Popular Hearthstone player and top Twitch streamer ‘Disguised Toast’ broke down his earnings on the platform in a recent YouTube video, which revealed some pretty major numbers.
Toast explained that streamers generate revenue in four different ways – through donations, subscriptions, advertisements, and sponsorships.
While donations and advertisements are fairly straightforward, Twitch’s subscription system features multiple tiers, which are then split either 50-50 or 70-30 with streamers depending on their status with the company.
Ninja, for example, is a top-tier streamer with over 121,000 subscribers – which means that he earns around $423,500 a month through subscriptions alone, according to Toast’s calculations. Shroud, on the other hand, reels in around $148,750 through subscriptions.
Those numbers don’t even count higher tier subscriptions, which range from $9.99 – $24.99, if offered by a partnered streamer.
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Streamers can also make dough through sponsorship deals, such as being paid to play a certain game on stream. Streamers can earn as much as one cent per hour, or one dollar per viewer – which can add up to massive amounts of money through larger audiences.
Toast himself stated that he could make up to $10,000 through sponsored streams, due to his general average of 10,000 viewers.
However, many factors can go into how much partners get paid, from the amount of money a company offers them to how large (or generous) their audience is.
Toast himself makes around $2,500 monthly through donations and around $4,000 through advertisements (without spamming the ad button). Combined with his subscriber revenue, this adds up to quite a pretty penny in one month.
In sum, Twitch’s top streamers likely aren’t hurting for funds – but their deep pockets are ultimately thanks to their fans.