Statistics show an average of 1.5 million viewers on Twitch at any given time and roughly 15 million active users every day. For an enthusiastic streamer, these figures create a great environment to showcase your gaming prowess. This audience also portrays the possibility of turning your hobby into a high paying career as Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, Tfue, and Shroud, among other top dog streamers, have done.
We won’t promise that you’ll be raking in millions of dollars immediately after reading this post. But everything has to start somewhere, right?
If you’re ready to learn how to improve your twitch stream and put in the effort, here are 6 tips on how to make money on Twitch.
Partners and Non-partners- Know the Difference
How you make money on Twitch largely depends on what type of Twitch user you are- are you a partner or a non-partner? Let’s explain each of these types of streamers and what avenues of making money are available for each.
Twitch Partners- How to Make Money as a Twitch Partner
Becoming a Twitch partner is the ultimate goal of every new streamer on Twitch because it has the best paying opportunities. This is a coveted status that is currently enjoyed by only 1.1% of the 2.2 million Twitch streamers at the moment, mainly because of the ‘tough’ qualifications that you have to meet.
If you manage to reach the level of a partner, there are the 2 major ways through which you can earn money;
- Subscription fee
Like YouTube, Twitch is open and generally free for all users to follow. However, there is also an option for viewers to subscribe to their favorite streamers’ channels. This offers them a way of supporting the steamer financially besides unlocking some special perks and features that are reserved for subscribers.
Twitch offers 3 monthly subscription levels to the viewers- $4.99, $9.99, and $24.99. Twitch splits each subscriber’s fee with the streamer on a 50/50 basis making this the best way to make money playing games on Twitch.
- Advertisements
Once you attain partnership status, Twitch will also allow you to place an advertisement button on your gaming dashboard. Just like YouTube and Google AdSense, you are paid according to how many of your fans watch or click the ads. Ads revenue falls in the range of $0.70 – $1.40 per view for streamers with an audience of below 1000 viewers and $1.00 – $2.50 if your audience is above 1000.
Ads are a lucrative way of making money on Twitch, but there’s a catch: most viewers find them intrusive and may choose to block them. However, if you create great content and engage well with your fans, it’s easy to convince them to support you simply by viewing the ads.
Non-partners- How to Make Money if You’re Not a Partner on Twitch
There are lots of other ways that you can combine to make some money from Twitch if you’re yet to become a partner. As a heads-up, these methods may not guarantee enough pay to allow you to quit your day job. However, as you grow your fan base and keep churning out great content consistently, it’s possible to get some extra dollars that you can use on better-quality gaming software and hardware.
- Donations
Accepting donations is, hands down, one of the easiest ways of monetizing your Twitch channel. It simply involves adding a donation button on your dashboard using a Paypal account. What’s so cool about this method is that new streamers can take advantage of it without bringing thousands of eyeballs to the platform. Adding alert animations when someone donates is a great way for the viewer to feel more connected to the streamer and the community by having their name show on screen.
Of course, you don’t want to go begging your audience to donate some money to your channel. If you have great stuff that leaves the viewers entertained and craving for more, believe us, you’ll get some fans to support you even without asking.
Offering a great gaming experience is the only surefire way of getting a little bit more monetization out of donations. We also encourage you to sign up with an alert service to give you and your audience a graphic notification when one of your viewers donates. These real-time pop-on alerts are engaging and they also encourage more fans to donate too.
The most recommendable Twitch alert service providers include;
- Streamlab
- Streamelements
- Player.me
- Muxy
- Affiliate marketing
Another cool tip of making money on Twitch is by becoming an affiliate marketer. You can cash in on this method in 2 ways.
First, Twitch has an affiliate program for players who are yet to become partners. This scheme allows you to make some money by playing games on sale or games with items for sale on the platform. If your viewers make a purchase, you get 5% of that sale.
The other way of making money on Twitch through affiliate marketing is by promoting third party products on your Twitch page. The best way to take advantage of this opportunity is to keep these products relevant to your audience. For instance, you could recommend your stream gear (cameras, mic, headphones, tripods, or lighting equipment e.t.c) to your fans who are building their live streaming studio. If your fans purchase these items through your link or code, you get a commission from that sale.
- Selling merchandise
Our last tip of making money on Twitch is selling merchandise to your fans as you stream. This method has the potential to bring some extra bucks, but it’s arguably the most underutilized. If you have loyal fans who follow you closely, they may want to support your channel by donning a t-shirt or hoodie with your stream’s logo or name on it. You could also sell custom-designed mobile phone cases or laptop covers.
Selling merchandise on Twitch is so easy and you don’t necessarily need to be an elite designer. All you do is set up an online shop with a merch store, such as Streamlabs Merch Store, Teespring, Printify, or SE Merch. Next, you choose a design for your merchandise and place a link to your store on your Twitch page. Using that link, your viewers can peruse your custom-designed products. When they purchase any of the products, the merch company will ship the product on your behalf and give you a percentage of the profits.
- Link your Twitch Account to Madskil
Madskil is a futuristic viewer-based card game that links to your streaming channel, such as Twitch, YouTube, Facebook Gaming, and Dlive. It works by allowing your viewers to compete against each other by betting on how you- the streamer- will perform in the current game.
Adding Madskil to your Twitch channel takes around 2 minutes only and the major benefit is increased exposure to more viewers. Since your channel is more engaging and fun, your channel also gets a higher viewer retention. These 2 increase your odds of making more money through the other methods discussed above. Importantly, you get closer and closer to the coveted Twitch Partnership status.
Bottom line
As you may have noted, making money on Twitch is possible even if your follower base isn’t so big yet. Essentially, creating content that your viewers will want to watch is the key thing. Watching accomplished players and polishing your commentary will also go a long way in widening your followership and increasing your earnings.
This is a paid guest post.