Kai Cenat blows past Ludwig’s all-time Twitch sub record—and his huge haul is still growing

Kai Cenat started Black History Month with a dream, and today he sits atop Twitch as the all-time record holder for most concurrent subscribers by a streamers, beating out the previous record held by Ludwig.

Cenat broke Ludwig’s record at the end of February on the 28th day of his subathon. He received his 283,067th, breaking the record around 5:30pm CT. Cenat reached the legendary milestone 28 days into his 30-day subathon.

The feat was a calculated effort by Cenat, who organized a month-long subathon. The event mimicked that of Ludwig who broke Ninja’s 2018 record two years ago. Ninja had previously held the record for concurrent subscriptions with 269,154 in April 2018. Prior to Ninja, no streamer had ever eclipsed the 200,000 active subscriber mark.

During his subathon, Cenat has mentioned that simply breaking the record isn’t enough. He wanted to break through into uncharted territory, becoming the first streamer to ever reach 300,000 subscribers, and he achieved that around 30 minutes later at 6pm CT.

Twitch subscriptions are a monthly paid service that individual channels are allowed to offer. Subscriptions start at $4.99 and last a month. By paying for a subscription to a channel, viewers can get customized emotes to use in the channels chat room and a badge for their name in the chat as well. Additionally, some creators give subscribers special privileges, like access to community Discord servers and sub-only chats and streams.

Related: Who has the most subs in Twitch history?

Cenat’s record-breaking performance outpaced the previous record set by now-YouTuber Ludwig. Running from March 14 through April 13, of 2021, Ludwig’s subathon spanned 31 days. The day before he started his marathon stream, he had 1,730 subs. 

Cenat started his subathon with a significant amount more, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he was starting with a handicap. Beginning his efforts at 5:00pm CT on Feb. 1, he ended January with 57,327 subscribers according to TwitchTracker. However, many of the subs from that month likely expired before the end of his ongoing subathon and required viewers to re-sub during the event.