Live streaming content creators revenue share on selected global platforms 2023

On June 15, 2023, Twitch announced the launch of its Partner Plus Program - which allows streamers with at least 350 recurring paid subscribers for three months in a row to earn 70 percent of their net subscription revenue. Twitch's new partner program came right before influential live streamers xQc and Amouranth left the platform to onboard competitor's live streaming hosting service Kick.

Streamers’ revenues

According to Kick’s estimations, streamers with 5,000 subscribers would be looking to earn around 23,750 U.S. dollars, thanks to the platform’s low commissions. Launched between the end of 2022 and March 2023 under the advisory of live streamer Trainwreck, Kick allows content creators to earn 95 percent of their revenues on the platform, with the service taking only five percent of streamers' subscriptions. This represents one of the lowest commission fees among this type of online video platform, with Twitch's streamers who are not eligible for the new partnership sharing 50 percent of their revenues with the Amazon-owned host, and YouTube's content creators sharing 30 percent of the Super Chat and Super Stickers received from viewers during a live streaming session with the Google-owned service. In 2022, only 22 percent of U.S. content creators who made money from creating internet videos reported making more than 1,000 U.S. dollars. In case of live-streamed content, the share of U.S. live streamers making 1,000 U.S. dollars and more were merely seven percent of the total.

Kick’s rise

Kick is a live streaming platform launched between the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, proposing itself as a competitor to giants YouTube and Amazon-backed Twitch. Between January 2023 and April 2023, the platform grew from nine thousand channels to 67 thousand, with popular live streamers Félix Lengyel (better known as xQc) and Amouranth adding to the ranks in June of the same year. Adin Ross, who was known for streaming Grand Theft Auto V games on Twitch – was the most popular streamer on Kick during the first quarter of 2023, gathering approximately 125 peak viewers during his live streams. PaulinhoLOKObr ranked second, with around 62 thousand peak concurrent viewers for hist streams.