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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FXKT_GEIST commented
I agree 100% with this, if other platforms are doing it then Twitch needs to definitely get on board. It took me 4 YEARS to finally get a payout.
And yes, the 100 dollar threshold is ridiculous. I know you probably don't want to hammer your systems with withdrawals but something needs sorting.
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BigSliceGaming commented
50/50 isn’t a competitive split with a lot of services and the $100 payout threshold is extremely unfair for smaller streamers. There needs to be a smaller threshold for smaller streamers to even see the financial benefits that their viewers are paying for in the first place. Lower it!
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Beedronious commented
Lower the payment threshold, or bump up what we get, either or, or both, something needs to be changed.
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GalliCat commented
I temporarily stopped streaming almost 4 months ago because I couldn’t pay my bills off my Twitch revenue alone… and I STILL have almost $70 just sitting in Twitch’s pockets gathering dust!
A bigger split and smaller payout threshold would mean I could actually ENJOY my post-military retirement, doing something I enjoy, without worrying how I’m going to keep my kids fed!
Give streamers what they deserve, or they WILL finally get fed up and abandon you (Twitch) for someone who treats them better… it’s just a matter of when, NOT if.
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BlendTheRainbow commented
Came back again, amazon/twitch CAN AFFORD TO GIVE US AT LEAST 75-80%+
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O_Pescotapa commented
Necessary
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DamagedPlushie commented
If bought from browser bits are 70/30 roughly without discounts. But for subs it's one month and we either make or commission emotes and make other incentives. It's easier to generate hype for that if our cut is more proper. The work is so not 50/50. Shoot make a system so we can clearly earn a better cut. Something.
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daisynotquake commented
i want to be able to actually reach payout for once as a small streamer. twitch is just keeping the money that my followers are trying to give to me and it’s terrible. twitch, do better.
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ViktheOG commented
If you do nothing else this year, making this change would be the only thing I really care about and want to see actually happen.
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DaveSkywalker commented
This is critical if Twitch wants to survive. Already other companies pay better. Live.space is coming with 85% split. I know others working on open source streaming services. Twitch is going to go the way of the Dodo bird if they continue to be greedy dodos.
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ThatGuyZombies commented
This is a no brainer.
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AFurryAnimal commented
Extremely Critical
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Beautywithinyou commented
I usually don't comment as I'm just a viewer and not a streamer. As someone who has supported many streamers and wants to continue to support, I choose not to do subs even though the rewards of having emotes are tempting. I've lately chosen to donate/tip them instead since that goes directly to the streamer. After seeing the frustration of content creators and hearing them from here, that is the conclusion I've chosen to do. I really hope 70/30 paysplit happens, and the minimum payout changes to $50 sounds more better not only for current streamers, but for future content creators that want to join this huge platform like myself. This issue is one of the main reasons why I'm hesitant to join.
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bluesage8 commented
VOTE CRITICAL! Streamers are the backbone of twitch without its streamers twitch would be nothing, other platforms can pay their creators 70/30 twitch's split is way out of date and needs to be adjusted. I have been saying this under twitch's twitter posts for awhile. I would argue that if streamers got a bigger split there would be no reason to adjust the payout because they would be getting a bigger portions of their subs. The increased paysplit needs to happen, a lot of the features twitch has been implementing a lot of content creators havent asked for and if they have its been very few. This is the biggest request on UserVoice fix this for the community and check it off, I know a lot of content creators that have moved platforms due to the 70/30 split and ive also known viewers that have refused to subscribe to a streamer and instead has found other ways to support them. THIS NEEDS TO CHANGE!
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felxstorm commented
Greedy Amazon needs to stop hogging all that extra revenue
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tim_tom__ commented
Joining the wave
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MrsOEF5 commented
This is critical
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LazahNinja commented
Streamers are the sole revenue earners. They always deserve a workable share
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froggy commented
very critical. streamers deserve a higher cut of sub revenue
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ProfessorLycan commented
I disagree with the payout minimum but fully agree with the payout split.