Monetize as a streamer
What you can earn money with as a streamer
If you are not yet an affiliate, partner, or similar, or even want to forgo that status, there are other ways your community can support you.
Donate / Donation is able on each platform.
One way to earn money on streaming platforms is to collect donations. Viewers have the opportunity to send you an amount of money of their choice and support you with it. The viewer has no advantages but is most mentioned in the stream (by an alert or streamer). Particularly well-heeled and generous viewers like to donate 4 to 5-digit amounts, but this is clearly the exception and usually only concerns big streamers.
Donations are significant, but they also have a clear disadvantage for you: you can not plan with them because every Donation comes out of the blue, meaning you may receive, say, 20 USD one day and not a single euro the next day or in the weeks to come.
Also, depending on the provider, there may be fees deducted from the Donation. There are a few exceptions where no fees are deducted from your Donation. For example, OWN3D Pro does not earn anything from your donations through the OWN3D Pro donation page. However, PayPal does deduct fees from donations; that's the case with any donation site provider that lets you donate with PayPal and does not relate to OWN3D Pro.
Also, you have to remember: Depending on where you live and how much income you make per month from streaming, it may theoretically be necessary to register a business and pay taxes on the income! We will provide more detailed information on this soon!
Merch
You can also make money selling merchandise goods with the proper marketing and motivation. However, this method only proves to be reasonably profitable if you have already built a solid following.
You can even offer your goods via an integrated merchandise store on YouTube. This feature is activated when the channel has collected more than 10,000 subscribers.
Twitch Monetization
Affiliate and partner status
The primary source of revenue for any Twitch streamer subs is subscriptions that sign up for your channel.
A viewer's motivation for subscribing can vary - they want to support the Streamer financially and help them grow, or they want to take advantage of the benefits the Streamer offers them when they subscribe (e.g., emotes).
Once the Subs have paid their subscriptions to the Streamer, 50% of which goes to the Streamer themselves - however, there's a catch: Twitch Subs has so far been reserved for Twitch Affiliates and Twitch Partners.
To become an affiliate or partner, you need to have a certain number of regular viewers over a certain period. So if you want to make big money from Twitch right away, you'll need to think about how to build a solid and loyal community that's willing to pay subscriptions for you.
Requirements for Twitch Affiliate
- Reach 50 followers
- Stream for a total of 8 hours.
- Stream on 7 different days.
- Have an average of 3 viewers
To qualify for the affiliate program, you must meet all four requirements within 30 days.
For Twitch affiliates, the exact requirements apply, but the conditions are slightly higher:
- Stream for a total of 25 hours.
- Stream on 12 different days.
- Have an average of 75 viewers.
However, qualifying is not a guarantee of partnership. You'll need to be persistent here and apply for status more often if necessary.
Subscription costs
A Level 1 sub costs USD 4.99 (Nov 2021) and offers users several benefits. These include, for example, special emotes or badges. A Level 2 subs cost USD 9.99 (Nov. 2021) and unlock additional benefits, such as new emotes. The Level 3 subs are for the ultimate fans and cost USD 24.99 (Nov. 2021).
In 2021, prices will vary depending on the subscriber's country of origin. For a detailed overview of Twitch's costs and revenues, we recommend the official help article.
These subs can also be given as gifts - i.e., viewers can provide other viewers level 1-3 subs to other viewers, giving them a "bonus." In addition, the gift giver is rewarded by receiving their own "gift badge" in front of his username and being listed in the chat among the "Top Monthly Gift Givers."
But there's another sub alternative: in the wake of Amazon's Twitch acquisition, the so-called primesubs introduced allowing users to support a streamer with a free sub. However, this requires the user to subscribe to the paid service Amazon Prime and have their Amazon account linked to their Twitch account. Although the Prime sub is free for the user, the Streamer will receive the same Money as a standard Tier 1 sub.
Advertisements
If Twitch has accepted you as an affiliate, you also have the opportunity to earn money with ads. Here, you can expect to earn $2-5 USD per 1,000 viewers in ad revenue. You can place a maximum of four ads per hour.
Bits / Cheers
Bits are kind of like the virtual currency on Twitch. Viewers buy small or large packets of 100 or more bits and cheer for them in the stream of their choice - sometimes in multiple streams they like. So cheering is nothing like donating Money, except it’s not directly cash. At the same time, 500 bits is equivalent to 7 USD.
StreamHeroes
StreamHeroes.gg is an external platform for Twitch, offering epic trading cards - digital and print - for streamers, viewers, games, teams, brands, and communities. The platform offers several benefits - for both creators and viewers. The free system is already extremely popular with the Twitch community, and many significant streamers now have their cards.
Once you reach affiliate status on Twitch, it's already possible to create cards that viewers can earn points. As a viewer, all you need to do is link your Twitch account to StreamHeroes, and the collecting can begin.
Through StreamHeroes, viewers will watch your stream longer and more often because they want to earn points and cards from you. If the Streamer has StreamHeroes alerts enabled, the stream will also show when you have collected a card.
Each free digital card collected can also be purchased and delivered worldwide. Streamers receive a sizable percentage of the revenue from the sale of physical cards in the process - a whopping 40 percent. The payout is always made when €100 has been reached. To cash out, you need to have registered with Stripe beforehand.
Best of all, with every print order, the StreamHeroes team plants a tree!
YouTube Monetization
Partner program
Whether you want to Make Money on YouTube with video or streaming content: The essential requirement is participating in the so-called YouTube partner program.
How do you get into this program?
- The content of the channel complies with YouTube channel monetization guidelines.
- You live in a country or region where the YouTube affiliate program is available.
- There are no active warnings for a violation of the community guidelines for your channel.
- Your videos have earned more than 4,000 hours of valid playback time in the last 12 months.
- Your channel has more than 1,000 subscribers.
- The channel is linked to an AdSense account.
Anyone who meets these minimum requirements can apply for the YouTube affiliate program.
As an affiliate, you have several options to monetize your account. However, each option has its requirements that will require you to reactivate after successful completion.
Advertising revenue
You can earn money after joining the YouTube Partner Program with ad revenue. The requirements are the same as the YPP, which automatically go hand in hand. You are eligible to run custom ads for your viewers, which you then use to make money. The most classic and easiest way to monetize your channel.
Membership
You can also offer your viewers a channel membership at the very beginning. Channel memberships are a great thing - both for you as a streamer and for your viewers and fans.
Only you decide how expensive the membership is! Viewers have the choice to sign up for a one-time membership or a monthly recurring membership. You can also offer up to five membership tiers, tiered in price, and unlock more member benefits as the tier increases. You must offer at least one new use for each higher tier.
A common way to stagger these different membership levels is to increase the user's selection of usable emojis and logos as the level increases. You can also add exclusive member content to your channel, which can only be viewed by members of the tier you set. This way, you increase the incentive for your viewers to become members of your channel.
Super Chat and Super Sticker
Super Chat and Super Stickers are also available to you and your viewers when joining the YouTube Partner Program. This feature allows your viewers to pin and highlight their chat messages for a small donation amount. The higher the amount, exciting and highlighting and the more extended the note will be pinned at the top of the chat.
Facebook Monetization
Level Up and Partner Program
Facebook's Level Up program is the equivalent of Twitch's affiliate program. It is the first milestone a streamer reaches to become an official affiliate. In addition, the Level Up program is the perfect way to actively and regularly earn revenue from Facebook streaming.
Viewers can award Facebook stars, become supporters of your channel, and be there when your page grows steadily. So, in the end, both streamers and viewers or followers/subscribers benefit from activating the Level Up program.
Requirements for the Level Up Program:
- 100 subs on your Facebook page
- You have streamed at least two days in the last 14 days
- You have streamed gaming content for at least 4 hours in the previous 14 days
But what are the benefits of the Level Up program?
Advantages for streamers
- Facebook Stars
- Fan subscriptions
- Live to advertise
- Prioritized support from Facebook
- Raids
Benefits for viewers
- Higher stream quality (Full HD & 60 FPS)
- Become a member and access community features of the Facebook page
- Members receive special badges
- Access to "sub-only" streams
The Facebook Partner Program is more or less the Level up to the Level up program. As an official Facebook partner, you will receive exclusive bonuses in addition to the already known benefits of the Level Up program.
Although the requirements for participation are not clearly defined and streamers with consistently good performance are individually selected as partners, the advantages over the Level Up program are apparent.
Advantages of the Partner Program compared to Level Up.
- Subscription gifts
- Branded Content
- Invitation to specific events
- Early access to certain features within the platform
- Partner badges
- Prioritized support gaming
- Community gifts
But this much is said: the eligibility criteria for affiliates are based on active subscribers and monthly revenue. At the moment, Facebook is also only accepting applications from select countries.
Soon there will be equally detailed guides and tutorials on Facebook in the Academy; stay tuned!
Fan-Sub
The definitive source of income for all streamers - the good old subscription, is probably the most common way to support streamers and creators on all platforms financially.
Users can sign up for a subscription that gives them some benefits, such as exclusive content, supporter badges, or the use of exclusive stickers. At the same time, the USD 4.99, which is the total price of the subscription, goes to the corresponding Streamer. This process is mainly unique in the streaming world, as usually, the streaming platform always receives a portion of the subscription cost. From then on, the supporter is marked as a "supporter" in the stream and has access to certain additional features.
Facebook Stars
A commonly used way to monetize your stream is to use Facebook Stars, a virtual and Facebook-exclusive currency that viewers can buy to support you financially. Each Donation triggers a message in the stream that varies in excitement depending on the donation amount. For example, you can reward more or less generous donations by mentioning the corresponding user by name in the stream and thanking them. For each star donated, you'll receive $0.01. Once you have collected 10,000 stars, you can make your first withdrawal to your bank account in Facebook Creator Studio.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are numerous ways to make Money with streaming. However, the focus should always be on your community. Give yourself and your channel enough time to grow. You might not reap fame overnight.
Handy tip- do not forget about the other platforms, like Instagram or TikTok, to entertain and make your stream on Twitch more popular.
But no matter what you plan to do as a streamer, whether you want to earn a little on the side, stream for fun, or make the big bucks: It takes a lot of time to build a community, especially one that wants to support you with their Money. So please pay attention to any donation, any financial support, because it's often part of the pocket money or paycheck your followers give you.
