How do local subscription prices affect streamers on Twitch?

Twitch’s local subscription rates might be a positive for viewers looking for discounted sub costs, but many streamers are concerned about how it could hurt their bottom line.

With the new system being implemented in regions across the world, most notably including Europe, content creators on the platform will need more subscribers to achieve the same amount of revenue long term.

Twitch’s hope for local subscription pricing is that it will cause an influx in support for content creators from regions where subscriptions previously cost more than what most people were willing or able to pay.

For creators whose subs come largely from the U.S., this change will have little to no effect. But for people who have large bases of European, South American, and African viewers, this transitional period could make or break their ability to make a living on the platform.

Knowing this would be the case, Twitch has put a couple of systems in place in an attempt to protect streamers, especially in the early months of the local pricing changes.

In testing the changes that are coming to Twitch, the platform recognized that it had a high potential to negatively impact streamers short-term immediately following the price reduction.

“In the first few months after the price change, however, lower sub prices may lead to lower sub revenue for some creators if viewer adoption does not increase right away,” Twitch wrote.

To combat that, the platform has designed a system to ensure that streamers are still making what they would have made prior to the price change. In effect, Twitch is offering some streamers a larger percentage of the revenue from subscriptions.

While eligibility for support from Twitch initially relies on content creators to have more than 20 percent of their baseline revenue coming from areas with adjusted prices, the help will span a full year.

After the first three months, the 100 percent baseline support from Twitch will drop by 25 percent every three months. To maintain that support, streamers have to meet a minimum requirement of air time that’s relative to how much they were streaming prior to the implementation of local sub pricing.

To see if you’re eligible, you can go to the Channel Analytics portion of your creator dashboard on Twitch. The necessary information will be in a box labeled “Creator revenue adjustment incentive.”