and effort and energy into streaming, and without the streamers there is no Twitch. Without Twitch? There are still streamers and other platforms. The streamers should be getting a larger cut of all income than the platform in all instances, at a minimum of 60/40. Amazon isn't about to let its precious gaming niche mine collapse, so let's be less greedy instead of more - because everyone really should be getting 70/30.
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FB3Network commented
Nobody here wants this change, yet you're enforcing it on us anyway. So many creators rely on a good and fair revenue split so they can pay for their livelihoods. A 70/30 split gives 70% to the creator, and 30% to Twitch. This split actually showed we're supporting the streamers we care about. We did not want an "update" to the revenue split! Now, you're forcing all of us, including non-affiliates, to have a 50/50 split instead. But, the only people who won't be affected by this change will be the streamers on their premium deals. This makes it harder for us to support our favorite streamers. They love their job. Cutting the rev split makes it harder for us to support them. In the blog post, you even mentioned that you were owned by Amazon, a company that is literally worth trillions. Your AWS servers can't even support 8K bitrate. YouTube offers a fair 70/30 revenue split and over quadruple the bitrate. This change needs to be stopped. You are not in this together. So many of your creators are jumping ship to YouTube because of poor decisions like this. We demand that you move all creators to a 70/30 rev split and pay them quicker.
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GannicusRex commented
Currently, it's reported that about 9 million people go live every month. Instead of changing the split with larger streamers, why not charge a small fee, maybe $5/mo to go live? Even if that caused 2 million people to not go live, leaving 7 million X $5 each is $35 million per year and or $420 million /year... I don't know the economics of the sub split change in comparison and maybe the price could be higher to go live. Think of it another way... most business platforms have SOME fee i.e. $29/mo for shopify. Would it be crazy to charge $5-10/mo for an exceptionally technically advanced video streaming service? At $10/mo that's maybe $840 million. That's also VERY highly profitable since it takes almost no infrastructure to charge existing users a nominal fee.
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Nate_LapT commented
Ah, watch out
You might get what you're after
Cool babies
Strange but not a stranger
I'm an ordinary guy
Burning down the house
Hold tight
Wait 'til the party's over
Hold tight
We're in for nasty weather
There has got to be a way
Burning down the house
Here's your ticket, pack your bags
Time for jumpin' overboard
Transportation is here
Close enough but not too far
Maybe you know where you are
Fightin' fire with fire
Ah, all wet
Hey, you might need a raincoat
Shakedown
Dreams walking in broad daylight
365 degrees
Burning down the house
Ah, it was once upon a place
Sometimes I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place
People on their way to work
And, baby what do you expect?
Gonna burst into flames, ah
Burning down the house
My house
Is out of the ordinary
That's right
Don't wannna hurt nobody
Some things sure can sweep me off my feet
Burning down the house
No visible means of support
And you have not seen nothin' yet
Everything's stuck together
And I don't know what you expect
Staring into the TV set
Fightin' fire with fire, ah -
DaveSkywalker commented
Twitch is too small of a part of Amazon for them to care. According to Motley Fool, Twitch's revenue represents only 0.1% of Amazon's revenue. They could shut down Twitch tomorrow and it would barely register with their stock price. Amazon should just sell the platform to someone that will actually care about it and the streamers/creators that generate that revenue.
It's not apples to apples, but look at what Udemy does to support course instructors and then look at what Amazon does for Twitch streamers. Udemy aggressively markets courses (not just the platform), provides tons of data to instructors, offers tons of training, basically does everything it can to make courses successful. The revenue split is lower, 40%, but that's based on Udemy promoting your course. But the revenue split goes up to 97%!! if someone buys a course based on your promotion. Imagine that? Rewarding creators for bringing more people to the platform. What does Amazon do? The opposite. They took away the ability to contact subscribers. They took away friends, which I at least used to discover half of the channels I follow. They increased ads making streams less desirable to watch. They do nothing to help streamers get more viewers and subs.
It's simple, they don't care. And they never will.
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dragonslayer8345 commented
I feel that the Revenue Split should be the following as well. 60/40 for affiliate and 70/30 for partners. Currently right now as we speak both Facebook and Youtube are offer 70/30 for there streamers that are either affiliate and partner. With that being the case then twitch is going to lose alot of streamers and they will end up leaving just to go to another platform that pays out way better. And with amazon own Twitch and Amazon being a Billion dollar company it not like they would miss out on much of the revenue from Subs. That is why most streamers recieve more bits then they do subs because they now that when someone subs or even gift a sub that 50% of it is going to twitch, where when we get Bits none of that goes to twitch. The other reason i believe that the payouts should be higher is because live streaming alone takes alot of time and money. Money that is required to upgrade certain parts of the PC, which then allows us to keep up with Newer games that continue to come out. With no money and no upgrades it stops us from being able to upgrade and to stream.
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bluesage8 commented
As one person already stated with twitch using Amazon Web Services there is no way they are paying full price for the services since twitch is owned by amazon, naturally they do have to put that they are to keep themselves from being backed in a corner...
I do think that streamers deserve a 70/30 split because as one myself I understand the hard work, time, dedication and energy that goes into a live stream, not only that but the amount of discoverability that is available to smaller streamers is almost non-existent which causes streamers having to find ways outside of the platform to get discovered. I think twitch constantly pushing their streamers to play ads is also irritating for a few reasons. As a streamer and a viewer to others I hate going into a stream and getting interrupted by ads, it makes me want to leave as soon as I get one, I come to twitch to watch people enjoy a game that I am passionate about and enjoy interacting with different communities that like that same game, when hit with an ad it interrupts the enjoyment I was having due to not knowing what's going on in the stream making me want to leave.
Twitch also lowering the cost per sub for viewers in different countries a few years ago also caused streamers to take a pay cut unless you had viewers from those countries then as a streamer you didn't get more people subscribing because of this change and instead the people that were subscribed in those countries now pay less and the streamer gets paid less as well since they get 50 percent of whatever that viewer paid...
This part is where probably majority of people are going to disagree with me... but for people that kept pushing just for the $100 payout to be lowered, what were you thinking?! twitch did exactly what I thought they were going to which was essentially "we put our best foot forward and did half of what was asked, you all should still be happy because we met half way" no if you all would have pushed for the pay split being higher instead you realize all you would have needed was 29 subs a month instead of 40 right? you would have had more payouts anyway due to earning more money, and even then you all still have a 100 payout minimum STILL because wire transfers require a $100 minimum unless you decide a different payout method, so how much did it help...?
so to summarize everything up, Yes im irritated with twitch for one not being honest with their community about how much their actually paying for AWS, as well as acting like there some small company who cant afford to payout their streamers when they clearly can.
But...
I am also irritated with the people who only focused on lowering the payout threshold not thinking twitch was going to half @.$.$. it like how they have done with everything else in the past... Due to how twitch has handled this it may be time to start looking to other platforms to stream on... Also guys remember when twitch announced "Squad Streaming" over 3 years ago and said it would eventually roll out to affiliates still haven't seen any announcement on that for awhile either... have we?
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Oceanity commented
"Using the published rates from Amazon Web Services’ Interactive Video Service (IVS)"
Hey so uh, not sure if this is news to you, but you do realize you're an Amazon company right? You do realize that Amazon companies aren't paying what an average consumer is for AWS stuff yeah?
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NicoTheDane commented
Amazon made 469.82 billion dollars in 2021 let that sink in, yet we get more and more ads you make it harder to make a living on twitch less viewers creators switching to yt of fb, that's not what we need. we need a fair 70/30 split
all these changes aren't for us but just business its forcing creators and viewers away from twitch, ive been a daily user of twitch since 2011 since the justin.tv days, hurts me seeing a platform i love not give a sh*t about its users for years, i know there's staff at twitch who feels the same way talked to a couple
also no other partner that i know is streaming 200 hours every month. Is the average twitch partner really streaming 10 hours every day? most streamers can barely reach 100 per month
200 hours a month is FIFTY HOURS A WEEK,Amazon buying twitch was one of the WORST things to happen to the platform. all about money money and money, not us the users / creators
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ShaelynTheFae commented
hey Twitch, how much are you making off the ads you're forcing on everyone? care to be a bit more transparent with us all?
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DeathMetalMilkMan commented
Folks, come listen in to the call from previous Twitch employees and creators in the space.
https://twitter.com/t3dotgg/status/1572757397839683586?s=20&t=k5Bpy8MTBd2AKXoTwakP4A -
Goetica commented
Hey guys, we've gotten a 27% increase in revenue per hour (given the streamer and us split things *equally* right?) every year exponential for the last five years. That said we don't want to give you more of it. We won't say we can't. We just won't. We're investing back into the streaming itself and increasing the money coming in. We know you would do the same (typically creators go to great lengths to increase viewer engagement which drives profit), but we do it better, and this is just an excuse anyways. That'll be all, folks!
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YukiHoshikawa commented
Bad decision, Twitch. You could've even done 60/40 for affiliates and 70/30 for partners, but instead, you spew out the generic corporate "we’re in this together." and say you're in the right, when your biggest competition can offer a 70/30 split for EVERYONE.
YouTube isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but this decision shows us that if YouTube continues to invest in and improve their streaming side of things, they have a very real chance of taking even more big name streamers than they already have.
And while I can't speak for the rest of the smaller streamers, this announcement has made me decide to focus more on YouTube and less on Twitch. It's the more appealing place for me, and once I get access to YouTube's Memberships, I might just begin streaming there instead of here.
You had a big W with the gambling, then immediately blew all the good will you generated AND THEN SOME, as all that this says is that the multi billion dollar company doesn't care about its users (as if there was any reason to believe it did care more than it had to).
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The13thSeahawk commented
This is a really bad take, Twitch. YouTube can do it, why can't you? It seems like you're pushing more people to go to YouTube Gaming.
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Noe_JH commented
"it’s our responsibility to make continuous investments in the products and people that make your growth possible."
For real? The only one platform in the world that does not have any discovery for small streamers? That we have to work hard in all of the other platforms to get people to see us here in twitch? Either you are paying for nothing or you just try to scam us...
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4ndy commented
"it’s our responsibility to make continuous investments in the products and people that make your growth possible."
me when I lie and in the last few years made changes that are unpleasant to the experience of not only viewers, but streamers alike
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Bandersnatch81 commented
Twitch collects a 50/50 revenue from each sub. The only pricing mentioned is tier 1, at $5.00 per month, what about tier 2 and tier 3? I had originally thought (based on impressions I got from twitch almost 5 years ago when I began participating in the platform by following and subscribing to streamers) that the surplus difference in sub costs went to the streamer (I.E. a tier one sub gives a streamer $2.50, a tier 2 gives the streamer $7.50, and a tier 3 gives the streamer $22.50.) I really don't like the thought that the extra money I chose to pay, enough for 5 tier 1 subs each month. is not going to the streamer. I especially dislike this considering that there is at least one streamer whom I've subbed to for over 4 years at the tier 3 level specifically to help support them a little more. that's $240 extra per year or at this point about $1000 extra. That's just for one of the 12-15 streamers I currently have paid subs for.
The reasoning about costs on Twitch's backend are somewhat specious, as Youtube provides a 70/30 split, and they're the same size as Amazon, and based on bandwidth used, according to third-party trackers, streams more video at higher resolutions. As for ways to "help" monetize streams Twitch doesn't seem like they're really keeping up with things like that. Hype trains were specifically mentioned. The main reason a lot of people I know contribute to hype trains is for new emotes. When was the last time Twitch introduced new hype train emotes? I get a message that I "already have all the level X emotes" every time I'm part of a hype train, and I've gotten that message for quite some time. How hard is it to create a new batch of emotes?
Altogether I spend around $100-$125 on subs every month and more on bits. If Twitch is this inequitable and provides specious reasoning instead of making real changes, I will have no problem following my preferred streamers to another platform where they can make more.
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JorlaxVGC commented
This is a freaking joke right? Your company makes billions and your profit after expenses like servers and blah blah is still huge! Quit stealing from the little people to line your pockets. Your company executives are getting richer and richer from us and you want to take even more from us! We take enough abuse from the American government we don’t need it from you too. Do ******* better twitch. I think it’s just time for everyone to say ***** twitch and go to another platform. YouTube is getting better and better every month at this point.
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InventorBLADES commented
Keep posting your discontent and spreading the word! Use hashtag #subsplit and if you @ me @inventorblades on twitter Ill retweet it but it has to be informative, civil and helping move this conversation forward. DO NOT LET UP though, express how you feel. Strength in numbers.
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TheAlkaris commented
Well well well... it seems people aren't happy because you want to keep a laughably 50/50 cut when we're the ones providing the streaming content while you reap the rewards for yourself. A company owned by Amazon can't seem to "afford" the 70/30 cut. You're not in it together with us, you're working against us, and this is one way to lose thousands of users on the platform who would be most willing to jump platform if you go through with this, not an easy decision, but they'll take their followers with them if they have to, to a new platform that gives its creators a proper pay cut in ad revenue, which you only seem to care for against whatever we have to say. Is Twitch really that so far disconnected that you can't see this is an issue that everybody else can?
YouTube streaming starting to look a lot more appealing than streaming on Twitch these days. It's not like you listen to our feedback anyways, because you do whatever you want against what we say so why the **** should we even bother?