How Much Do Top Twitch Streamers Make? 7+ High Paid Twitch Streamers

How Much Do Top Twitch Streamers Make? 7+ High Paid Twitch Streamers
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Introduced in June 2011, Twitch is an American live video streaming service. It mainly focuses on broadcasting live video games, covering live streams of e-sports competitions.

Over and above that, Twitch also offers live music streaming, “in real life” broadcasts, and creative content streams.

The streaming platform Twitch is operated by the parent company Amazon and was introduced as a spinoff of mass broadcasting platform Justin.tv. Users can view its content either live or through on-demand video.

One of the various perks of being a Twitch streamer is earning wholesome revenue. Besides being just a regular income, the same bears a flexible nature.

Flexible in the sense, you can reinvent your earned money in your setup so as to increase your broadcasting quality. And that ultimately results in bringing more revenue.

Although it’s pretty hard to build a community and even harder to make your viewers want to subscribe to your channel each month, compared to other platforms, you can quickly achieve your goals and start earning money on Twitch.

During the last couple of years, when various industries around the world were facing a downfall due to the outbreak of a pandemic, the streaming industry managed to flourish (All thanks to the lockdowns).

From massive exclusivity deals to record-breaking streams, from high-profile bans to leaks around streamers’ incomes, the industry was always on the news.

Now let’s see how the Twitch streamers are making money:

How to Earn Money on Twitch? 5+ Genuine Ways of Earning Money on Twitch

Twitch

1. Brand Sponsorships

One of the ways by which Twitch streamers make money is by brand sponsorships. Although being a Twitch affiliate or partner helps in bringing more sponsors, you don’t really need to be one to get sponsorship deals.

You just need to have a fairly large audience engagement that various brands want to have.

Be it electronic products or gaming hardware, drinks or fashion brands, musical instruments, or digital assets, you can promote all types of products and brands on your Twitch channel.

Typically, brands interact with the streamers that they want to collaborate with. However, if you’re a small Twitch streamer, the chances of brands approaching you are merely shy.

Luckily, you can do it yourself. To put it in simple words, you can reach out to the brands directly and ask for collaboration.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Another amazing way of generating revenue on the streaming platform Twitch is by sharing affiliate links. But don’t confuse yourself with the Twitch Affiliate program; it’s a different thing.

What I’m intending to say is that you can promote your links from Digistore24, ClickBank, JVZoo, etc.

In case you don’t know, ClickBank is one of the most amazing platforms that allow its users to earn revenue through an affiliate, and Twitch streamers aren’t an exception.

Sadly, ClickBank is not available everywhere; in that case, you can opt for Amazon Associates.

The best way to make your affiliate program work is by promoting the corresponding links during your live streaming sessions or pitching them using the chatbot. The possibilities are many.

3. Subscriptions

Twitch Subscriptions is by far the best way in which streamers earn a recurring income. Now, you must be wondering how to generate regular revenue through Subscription.

For this, you need to enrol yourself up as either a Twitch Partner or an Affiliate. As soon as you’re done, a Subscribe button will mechanically show up on your Twitch account.

All you need to do is encourage your audience to subscribe to your account either for 4.99 US dollars, 9.99 dollars, or 24.99 dollars a month.

The amount raised is divided equally between the streamer and Twitch. However, some top streamers, namely Ninja, Shroud, and others, have succeeded in negotiating a greater percentage.

Twitch streamers can encourage gamers to subscribe to their channels by setting up alerts.

Basically, these are the indications that show up on the screen saying that someone has bought or revived their Subscription to one’s channel.

This tactic especially encourages those Twitch users who love watching their names on the page of their favorite gamer.

4. Selling Merchandise

Selling Merchandise is another approach to earning money from the game streaming platform, even if you’re not a Twitch Affiliate or Partner. This source of income is available to any Twitch streamer.

Obviously, if you aren’t famous or have a large following, the chances of people wanting to spend money on purchasing your customized Merchandise is pretty low.

However, don’t be upset; once you become a known name on Twitch, your fans will definitely be ready to spend dollars on your Merchandise.

One of the simplest ways to carry this out is by establishing an online store and then placing its link on your Twitch account. You can promote the same in your Twitch feed and direct your audience to your online store.

5. Twitch Bits

Twitch Bits are an effective way to make money on the streaming platform. These are a kind of digital currency that any user can spend on their favorite streamers’ channel.

The platform gives their Partners and Affiliates one cent for each Bit that fans spend on their page.

Users spend money via PayPal or Amazon Pay for accessing Bits. These are generally used by the audience to participate in a chat on a Twitch streamer’s chat channel.

Moreover, he can also make use of these Bits to purchase emotes, which he can use in chats. To purchase more animated emotes, users, required to pay more Bits. 

As the audience participates in any streamer’s chat channel, he earns a Cheer Chat Badge. The more a user chat in a Twitch channel, the more Bits he needs to spend.

And ultimately, he can obtain a better Cheer Chat Badge over time.The Twitch streamers can fix the minimum number of Bits required to make a Cheer message in their channel.

This strategy is useful in two ways: one, you can earn money revenue, and two, you can limit spam. However, by adding a StreamLabs Tip Jar widget, you can encourage your audience to use more Bits.

6. Tournament Winnings

Are you a pro gamer? Yes? Congratulations, you have unlocked another way of earning money on Twitch. You can fetch money by entering and winning a tournament.

Depending on the sort of game you play, you can either participate by yourself or in a team.

To be honest, this method is meant for professional gamers or pro players because it’s quite difficult for a mediocre player to win such tournaments.

However, there are some tournaments for small gamers where it’s possible to make some money. Moreover, participating in battles and streaming the same games anyways brings more views.

Now that I’ve mentioned different ways of earning money on Twitch, you must be wondering which Twitch streamers manage to sail through their ships in this stormy water and make an appearance as one of the most popular Twitch streamers across the globe.

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Here, I’m going to pen down the top 9 personalities on Twitch when it comes to their earnings. Remember earning on Twitch fluctuates, and that is why I’ve mentioned top Twitch streamers’ subscribers and followers as well.

Let’s get started.

Top Twitch Streamers Who are Earning Handsome Revenue in 2022

Twitch

Given below are the top Twitch streamers earning handsome revenue in 2022:

  • Pokimane
  • ibai
  • TheGrefg
  • xQcOW
  • Shroud
  • Tfue
  • Rubius
  • Auronplay
  • Ninja

9. Pokimane

Born on 14 May 1996, Imane Ayas, aka Pokimane, is the first and only female streamer to feature on our list of top 9.

A Moroccan-Canadian Internet personality, she is popular for all her Twitch broadcasting sessions on League of Legends and Fortnite.

In case you’re not aware, she is an active member of an online social entertainment group named Offline TV, which comprises a bunch of content creators.

Starting back in 2013, Imane gained over Twitch followers in 2017. The year turned out to be a more promising one when the Shorty Awards presented her as the year’s Best Twitch Streamer.

There was no looking back then. In July 2018, she was inducted into the list of 15 ambassadors for the TwitchCon event, hosted by Twitch itself.

Later in March 2020, Pokiname signed a multi-year contract with Twitch. She continued to dominate and finally was able to get listed as the 9th most followed creator on Twitch.

Social Blade considered the 8.5 million followers as of 21 December 2021 to offer her the feat.

Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 17.9
  • Average Viewers per week: 26,612
  • Peak Viewers per week: 54,894
  • Hours Watched per week: 476,352

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 8,889,089
  • Total Views: 209,458,084
  • Paid Subscribers: 6,765
  • Active Subscribers: 10,590

Revenue earned: $1.5 million

8. ibai

Ibai Llanos Garatea, more well-known by his online name Ibai, is a Spanish Twitch live gaming streamer, internet personality, co-owner of KOI, and esports caster. He also used to be a content creator for G2 Esports till 2021.

Ibai has over 9 million followers on the popular gaming platform Twitch and thus is currently the eighth most-followed Twitch channel in the world.

He also has over 8 million subscribers on his primary YouTube channel and has approximately 1.50 billion visits. Moreover, he is a two-time back-to-back winner of the prestigious Esports Awards’ “Streamer of the Year” awards in 2020 and 2021.

Simultaneously, he won a total of 4 ESLAND awards in the year 2021. According to the Forbes list of most influential people across the world in 2021, Ibai Llanos Garatea was named one of the most popular Spanish influencers. 

Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 25.8
  • Average Viewers per week: 73,343
  • Peak Viewers per week: 136,494
  • Hours Watched per week: 1,891,018

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 9,090,900
  • Total Views: 131,161,760
  • Paid Subscribers: 8,775
  • Active Subscribers: 55,937

Revenue earned: $2.3 million

7. TheGrefg

David Cánovas Martínez, more popularly known as TheGrefg or Grefg, is a 24-year-old Spanish Twitch streamer and YouTuber. He has one of the most-subscribed YouTube channels in Spain, along with the world’s seventh most-followed Twitch account.

His channel has over 9.4 million followers. He even holds the record for the highest concurrent viewers for a Twitch live stream in the Guinness World Record with a peak concurrent viewership of 2,468,668 on 11th January 2021 during the live display of his Fortnite skin on his Twitch channel.

He was always into gaming since he was a kid and started off his YouTube career when he was 14-year-old on 30th January 2012. He moved to Andorra in 2018 to pay fewer taxes.

Moreover, in January 2020, Epic Games officially announced that a cosmetic skin based on TheGrefg would be added to the popular game Fortnite.

In October 2020, David Cánovas Martínez was included as the sixth most popular influencer in Spain for the same year. Additionally, he was included on a cover of Forbes magazine in April 2021.

Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 40.9
  • Average Viewers per week: 118,882
  • Peak Viewers per week: 1,066,622
  • Hours Watched per week: 4,856,344

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 9,380,993
  • Total Views: 245,985,774
  • Paid Subscribers: 26,324
  • Active Subscribers: 50,134

Revenue earned: $1.9 million

6. xQcOW

The 26-year-young Félix Lengyel, more popularly called by his online alias xQcOW or xQc, is a famous internet personality, Canadian Twitch streamer, and former professional Overwatch player. Félix Lengyel used to play for the Dallas Fuel in the Overwatch League.

He has also played for Team Canada in the Overwatch World Cup in the years 2017, 2018, and 2019. However, he’s now a full-time game streamer on Twitch for the Canada-based esports organization Luminosity Gaming.

Lengyel is one of the world’s most-subscribed Twitch streamers and live streams for an average of 8 to 9 hours each day. He has a view count of over 60,000 that keeps on increasing each day.

In October 2019, Lengyel was ranked as the most watched Twitch streamer and was the 29th most followed streamer on the platform. Simultaneously, his channel is also one of the most-subscribed Twitch channels, amassing more than 35,000 monthly subscribers on average.

Although he still sometimes plays Overwatch, he’s now primarily focused on Twitch live streaming. On 1st October 2020, he, on his live stream, announced that he had signed as a content creator to Luminosity Gaming.

Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 70.0
  • Average Viewers per week: 75,487
  • Peak Viewers per week: 112,370
  • Hours Watched per week: 5,287,883

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 9,871,084
  • Total Views: 476,104,474 
  • Paid Subscribers: 29,158
  • Active Subscribers: 89,310

Revenue earned: $8.5 million

5. SHROUD

SHROUD

Michael Grzesiek, well-known by his online name Shroud, is a 27-year-old YouTuber, Twitch streamer, and former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player.

Better known for playing battle royale and first-person shooter games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), Valorant, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Escape from Tarkov, Apex Legends, and more, he acquired 9.9 million Twitch followers as of December 2021.

Shroud is the fifth most-followed account on the platform and has more than 6.81 million subscribers on YouTube.

Michael (Shroud) Grzesiek has kept a mixed set of games from the time he shifted to a full-time Twitch streamer. His Twitch subscribers count reached 100K on the 10th of March 2019, and the very next day, he gained an additional 14K subscribers.

And thus, he became the then runner-up Twitch streamer in terms of subscribers. However, Michael Grzesiek declared his transition from Twitch to Mixer (Microsoft’s streaming platform) on the 24th of October 2019.

Moreover, Shroud officially announced on his Twitter account that he would return to Twitch streaming on the 11th of August 2020 after the shutting down of Mixer. His first Twitch stream the next day spiked at 516 thousand concurrent viewers.

As per the recent data, he has live-streamed for more than 9,100 hours on Twitch and has amassed around 455 million views. He, on average, brings home around 3,193,097 US dollars a year.

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Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 33.4
  • Average Viewers per week: 20,914
  • Peak Viewers per week: 32,349
  • Hours Watched per week: 698,880

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 9,935,908
  • Total Views: 554,488,260
  • Paid Subscribers: 2,532
  • Active Subscribers: 6,549

Revenue earned: $2 million

4. Tfue

Tfue

Turner Tenney, more commonly known by online codename Tfue, is a 24-year-old American Twitch streamer and esports player. Although he plays games of different genres, he is most popular for playing Fortnite.

Turner Tenney began his game streaming career by playing games like Destiny, Call of Duty, and H1Z1.

However, with the growing popularity of Fortnite Battle Royale, he quickly transitioned to streaming the same. Later, he joined the professional esports organization, FaZe Clan.

In May 2018, Twitch banned his channel for a period of 30 days after reportedly using racial abuse on one of his Twitch live streams. However, the platform reversed the ban after reviewing the same when it was clear that the term wasn’t used in a racial manner.

On 1st August 2019, FaZe Clan claimed that Turner violated the contract by defaming the company and attempting to develop a rival esports organization.

The company even claimed that he reportedly leaked top-secret information about his contract with FaZe Clan to media persons, violating their terms and conditions. And thus, the organization filed a federal lawsuit in New York suing him.

On 2nd September 2019, the famous Fortnite streamer Tenney again used a racial slur while live streaming on the platform. However, this time, Twitch didn’t take any action.

Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 45.7
  • Average Viewers per week: 8,005
  • Peak Viewers per week: 13,402
  • Hours Watched per week: 365,821

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 10,814,313
  • Total Views: 302,118,257
  • Paid Subscribers: 3,428
  • Active Subscribers: 5,868

Revenue earned: $5.3 million

3. Rubius

Rubius

The 31-year-old Rubén Doblas Gundersen, also known by his online name elrubiusOMG or only El Rubius, is a well-known Spanish-Norwegian Twitch streamer. He’s also a YouTube sensation whose channel mainly consists of gameplays and video-blogging.

He’s the most-subscribed YouTuber in Spain, and his channel features in the list of the top 50 most-subscribed YouTube channels.

In October 2018, the famous YouTuber Rubius stated that he’d live streaming on Twitch and would prioritize the save over YouTube, which he would take as a secondary career.

Moreover, he reopened his old original channel named “elrubius” to reupload video content on his new Twitch account. And that’s why he renamed his old channel to “Rubius Z.”

On 2nd January 2021, Rubén Doblas Gundersen, together with Alexby11, announced that they’ve created a Rust series named Egoland that assembled 70 Twitch streamers.

The series was a great success as it has achieved 1.2 million viewers. Talking about the stats, it was one of the biggest Twitch events of 2021 and had led many content creators to create more such series. 

Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 39.4
  • Average Viewers per week: 42,797
  • Peak Viewers per week: 92,756
  • Hours Watched per week: 1,685,500

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 10,886,694
  • Total Views: 238,687,967
  • Paid Subscribers: 7,789
  • Active Subscribers: 24,609

Revenue earned: $1.8 million

2. Auronplay

Auronplay

Raúl Álvarez Genes, also known as AuronPlay or simply Auron, is a famous Spanish Twitch streamer, YouTuber, and comedian.

The 33-year-old gamer has more than 3.6 million total video views on his YouTube channel, and with over 28.7 million YouTube subscribers, he is the third most-subscribed YouTuber across Spain.

Talking about Twitch, he is currently one of the top streamers on Twitch and ranked as the second most-followed Twitch channel across the globe.

Raúl Álvarez started his Twitch journey in September 2019, broadcasting gaming and social content. In May 2020, he started participating in a GTA (Grand Theft Auto) V server of the roleplay category known as Spain RP, where he played the part of Gustabo, together with other Twitch streamers.

However, after two months, in August 2020, he and his fellow members announced that they’d quit playing on the server, which ultimately closed on 3rd September of the same year. After that, he opened a new server under the name Infamous RP on 15th September.

In September 2020, an incident occurred to Raúl Álvarez Genes. He was watching random wedding-related videos on his live stream, and in one of those videos, a kid could be seen showing his buttocks.

Due to this, Twitch decided to suspend his account for 24 minutes. Moreover, in April 2021, he participated in a server called Marbella Vice, created by CooLifeGame and Ibai Llanos, which marked itself as one most-watched event on Twitch. 

Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 27.1
  • Average Viewers per week: 109,208
  • Peak Viewers per week: 277,874
  • Hours Watched per week: 2,961,356

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 11,314,413
  • Total Views: 226,408,802
  • Paid Subscribers: 13,762
  • Active Subscribers: 31,757

Revenue earned: $3.1 million

1. NINJA

NINJA

Richard Tyler Blevins, better known as Ninja, is an American professional gamer, Twitch streamer, and YouTube personality. He started off his gaming journey back in 2009 by professionally playing Halo 3.

He played for multiple organizations, including Team Liquid, Cloud9, Renegades, and ultimately Luminosity Gaming. He has been live-streaming since 2011 and currently ranks number one in the list of top Twitch streamers.

He had commenced his streaming career as an H1Z1 player and later moved to PUBG (aka PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds). In August 2017, he won the “PUBG Gamescom Invitational Squads classification” title. He then started streaming the gameplay of the Battle Royale, Fortnite.

And with that, his viewership skyrocketed. His followers have increased from 500K in September 2017 to more than 2 million in March 2018.

Richard Tyler (Ninja) Blevins broke the Twitch record for the widest concurrent viewers of 635K on a solo stream during his Fortnite game with Travis Scott, Drake, and JuJu Smith-Schuster.

However, with accumulated viewers of 667K, he broke his own Twitch concurrent audience record in April 2018 at the Ninja Vegas 2018.

Ninja shifted exclusively to Mixer on the 1st of August 2019 as the deal with Twitch had limited his ability to expand his brand beyond the streaming platform.

However, after the shutdown of Mixer in 2020, he again sealed an exclusive long-term contract with Twitch on the 10th of September 2020.

As of April 2021, besides having huge subscribers on both Twitch and Mixer, he has more than 24 million subscribers on YouTube. With his skills and rapid success, Blevins became the first Twitch streamer to cross the milestone of 10 million followers.

He earns a yearly income of 5,417,447 dollars and is the top-grossing Twitch streamer.

Performance Statistics:

  • Hours streamed per week: 28.1
  • Average Viewers per week: 20,914
  • Peak Viewers per week: 38,758
  • Hours Watched per week: 586,627

Other Important Statistics:

  • Total Followers: 17,337,321
  • Total Views: 563,345,334
  • Paid Subscribers: 4,346
  • Active Subscribers: 10,347

Revenue earned: $1.4 million

Conclusion

With that, we are at the end of the write-up. Twitch is an American online streaming platform, especially for video-game players.

From the above discussion, it’s pretty clear that Twitch is a great platform for streamers to generate good annual revenue. Ninja, Shroud, and others are among the top-earning Twitch streamers.

Other than the main source of income from subscriptions, there are a number of alternatives in which one can earn money on the platform. This alternative includes Affiliate marketing, sponsorship, and others.

However, always remember that you need to be really consistent to earn money on the platform.

Sources:

  • https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_(gamer)
  • https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shroud_(gamer)
  • https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2021/08/30/drlupo-twitch-youtube-exclusive-deal/
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibai_Llanos
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AuronPlay
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokimane
  • https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitch_(service)

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