8 Ways to Make Money on Twitch
Twitch.tv is one of the best ways to make money if you’re looking to create live content revolving around gaming, art, traveling and much more! This article will cover a variety of ways on how to make money on Twitch.
Direct Donations
The easiest way to start making money on Twitch is to set up a donation button. All you need to do is set up a PayPal account. Once you have set up a PayPal account, you just need to create a PayPal link and add it to your Twitch profile. Your Twitch profile allows you to add panels that have links to external sites. One way to attract attention to your donation button to put an attention-grabbing graphic.
Donation Alerts
Most streamers display an alert on their broadcast to incentivize Twitch donations. You will need to sign up for a service like Streamlabs or Stream Elements to be able to display these alerts. Once you have created an account, look for an alert box widget. Alert boxes allow for unlimited creativity as you can add various graphics, sounds, gifs, and memes to display your viewer’s donations. One recommendation is to not make the alerts too obnoxious as this will dissuade your viewers from donating. Please note that some of the services may charge a fee for processing the Twitch donation.
There are a variety of ways to incentivize Twitch donations. You can set up donation goals to get a new piece of streaming equipment or allow song requests to be made via donations. These can all be displayed on your stream as a call to action for your viewers.
Twitch Partnership and Affiliates
The next best way to make money on Twitch is to become a partner or affiliate. Becoming a Twitch affiliate has lower requirements and allows you to receive Twitch bits and subscribers. Twitch bits are currency your viewers can buy from Twitch and donate to you through your chat or Twitch extensions. You can further incentivize Twitch bits by displaying them on your stream alerts. Subscriptions are monthly recurring payments your viewers can opt into. These can allow access to ad-free viewing, custom emotes and special icons in your chat. You can offer additional perks like access to a private discord chat. Subscriptions are the most consistent way to make money on Twitch and the product you promote the most through alerts on your stream and your channel page. Twitch also allows people who have an Amazon Prime account to subscribe to your channel at Twitch’s expense, but these subscriptions do not automatically renew so be sure to remind your audience to renew their free subscriptions. Other viewers can also gift subscriptions to your audience as well. Finally, there are multiple tiers of Twitch subscriptions, so viewers can give you more money per month.
If you can reach the level where you can become a partner on Twitch, then you receive access to additional revenue streams. The best way a partner can make money through Twitch is via ads. When you are a partner, you can make money off the Twitch Ads your viewers see. In your Twitch dashboard, you will see a button where you can trigger ads for your viewers to see. Make sure not to spam your viewers with too many ads, it’s better to chunk them into a few minutes per hour.
Twitch also offers bounty boards to their partners. These bounties are partnerships Twitch has entered with various companies that allow streamers to earn cash from promoting specific products. This can vary from running a trailer for a movie during your stream or playing a specific game.
Affiliate Sales
Another way to earn income from your Twitch stream is through affiliate sales. Affiliate sales are when someone buys an item from a link you post and you earn a percentage from that sale. Since Twitch is owned by Amazon, it has directly integrated its own Amazon Associates affiliate program into Twitch. Once you sign up for Amazon associates you can enable the Amazon Blacksmith extension, where you can list all the different items you use for your stream.
Patreon
An additional method to make money on Twitch is through Patreon. Patreon works like a Twitch subscription, but you don’t need to meet any specific requirements to create a Patreon account. Patreon allows you to offer various tiers for a sponsorship that can offer different incentives such as access to a private Discord and special shoutouts on stream. You can also display new Patreon subscribers on your stream via web-based alerts as well.
Merch
After you’ve built up a community and viewer base, a great way to make money from your Twitch content is by selling merch. One of the most common merch items is T-shirts with your logo. There are a variety of sites that will allow you to sell merch such as Teespring or Design by Humans. Merch sales can also be displayed on your stream via web alerts and your channel page.
Sponsorship
Finally, one of the most lucrative ways you can make money on Twitch is by doing sponsored streams. After you have spent some time building a dedicated viewer base, you should start marketing yourself to sponsor. A sponsor can be anything, from a soft drink to a keyboard manufacturer. Some of the most lucrative sponsorships are companies that pay you to play their games on stream. You can earn large amounts of money per the number of viewers watching and how long you stream the game.
Archives/Highlights
Finally, it is good to archive or create highlights of your streams for YouTube. Once you gain enough viewers on YouTube, you can apply for their partner program to make money from ads. This will also allow you to claim ad revenue from other channels that may be uploading your content. It is a great form of passive income that can build up over time.
That wraps up the various ways you can make money from Twitch. While it may take a while to earn enough to quit your day job, never stop finding ways to promote and monetize your content. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask them in the comment section below or through our social media channels.