How many twitch followers do you need to make money?
There is no easy answer to this question, but we can take a look at how much other streamers are making and try to extrapolate from there.
The short answer is that it depends on how much time you spend streaming and how popular your content is.
For example, if you have 100 followers and broadcast for an hour each day, then in one month of streaming your monthly earnings will be $5 or less.
If you have 10 times as many followers (1,000), the same amount of broadcasting time would result in roughly $50 per month.
But there are numerous ways to monetize your channel, and each channel's earnings are different.
In this article, we will explain how many followers you need to make money.
Let's dive in!
First off, let's start by saying that Followers is a vanity metric - meaning you shouldn't focus on Followers to determine your income.
Rather, you should focus on turning those Followers into Subscribers.
And the best way to do that is by becoming a Twitch Affiliate.
The highest chance of earning your first paycheck from twitch is to become a Twitch Affiliate, and to get to that stage you need to match certain criteria:
To make money as a Twitch Affiliate, you need at least 50 followers, have live-streamed for a total of 500 minutes over the last 30 days, broadcasted on 7 unique days, and average about 3 or more concurrent viewers.
All that, just for your first paycheck.
To make a living off Twitch is a different story.
You can check out our guide on the average twitch streamer's salary to get some ballpark estimates on how much you can potentially earn.
If you are serious about becoming a popular streamer, you can check out our beginners guide on growing your stream fast.
Your first goal should be to become a Twitch Affiliate.
Twitch Affiliates, as explained above, and then to go onto become a Twitch Partner.
As a Twitch Affiliate, you get access to a few monetization perks, such as:
As a Twitch Partner, you get everything that a Twitch Affiliate has, but with faster payouts, and a higher number of perks.
You can check out the differences between the two here:
Your subscribers are the bread and butter of your stream and are responsible for the majority of your income.
Subscribers mean that people have forked out money to support you exclusively, so gaining 1x subscribers is a big step, and should be something that you show gratitude for.
The best way to earn with Twitch is to build a community, and that's where certain monetization techniques come in.
Creating an engaging stream is what will differentiate you from the crowd, and to do that you should do the following:
Doing this consistently for months, or even years can skyrocket your subscriber count, and make your stream bigger.
And if you want to make a living as a streamer full time, the best way to do it is to become Semi-Famous on the Twitch Platform...
Becoming a Semi-Famous streamer can take a couple of months, to a couple of years to achieve.
But the payoff is huge, as you would have quite a big following, and have the potential to quit your day job.
A Semi Famous Streamer would have the following stats:
Of course, getting to this stage will take a ton of work and consistency.
There's no 'shortcut' to getting to this stage, focus on improving the quality of your stream, and the engagement of your community, and be patient.
In all honesty, no, you shouldn't trust any Twitch Money Calculator.
There are many variables that determine your income, and it's almost impossible to gauge the net income of someone without having access to their financial statements.
They may be fun to use, but you shouldn't rely on the metrics the calculator shows, at all.
If you have 50 followers and are a Twitch Affiliate, then you can earn from $0 - $100 a month, depending on the quality of your community.
If you aren't a Twitch Affiliate, the chances of earning are slimmer.
Followers have only taken the time out to get notified when you stream, so there's no correlation between your income and the number of followers you have.
It can vary as some followers might be more engaged than others. Realistically, you shouldn't use your follower count as a metric to estimate your potential income.
They become true, loyal fans once they become your subscriber, as they had to pull out their credit card and pay to watch your stream.
This is a much better metric to try and estimate the amount of money you make per subscriber, which by the way is between $2.50 per month - $24.99 per month.
It really depends on how big your channel is.
Using Followers as a metric isn't a great indicator of income.
Let's break this down by the 4 main monetization methods:
On average, ads are shown on your stream that pays $3.50 per 1,000 views. $3.50 x 1,000 = $140 per month.
1,000 views per stream mean you are on the right track to tremendous growth, and opportunities will start arising for you.
Although, it would be hard to give you an accurate amount, and note that these are just ballpark figures.
By now you should have an indication of how many twitch followers you need to make money.
If you want some estimates, you can always refer back to our guide on the average twitch streamer's salary.
The best way to think about your earnings is to think about how much value can you give to your audience.
The higher your value to them is, the more engaged and loyal they will be.
Comment down below what your stream is, and we will be more than happy to follow you, and who knows, maybe you'll get a subscriber too 😊!