With an average of 88,505 live channels each week and over 2 million live streams at any given time, Twitch is increasingly becoming a popular video live-streaming service. Whether you’re looking for an established platform to broadcast your videos for fun, to make money on the side, or as a full-time venture, this platform should definitely be at the top of your list.
In this article, we’ll delve into how to make a living from Twitch, discuss the platform’s various revenue streams, explain the relationship between its viewers and income, and offer a few tips for boosting your earnings.
Definition of a Living Wage in the US
While there is no universal standard on the minimum living wage, the general consensus is that your living wage should provide you with adequate income to sustain yourself (and your family or loved ones) without falling below the Federal Poverty Line.
Simply put, earning a living wage means you’re making enough to comfortably afford the basic necessities of standard living, such as food, shelter, clothing, education, healthcare, and regular savings.
The “enough” varies from one person to another. However, according to the latest MIT estimates, the average living wage for a single worker with no children (assuming they live in or around New York) is about $21.46 per hour.
Other conservative studies peg this number at $16 to $17, depending on where you stay. It’s also important to note that the larger your family is, the higher your minimum wage.
Revenue Streams on Twitch
Every budding Twitch streamer wants to be like Streamer Ninja or xQc who make $500,000 and $318,821 per month respectively. The good news is that you can easily make this dream a reality, thanks to Twitch’s vast range of revenue streams.Below are a few options you can consider:
- Donations: Twitch allows streamers to receive direct donations from their viewers via third-party platforms like PayPal, StreamLabs, and Muxy. Alternatively, you can use the platform’s native Twitch Bits donation service (which retains 50% of the donations each streamer gets).
- Subscription-based services: Another popular Twitch revenue stream is offering viewers special perks like custom emotes and privileged or early access to content at monthly subscription fees. Like with Twitch Bits, the platform retains 50% of all earnings.
- In-app ads: Research by CNBC shows that if you can amass an average of 100 views, you can comfortably derive an ad revenue of $250 per 100 subscribers. To ensure optimum user experience, it’s best to run the ads during breaks or before and after your streams. Another related revenue stream is offering viewers an ad-free streaming experience at a fee.
- Sponsorships: Also known as brand endorsement, it involves agreeing to market an organization’s products or services in exchange for money. The deal can be as subtle as wearing their merches during your streams to directly introducing their offers to your audience.
The Relationship Between Viewers and Income
For starters, you need at least 50 followers and 3+ concurrent viewers per stream for the last one month (30 days) to qualify for monetization on Twitch. In all honesty, this is pretty fair compared to the prerequisites of most established streaming platforms.
For example, YouTube requires at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000+ watchhours.
The fact that Twitch doesn’t require several followers or viewers to qualify for monetization doesn’t mean you should ignore these factors. The more your viewers, the higher your income.
| Number of Viewers | Average Income/Month in USD |
| 5 – 10 | 50 – 200 |
| 20 | 200 – 400 |
| 50 | 500 – 750 |
| 100 | 1000 – 1,500 |
| 1,000 | 5,000 |
| 5,000 | 13,000 |
| 10,000 | 50,000 |
Estimating Viewer Numbers for a Living Wage
Using the average MIT estimate of $21.46 per hour (and assuming there are no holidays), the average monthly living wage for a single worker with no children is $3,433.6 ($21.46 × 8 daily work hours × 5 weekly workday × 4 weeks).
Based on the estimates in the table above, that means you’ll need about 1,000 viewers to make a living wage from Twitch.
Growth Strategies to Increase Viewers
Now that you understand the importance of growing your views on Switch, below are a few strategies to help you achieve this:
- Consistency is key: Streaming regularly can help you establish loyalty among your viewers. It’ll also cue Twitch algorithms to rank you higher and recommend your content to more viewers.
- Put your viewers first: Do not focus too much on beating Twitch algorithms at the risk of neglecting viewers’ needs. Your priority should be creating high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. Only then will you attract return viewers and build a loyal fanbase.
- Engage your audience: Ask questions, put up polls, run contests, and offer incentives for engagement. Besides building a loyal community, keeping your viewers active can help you attract more followers—the more engaging your channel is, the more likely Twitch algorithms will recommend it to non-followers.
- Leverage collaboration: Nobody jumps to a million followers in a day (well, unless you’re Christiano Ronaldo). Therefore, if you have friends who’ve already garnered substantial followership, consider including them in your stream to get the attention of their established fanbases.
- Use other social media networks: Do you already have substantial followers on other platforms? If so, you can use them to invite more people to your Twitch streams.
Conclusion
A few years ago, we’d say social media is the future of work. Newsflash, the future is here with us now. With over $240 million active monthly users, Twitch provides a perfect work-from-home opportunity in which you can effortlessly make a living wage while doing what you love. All the best!