Ludwig is set to walk away with as little as 0.6% of streaming profits from his record-breaking — and seemingly endless — Twitch ‘subathon,’ the star revealed, once he’s dolled out Californian tax payments, mod wages, and more.
The rising Twitch star has been live now for more than 240 hours, after promising to stay on-stream for an extra 15 seconds per sub or “bits” gifts.
The ‘subathon’ has made Ludwig Twitch’s most subbed streamer.
All these subscriptions have put a lot of money into Ludwig’s pockets — in theory, at least. According to u/raddog86, who has been compiling stats on the historic broadcast, the Twitch star has clocked up around $470k in sub profits so far.
That hefty six-digit total is a far cry from what Ludwig Ahgren will actually walk away with whenever the timer — currently ticking just past “31:20:00” — finally hits that long-awaited zero, however.
In fact, the streamer has revealed a pretty shocking haircut on those earnings; once the record-breaking subathon ends, Ludwig could actually walk away with as little as 0.6% of the final Twitch sub sum, “if [his] calculations are correct.”
The biggest chunk, Ludwig revealed, is Twitch’s slice.
The Amazon-owned broadcasting platform is set to rake in close to 35% of the huge subathon profits. This is mainly due to the fact Ludwig’s partnership deal was negotiated well before his explosive rise to the top in mid-2020.
Ludwig will have the chance to lower this profit share when he negotiates a new deal with Twitch this year. That will, however, be too late to affect the subathon.
A further $150k will go towards Californian taxes, if the total sum ends up being around $500k. There’s every possibility that rises a lot higher in the coming days too; the state will take approximately 50% of Ludwig’s post-Twitch earnings.
“This is why a lot of streamers live in Texas,” the streamer added, “because there’s no state taxes there. I don’t live there though, so I pay big taxes in California.”
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Ludwig also plans to dole out $5k per day to his mod team. He’s already been live for 10 days, meaning that figure — split between 17 moderators — stands at $50k for now.
Finally, the Twitch star has pledged a dollar from every sub he receives to charity. If he ended the stream now, that would equate to $83k, leaving him with around 6% of the record-breaking subathon cash, “at best.”
“Look, I could walk away with around $3k,” he said.
Ludwig isn’t concerned though, he admitted on March 24: “I’m okay with it. Whatever I would get paid is so much less valuable than the increased viewership, and followers.”
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“At the end of the day, the total follower gain is just so big. We’ve actually had a New York Times article on this! That’s insane. It’s nuts. All that is invaluable, I think. Spending $150k to get a Times article and all these followers, I’m fine with that.”
The question now is — when will the historic Ludwig subathon come to an end? These earnings calculations are based on 10 days of streaming, but the Twitch star could continue on well past a fortnight, and beyond.
Really, the star “doesn’t know when it will end.”
“Probably could go another week or two,” he admitted. “That said, I actually go away this weekend… nothing in the rules says I can’t ditch, so I won’t be on screen for two days. No one said I have to be on-screen! The stream just has to be live.”
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He went on to say, “obviously I didn’t plan for this, cause I have a trip planned, and this is probably gonna go into the trip. But, you know, it is what it is. I could just end it and scam, but that also feels bad too… we’ll have to see.”