Twitch expands partner program to give more streamers access to higher revenue shares
Changes include removing the $100,000 cap on its 70/30 tier
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Twitch has announced several changes to the way it pays streamers, suggesting that three times as many people who broadcast via its site will gain access to higher revenue shares.
In a blog post attributed to CEO Dan Clancy, the company lays out three key alterations: the expansion of its Partner Plus Program, the removal of the $100,000 to its 70/30 tier, and changes to how the Prime Gaming subscription pays out for streamers.
The Partner Plus Program will be rebranded as the Plus Program when the new model comes into effect on May 1, 2024, with Twitch opening this scheme to Affiliate members as well as partners.
It will also add a new 60/40 revenue share for streamers who have 100 or more paid subscribers for three consecutive months.
When the Partner Plus Program launched in October, only those with 350 subscribers qualified for the 70/30 share but this has been reduced to 300. Twitch previously announced this share would drop to 50/50 after every $100,000 earned per year, but this limit will be removed.
According to Clancy's blog post, these changes to the Partner Program will "allow three times as many streamers to have premium net revenue share rates."
In terms of how the Prime Gaming subscription pays out for streamers, revenue from users subscribed to Amazon's service will no longer be the same as paid Twitch subscriptions. Instead, Twitch is transitioning to a fixed rate model based on the country of each Prime Gaming subscriber.
Clancy noted that this will lead to a decrease for some streamers but will "not have a major impact on their revenue" – in part because this will be partially offset by the removal of the $100,000 cap, but also because the change to the fixed rate is less than 5% in most countries.
He wrote that all the new models described above "aim to create a long-term, transparent framework for streamer compensation" and to make its revenue shares more sustainable.
Earlier this month, he confirmed 35% of Twitch's workforce has been laid off as part of ongoing efforts to improve the sustainability of the streaming site.