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Twitch is cutting how much its biggest streamers earn from subscriptions

Twitch is cutting how much its biggest streamers earn from subscriptions

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Partners on premium deals could end up with less money

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Nick Barclay / The Verge

Twitch is reducing how much money it shares with some of the biggest streamers on the platform.

Right now, the majority of partnered streamers receive a 50 / 50 revenue share on subscriptions to their channel. That means 50 percent of net revenue goes to Twitch, while 50 percent goes to the streamer themselves. However, Twitch has negotiated premium subscription terms with some bigger streamers that give them a 70 / 30 revenue split, and that split is what’s going to change.

The changes kick in on June 1st, 2023

Under the new policy, streamers with premium terms will keep 70 percent of their subscription revenue on the first $100,000 earned. But after that, the share will go down to a 50 / 50 split. The changes kick into effect on June 1st, 2023, and even then only when a streamer’s contract with Twitch is up for renewal, according to a blog post from Twitch president Dan Clancy.

The $100,000 threshold will be calculated over a 12-month period beginning from “a streamer’s annual agreement renewal date,” Samantha Faught, Twitch’s head of communications for the Americas, said in a statement to The Verge. It will reset “on the first day of the subsequent 12 month period, and each 12 month period thereafter.”

About 90 percent of streamers with Twitch’s premium terms won’t be affected by the change “at their current revenue,” Clancy says. But for those worried about losing money, Clancy argues that Twitch’s recent ad revenue share increase to a 55 / 45 split is “a great way for these larger streamers to make up most, if not all, of that revenue.”

Twitch has lost some of its top streamers, but it still draws a lot of views

The change to the subscription revenue split could anger some of Twitch’s top streamers, but as of late, it seems like Twitch hasn’t been as interested in catering to that group of creators as it was in the past. The company has lost popular streamers like Ludwig, Myth, and LilyPichu to exclusive deals with YouTube, but despite those big names moving elsewhere, Twitch is still where more people watch livestreams by a wide margin.

According to data from Streamlabs, Twitch viewers watched 5.64 billion hours of livestreams in Q2 2022, while viewers watched 1.13 billion hours of livestreams on YouTube Gaming. That seems to indicate that Twitch doesn’t have to retain its biggest personalities to keep the attention of viewers, and it’s responded by pushing these take-it-or-leave-it terms across the table.

Twitch is even okay with streamers broadcasting elsewhere while they’re still with Twitch; the company lifted its exclusivity agreement in August, meaning Twitch partners can also stream on platforms like YouTube and Facebook (though with some restrictions). And in Wednesday’s blog post, Clancy said Twitch would reduce how often it negotiates custom deals with streamers and “the total value of these deals.”