How To Become A Twitch Affiliate And Make Money (2024)

Looking to start making money from live streaming on Twitch? The most common method to do so is to become a Twitch Affiliate, which unlocks a number of monetization options, such as subscriptions to your channel, and bit redemptions. It is a nice way to supplement your income but remember – the money you make is taxable.

Before you jump into becoming an affiliate though, I strongly suggest that you read the Twitch Affiliate agreement in detail, as there are some significant binding obligations that you make when you become a Twitch Affiliate. If you are okay with these

The step after becoming a Twitch Affiliate is becoming a Twitch Partner, which has a significantly higher barrier to entry. It also has a large number of benefits that come with it.

The Twitch Affiliate Requirements

Becoming an affiliate on Twitch is actually surprisingly easy, as it has a static set of requirements to meet in order to qualify:

• 50 Followers
• 3 Concurrent Viewers (Average viewers per stream)
• 7 Unique Broadcasts in the last 30 days
• 500 total minutes broadcasting in the last 30 days

Out of those four requirements, two are extremely easy – Unique broadcasts per month, and minimum minutes per month. The slightly harder ones to get are the 50 followers and 3 concurrent viewers. I wrote a short guide showing how to see who follows you to check your progress in that department.

Speaking of… what exactly is a “concurrent” viewer anyway?

What Is a Concurrent Viewer?

A concurrent viewer on Twitch is the average number of viewers you have per stream in the span of one month. The basic goal is to simply have as many audience members as you can in each stream. Zero viewer streams hurt this average a lot.

Say for example, for days 1-10, you had one person show up. The next 17, you had 3 viewers. The last three, Zero. Time to use some math – the formula would result in something like this:

(1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+1+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+3+0+0+0)/30, or 2.0333 average viewers.

Remember PEMDAS? Yeah, it actually does come in handy later in life. Who knew?

Now knowing how it is calculated, it should be easy enough to understand now.

How Twitch Affiliates Can Earn Money

There are a few monetization opportunities that become available when you become a Twitch Affiliate.

• Twitch Subscriptions
• Ads
• Bit redemptions
• Game Sales

Twitch Subscriptions will unlock a variety of features for viewers, which gives them a strong incentive to consider subscribing to somebody.

Twitch Affiliate Ad Revenue – Do You Get Paid From Ads?

As a Twitch affiliate, you do earn a small percentage from ads run on your channel. This amount is $3.50 per 1,000 views. With that said, you do not need to have 1000 views to actually receive money from ads, and the amount you earn is counted towards that $100 minimum payout threshold.

Twitch Affiliate Payout – How You Get Paid

Getting paid on Twitch can be done in a few different ways – the most commonly used is PayPal. Other options include:

• Direct Deposit / ACH
• Wire Transfer
• and a Traditional Check

You can also optionally choose to have your payments held. As an affiliate, you are responsible for thepayout transaction fees, which is one reason you might want to hold payments. These fees are covered by Twitch if/when you become a partner.

The currency you are paid in can also be changed to a number of options when using PayPal:

Checks, wire transfers, and Direct Deposits are limited to USD only.

When Do you get Paid?

Payouts from Twitch are done on a Net 15 rotation. What this means is that you can expect to see your revenue from Twitch 15 days after the end of a calendar month. For example, say you earn $100 for the month of January, you’ll see the money from that on the 15th of February.

If you fail to meet the minimum $100 in a month to be eligible for payout, then the money will roll over into the next months until you do, again paid out 15 days after the end of the month that you managed to earn the minimum amount. That said, if you go a year without making enough income to qualify for a payout, and you haven’t streamed…

If at any time there has been no substantial activity on your Program account for at least twelve consecutive months, and you have not earned at least $100 in Program Fees during that twelve month period, we may close your inactive account and terminate this Agreement. If you have accrued Program Fees in your account, a maintenance fee will be deducted from your remaining balance. The maintenance fee will be the lesser of the accrued Program Fees in your account or $25. Any remaining balance will be paid to you.

Twitch Affiliate Agreement

Twitch Partner Requirements

The next level, Twitch Partner is quite difficult to achieve. Even if you were to get all of the associated guidelines, each partner is manually screened. The staff at Twitch ultimately have the final say on who becomes a partner that represents their brand, after all.

These requirements are as follows:

• Stream for 25 Hours in the last 30 days – Easy
• Stream on 12 Different days – Easy
• An average of 75 concurrent viewers – Extremely hard.

Of course, you can apply to become a partner at any time, even before you have achieved the affiliate status. Typically, brands that have established an audience on another platform already are the ones who get to take this shortcut. After all, they can provide the Twitch team with metrics that convince them you are a capable digital influencer, and that you will help grow their platform with your skill.

In fact, a good friend of mine is a partner because he worked with an e-sports company, and Twitch partnered the accounts of all of the employees of the company. He has exactly 0 followers and has never streamed.

Ultimately, what will net you a partnership is your potential to grow the streaming platform by attracting viewers to Twitch. They want to see that you are capable of standing on your own and growing without their help. In other words, you need to have something of value to offer them.