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 $10-20 today, we will continue exploring ways to bring your hard-earned money to you faster, and more efficiently and aim to continue to lower the payout threshold in the future.
While we are declining this request, it’s still crucial to know that the primary value of sharing your feedback on UserVoice is to have your voices heard and suggestions considered. We will not always be able to provide the desired outcome, but it’s important to us to be transparent and open when we can, and we will be focusing on providing more consistent updates on UserVoice as time goes on.
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SentientScimitarNox commented
Very critical! A better split would be great, but definitely would be amazing to have that lower payout minimum. 100$ is insane for small streamers.
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zulad_ commented
this is 100% critical
inflation is hitting a all time high, people would be able to survive if the cut was increased in favor of the streamers, or the threshold to get payed was reduced
**** both will be beneficial
and this does not even include the fact that people don't get 50% **** they sometimes get less depending on where they are from
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DarkmoonMirrah commented
100% Critical. This is an issue that needs to be changed, otherwise creators will continue to move to other platforms.
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Dinklebean commented
Absolutely critical. The difference with me being able to pay rent and utilities with the increase in living costs lately. I cannot stream more hours if I have to work more hours at my part time job to make sure I can make ends meet.
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KoboldKurios commented
100% critical
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WubbityWubWub commented
Coming back to mark this as critical. Still an issue that needs to be corrected.
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Vruno9o commented
Critical, Critical, CRITICAL !!!!!
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bl1tzcrankk commented
Twitch would be dead without the streamers, but without Twitch, the streamers could easily move to YouTube and be just fine. A fair split for affiliates (70/30) and Partners (80/20) should be possible, considering that Twitch is a big company, and not just a startup. Twitch payouts now are very inconsistent, and the only way to live comfortably while streaming is to either be on a big organization (ex. Cloud 9 or 100 Thieves), or have tons of sponsors. Streamers should be able to stream full time without the fear of paying bills or having food on the table. Also, lowering the payout threshold would make it way better for smaller streamers. I can barely manage to get $70 across the almost 2 years I’ve been affiliated. I think that a $50 payout threshold would be fine. We aren’t greedy, we’re trying to be able to live off streaming. And yes, this is critical for the future of Twitch.
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euyeonline commented
Critical as all ****
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TakoyakiGamma commented
It's critically important that we are treated fairly and get what we deserve
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BabyEags commented
MOST DEFINITELY CRITICAL
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IkariTenshi commented
Absolutely CRITICAL.
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AdamFerrari commented
Critical. This is of critical importance
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AkamiVR commented
This is majorly critical and needs to happen now
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Sho_Live_ commented
I think the fact that we have to vote in order to have a fair pay split shows how bad the situation is
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r3mm13 commented
This is critically important for me to stay on Twitch. Why would I stay if other sites have a better payout? I can't sit around twiddling my thumbs waiting on this company to treat its streamers fairly. This will be make a break for me. Please just consider this Twitch.
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Joober commented
There’s a new “Critical” importance button that all users should be clicking!
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CrappyApexGuyTV commented
We have been at this for a very long time, and the price of a sub has gone up, yet streamers havent been getting a bigger piece of the pie. In fact, i averaged the amount of money inget from a paid sub, and its $2.29
I have been affiliated since Nov 3 and am $5 from my first payout (April 12). Thats crazy, and we need to get paid more for having unskippable ads that we cant turn off, and providing content that people literally pay to watch -
Krewlex commented
Critical gaaaaaaaaang - this NEEDS to happen.
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FallenOrpheus commented
It is incredibly critical that this gets noticed by twitch. Streamers are the lifeblood of this website, twitch owes its existence to streamers.