Twitch Income Calculator

Twitch income arrives from four places: subscriptions, bits (small on-screen tips), advertising, and direct donations. This calculator adds all four, using the platform’s own fixed rates for the first two, a net payout per subscription and a fixed value per bit, and taking the ad rate and the donation total as inputs. The mix differs enormously between channels, which is the first thing the numbers make obvious.

Run the defaults, 100 average concurrent viewers across 120 hours a month, 10 subs per 1,000 concurrent viewers, 100 bits an hour, an ad CPM of 3 and 200 in donations, and the total comes to 430.50 a month, or 5,166 a year. Where it comes from is more interesting than the total: donations 200, bits 120, advertising 108, and subscriptions 2.50. At this viewer count, 10 subs per 1,000 concurrent viewers works out to a single subscriber, so the subscription line is close to nothing. A channel converting viewers into subscribers at any meaningful rate needs a far higher figure in that field, and what goes in there is what drives the subscription revenue rather than any assumption built into the tool.

Affiliate and Partner status earn on different subscription splits, which is why two channels with identical viewer numbers can report different subscription revenue on the same number of subscribers. The thresholds for each programme, the split each one earns, and the per-subscription payout itself are all set by the platform and revised from time to time, so the current terms come from its own programme pages rather than from a calculator. What does not change is the shape of the calculation: viewers times a conversion rate times a payout.

A worked example

With the defaults, 100 average concurrent viewers, 120 hours streamed monthly, 10 subs per 1,000 concurrent viewers, 100 bits an hour, an ad CPM of 3 and 200 in donations, the tool returns 430.50.

The advertising line is the one to unpack, because the model assumes three minutes of advertising per streaming hour and that assumption is not an input. 120 hours at three ad minutes gives 360 ad minutes a month; across 100 concurrent viewers that is 36,000 viewer-ad-minutes, treated as 36 thousands of impressions, which at a CPM of 3 comes to 108. A channel running more or less advertising than three minutes an hour lands somewhere else, and the only lever available for that here is the CPM field.

What moves the number most

Starting from the defaults and changing one thing at a time: doubling bits per hour from 100 to 200 adds 120. Doubling average concurrent viewers from 100 to 200 adds 110.50, because it lifts both the advertising and the subscription lines. Raising the ad CPM from 3 to 4 adds 36. Doubling subs per 1,000 concurrent viewers from 10 to 20 adds 2.50.

That last figure is the tell. At small viewer counts the subscription line barely moves, because the input is expressed per thousand concurrent viewers and most channels using this tool sit well below a thousand. Where the real subscriber count is known, working backwards is more accurate: divide subscribers by concurrent viewers, multiply by 1,000, and enter that.

The formula behind this

Subscriptions equal concurrent viewers divided by 1,000, times subs per 1,000, times 2.50. Bits equal bits per hour times hours streamed times 0.01. Advertising equals concurrent viewers times hours times three ad minutes, times CPM, divided by 1,000. The total is those three plus donations.

Two of the constants are platform rates rather than user inputs: 2.50 per subscription and 0.01 per bit. Both are expressed in the platform’s own currency terms and are not converted when a different display currency is selected, so a total shown in another currency mixes converted inputs with unconverted platform payouts.

Two further things sit outside the model entirely. The figure is gross platform revenue rather than income, since streaming is normally self-employed work and tax authorities treat it that way, with tax calculated on net profit after costs rather than on what the platform pays out. And platform earnings are uneven month to month, a general feature of work mediated by digital platforms rather than anything peculiar to streaming.