Trainwreck thinks new streaming site Kick has found a fairer way to reward streamers

Trainwreck presented the creator program of Kick today, the new streaming platform he joined in December 2022 after calling out Twitch.

Kick’s creator program will pay streamers for the hours they stream, whether they have one viewer or 100,000, according to Trainwreck. What Kick is offering “has never been done by a streaming platform before” and will exist in addition to the current advertising program in place, which Trainwreck claims is competitive with Twitch and YouTube’s ad program.

Related: Trainwreck joins startup Twitch streaming rival and wants other streamers to follow

“That means as a creator on Kick, you’ll get paid for ads when they’re available, you’ll get paid 95 percent of your subscriber revenue, 100 percent of on-site non-third-party donations, and you’ll get the Creator Program,” Trainwreck said.

The formula of Kick’s creator program is based on the number of hours a streamer streams, a flat rate based on Kick’s advertising CPMs (cost per thousand), the average viewers the streamer has, and viewer demographics and engagements. More details about the program will be revealed in the near future, according to Trainwreck.

The streamers on Kick will be able to get paid via Kick’s payment processor Stripe on a set day of each month or they can get paid the same day after the stream ends in popular cryptocurrencies Bitcoin or Ethereum.

“The life of a Twitch streamer is working an impossible number of hours trying to find success,” Trainwreck said. “For all, but the largest creators, these hours go unrewarded. Twitch ignores small, and mid-sized creators and gives their budget to a select small group of streamers via huge paid contracts. Small to middle-sized creators have few paid opportunities on Twitch and are expected to get by on their unfair subscription revenue split and meager ad programs. Kick could spend millions of dollars acquiring large streamers exclusively. Instead, we’re choosing to invest in all creators.”

Trainwreck, however, will still have to give an example of how much Kick’s creator program will reward smaller and mid-sized streamers. Based on his explanation, Kick could pay mere cents for every hour streamed, which would not make a difference.

Related: Trainwreck still ‘confident’ in Kick streaming platform as Twitch rival despite criticism

People are skeptical, to say the least, about Kick’s future as a competitive streaming platform, because it seems to be centered around online gambling. Trainwreck also got into a controversy after he didn’t initially disclose one of the investors at Kick is also the owner of the online casino Stake.

Trainwreck said it will still take some time for every streamer to be rewarded for the hours they put in, but Kick’s creator program is a start.