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.
SaltyWyvern
shared this idea
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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mryellow_live
commented
This sucks! We put in the effort we should be payed faster and earn more. You guys wonder why you keep losing people to YouTube it’s cause of stuff like this. Changing to 70/30 wouldn’t hurt a multi billion dollar company.
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marideerie
commented
We all know and understand that the service costs money. But when you are owned by one of the richest companies on the planet, you cannot simply say "we can't afford this" and expect people to believe you. Show us proof that you really would be operating at a loss if you want to be "transparent and open" about this.
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DaSheriffff
commented
That a disgusting response from twitch. They are a multi-billion dollar company and they are acting like they are losing money. 50/50 would never effect them and nor will it destroy their company financially. Giving us 50/50 would mean we would stream more and alot longer giving you guys even more profit. This response will go down badly and people will end up joining YouTube Live to stream since they give 50/50
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GumblePlays
commented
Your ad's Idea is something that is only going to drive people away. Since you've added the split on ad's and the 5 mins straight of ad viewing I have had more people complain than before. The cost of running a business is your own problem. Maybe instead of taking a hard earned 50% of a streamers business you market better, plan out your yearly budget better, take smaller wages the higher up in the company you are. Stop using the little guy to profit. You're literal thiefs at this point, and you are GOING TO LOSE streamers to other platforms with better payouts.
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MeckaVT
commented
The revenue split should be 120/-20. Every sub should cost Jeff bezos one dollar
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n2ash
commented
What a repulsive thing to post. You know better than to quote IVS customer rates like it's your actual cost of business, and you know better than to highlight 200 hours a month as if it's some kind of standard. Hat-in-hand behavior from a subsidiary of a trillion dollar company is outright pathetic.
It would have cost you nothing to ignore this suggestion and you would have come out looking better. As it stands, I'm terminating all my personal business with Twitch and Amazon and pushing my contacts towards other solutions.
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Ash_Angelic
commented
So, you want people to leave? No one is going to stay through 5 minutes of ads and with this revenue splat every streamer I know considering moving to YouTube. This decision is gonna cut your profit because no one wants to stay on twitch or tolerate the ads. As an entertainment company I figured you would’ve understood that but I Amazon doesn’t understand that people aren’t just mindless ad clicking robots.
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Hintetsomaru
commented
I'm not here to say running servers is cheap. I'm not here to say the revenue split should be better. I'm here to point out that, with absolutely no adblocker on, I received a chain of 7 ads, totaling almost 5 minutes of being removed from a stream. For live content, that's really, really jarring. And this is not uncommon. I have had people complain about ads on my stream, where I run as few as possible, getting chains of 4 to 9 ads in a row.
You want to talk about 'potential money making', but that's the part you miss. The only way to meet the metric you've set the rule by is by literally putting your viewers, the people who PAY US (I use the royal 'us', as both Twitch and Streamers, in this instance), in an inconvenient position where they're missing up to 3 minutes of stream, an hour. Over the course of a normal stream for me, that's only 12 minutes. But for the people who stream 8, 10, even 12 hours a day, that adds up, and fast.
I'm figuring the 50/50 split is what we're stuck with, but good God, can you FIX your ad system so it doesn't remove people from the streams? You were trying in-window ads for a while, that didn't disrupt the player, but instead shrunk it slightly, with the ad on the side or on the bottom. This is a far better system, as it doesn't actively take you out of the video. If you can't give us a better pay split (Heavens knows you make enough off our hard work.) you could at least make it easier for us to run ads, without inconveniencing our viewers, who are the ones who pay us.
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Diexna
commented
Almost two years ago user SaltyWyvern started a poll here to change the revenue split from 50/50 for subs to 70/30. Over time it had gathered over 22k votes.
Today, Twitch decided to decline this request while citing costs on their part to deliver a good service, and instead they will be pushing their Ads Incentive Program to compensate. Many people agree that ads are, most of the time, incredibly disrupting for the viewing experience as they can at times simply show up with no warning, even during "peak gaming" moments that you would then miss.
As stated by SaltyWyvern, other platforms already have a much more encouraging 70/30 split. This is the industry standard. Twitch is the outlier refusing to adapt.
Given how many people have stated their displeasure with the recent announcement from Twitch, and how they stated that they would continue to use UserVoice for their primary source of feedback, I am creating this, hoping that more people than before will make their voice heard and put in a vote. More than 22k over a two year period.
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brii
commented
I'm sorry but just roll out at least 60/40. You tell us we can make us much as the 50/50 content creators IF we run ads. Running ads ruins the quality of our streams.
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Tophomatic
commented
The moment that YouTube finally creates a better viewing experience for streaming will be the moment Twitch will be forced to look back on this decision and realize they F’d up.
I see more people pushing YouTube because of growth and opportunity. The viewership isn’t quite there yet, and that’s Twitch’s saving grace. The moment that YouTube improves the search and viewer experience is the moment a massive exodus from Twitch will happen.
Twitch’s greed will be their inevitable downfall.
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DylanRoyleGaming
commented
stop spaming the Ads all the Time
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Its_Riley02
commented
I'm done with you greedy ********. Every other platform gives a bigger split. EVERYONE. EXCEPT YOU. I'm done.
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DaveSkywalker
commented
I already stopped spending any money within Twitch. Why give you any money for doing nothing? You keep taking away good features. You do nothing to support small streamers. The DJ community is dying off - there's no effort by Twitch to do anything to help. So to **** with Twitch. I give my money directly to the streamers OUTSIDE of the Twitch platform. You will not get any money from me (besides the measly pennies from a few ads). And I heartedly promote others to do the same. It's maybe a drop in the bucket for you, but that builds up over time. Just remember that you brought this on yourselves with your greed.
On top of that, I'm aware of and involved in some, efforts to create creator-owned streaming services. No more corporate bs taking half or more of the money creators earn.
No one actually believes that you care about streamers. Stop lying to yourselves.
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VaughnWhiskey
commented
Ahhh yes, the small indie company known as Twitch with growing pains...
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Moozipan
commented
Since the request for a 70/30 revenue split for creators with overwhelming support by the community was declined, here's a new suggestion: Make it 80/20 instead.
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philfromaussieland
commented
You guys are really making it sound better to do what Ninja did. Demonetising twitch, streaming to multiple platforms and just setting up direct donations instead of relying on subs. If you want to keep your streamers you need to show you value us and pay us what we deserve. That means getting the majority money from our subs that WE attracted, not you, and seeing that money by the next week.
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TakoyakiGamma
commented
Additional to my previous comment, Twitch fails to realise that without us they'd literally be nothing, meanwhile we will always have alternatives. We can thrive without you twitch, good luck without us
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FluffyKokoDreams
commented
YouTube can do it.. but you all can’t..? This sound like a huge MF excuse to be honest. Maybe people shouldn’t sub and instead just donate / tip the 5$ each month instead since you all at twitch love being money hungry…
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koffykuma
commented
Ok so $1000 a month is 400 subs worth of income with a 50/50 split and you're going to tell me that someone pulling 100 average veiwers streaming 50 hours a week is barely getting more than 400 subs
I'm a very small streamer who doesn't make nearly those numbers but that seems like an insultingly low estimate
I've not been streaming most of the year while taking care of family but this frankly is the last straw for me and I'll be considering the other options when I start streaming again