Twitch’s decision to introduce locally priced subscriptions was originally seen as a positive. However, one Twitch streamer shows how the change has had a negative impact on their revenue.
In the United States, a channel subscription on Twitch costs $4.99 USD. And up until August of 2021, channel subscriptions shared this universal pricetag. Yet, in some countries like the United Kingdom, £4.99 isn’t equivalent to $4.99 USD.
Seeing this, Twitch announced it would introduce local sub pricing. This would allow for more affordable subscriptions for viewers around the world. And Twitch has provided a chart that shows the original sub price versus the new price.
This decision was well received by the Twitch community as more affordable subs could mean more subscriptions. However, the price drop of each sub also impacts how much revenue a streamer receives.
Local sub pricing hurts smaller streamer
Adam “Brough1322” Brough is a Twitch streamer who streams racing content three times a week to his 76.4k followers. And on YouTube, the UK content creator has amassed a whopping 270k subscribers.
With an average of 500+ per stream, Brough is classified as a medium-sized streamer who has the possibility to make a decent living from paid subscriptions. However, a recent Twitter post from Brough shows how the local subscription pricing has caused him to lose money.
According to the thread, he gets 70% of cash for each paid subscription. Even with a larger cut than most streamers, Brough started to notice a loss of revenue starting in August of 2021. This was when the subscription price was changed.
He states: “My actual total subscriber numbers have stayed relatively consistent over the last few months, so all told I earn approximately $3-400 less per month.” While this is a substantial loss, the streamer says he can manage the hit thanks to his YouTube channel.
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I was curious how @Twitch introducing local sub pricing in August last year had actually impacted things, so I delved into my own analytics. This is what happened to my average revenue per subscriber (blue is paid subscription, orange is prime subscription, I get a 70% split). pic.twitter.com/Yt7jmftohg
— Broughy🥈 (@broughy1322) January 12, 2022
Brough also states that he is happy to take the hit so that his international viewers can afford to subscribe.
With that said, the price change could be more detrimental to smaller streamers or similar-sized creators that don’t have a YouTube channel to fall back on.
Twitch Revenue Adjustment period
Knowing that streamers would lose revenue once the change took place, Twitch announced the Creator Revenue Adjustment Incentive. This ensured that creators would receive 100% of recurring, Community Gifting, Single Gift, Multi-month, and Prime subs for three months.
Some eligible creators could qualify for up to 12-months when 20% or more of their sub revenue comes from viewers impacted by local sub prices. Broughy notes that small streamers should be prepared for when the Revenue Adjustment period comes to an end.
There has been a lot of buzz around Twitch as of late thanks to the ongoing TV meta saga, but smaller streamers are already losing revenue. If Brough has seen a loss in revenue, you can bet other smaller streamers have too.