I'm a small streamer and I look at it differently. I have a day job. I have investments and side hustles. I also play video games. After a long day of work, family and side hustles, I like to unwind and play some video games at the end of the day. I'd do it even if Twitch didn't exist. So why not fire up the webcam and stream what I was going to be doing anyway? Will I make a career out of it? nope. Will I make a ton of money? Nope. Will I meet new people, and add personal value to the gaming I was going to do anyway? Absolutely yes. That's why I do it. It reminds me of being a kid in the 90's arcade. Just getting together with old friends, making new friends, and playing games together. If I make a little scratch on the side, Bonus! The key is managing expectations.
i enjoy streaming on twitch. what you said is so true and to the point. and I see the small streamers struggling to build a community and can't even get no more than 3 viewers to stay on their channel. This data and information was very valid. it concerns me when I see other people say that they're going to be fulltime streamers and end up quitting their day job. i couldn't do that. i rather stick with my day job and still stream.
If you're going to look at streaming as a potential income, you REALLY need to come in with the mindset that you have to make content on other platforms as well to earn more revenue. I'm sure many younger people assume it's an easy way to pick up cash but it takes SO much time and TOO much dedication to get to a place in which you're financially stable
It actually depends in what country you live, here in Bulgaria if you make 8000$ , that is very good, but most of streamers here are not making it, so I thing its good for a side job it helps a lot. Smart people don't depend of a one platform its very unsafe, so I do recommend to diversify.
To many people goes into streaming thinking they'll make money from the first stream. A week or months later they'll quit because they didnt earn money. When most streamers stream for 5,10,15 years before success. Guess people need to understand that streaming should start as a hobby and move forward from there. In life you have to do something a 1000 times, or a 1000 hours before ur good at it, then another 1000 times/hours maaaby u can earn money from it. Then another 1000 times/hours were probably have something to work with.. Take that 1000 times/hours and do it x100 times, and then.. THEN this is most likely is ur main income. Or be a girl, get naked on camera and dress the right way on stream and ur the top streamer. OR win the streaming lottery and get 10.000000 million views on a video on social media (go viral). So if ur not a girl u dont get the option to get naked and get money and views that way or not winning the lottery.. Then put the time and effort into it. Become the new Shroud, Dr.Disrespect, TimTheThatman etc.
I think most streamers go all in on twitch when they should be doing multiple things on the side. Sure just money from twitch isnt enough but if they combined Twitch/YT/Patreon/Ko-Fi+ and other outlets they could for sure make a decent wage even as a small streamer. Hard part is getting a small audience to saturate multiple platforms but its possible.
Hey Ashni! I've been following you since the stream academy and got your ebook forever ago, you inspired me to become a twitch streamer from the get go, then it's kinda funny because I realized all of this around the exact same time you sorta quit streaming. Which I also watched your vod on that as well! I went back to school to get my bachelors in marketing because I loved it so much! So I kinda owe it to you that I found my life path in an interesting sort of way so thank you! This is basically the reality I've lived in where twitch streaming is seriously not good money and the ROI of it was just awful. Especially considering the social resources of it as well because you're not just losing money I feel you also leave social time you could be having with the people you love too, Twitch comes with lots of self learning experience of how to do some things but overall, your investment in time and money could definitely be used elsewhere. Thanks for sharing this! :D
I stream in the music category and according to those numbers I fit into the medium size streamer group. But I'm so so so far from ever making 8k a month 😂 It's very important to diversify your income, but it's a long process, especially with streaming being so time consuming. Thank you for this video, this is not talked about enough!
Trying to be a large streamer sounds like being a professional/elite athlete. Not probable to happen even if you are good, and hard to maintain it even if you get there. Too many sacrifice, luck and downsides related to that carrear to be worth pursuing it professionally. Doing it part time with no expectations or purely as a hobby sounds way more worth it... like a semi-professional league or sunday matches with friends. I did it part-time once with medium expectations and it was ok. Doing it was fun, but got 100€ after almost a year... Stopped that project and I've been wanting to get back after 2 or so years... but with another mindset. No schedule, no expectations, never more than 3 or 4 hours, purely to have fun with some friends, meet people with similar interests, build a (really) small community and that is it.
I tried making streaming work for me but I came to conclusion I could only do it as a real hobby to have fun. I thanks you for all the information you have provided that has help me along in this journey. Making money would be nice but show would winning the lottery and since neither realistically going to happen I choose to just have fun and enjoy journey instead. Thanks for this video was real informative.
Thank you for the next level. Shout out! Great video. I think i might do a react video to this because i think i have some other great things to add to your video. Because i now work 80 hours a week thrashing myself. 😂 But i make over $120,000 a year. Value yourself, people! You don't need to quit streaming, but you can walk away! You can come back when you have something spectacular! And it NEEDS to be. And i can not give that myself yet. But i have goals. Have goals. Then, use your wealth to help push your impactful entertainment. I think MOST people want to be a streamer, and i think we need to think about what can we give. Thank you for a great video!
of course!! and you should def do a react video. i'd love to hear what you think :) thats a GREAT income btw. I don't think most streamers realize their skillset makes them eligible for that kind of reward
You read my mind as a DJ streaming 3 years everyone has chosen there loyal streamer I was doing 40 heads a stream now 6 and 4 of them are mods. Life happens work hours change. To the point I don't make payout. Time lost when I can be working or enjoying time with the kids.
I've taken a hiatus from my Twitch streams lately. I used to only play Hearthstone and I just saw the game dying and fell out of love with the game. I stopped streaming on Twitch and started doing music reactions on RUclips and saw a massive influx of growth on the YT side like Hearthstone content had never done for me before. It gave me the idea to stream my music reactions instead of playing a game and then upload those reactions to RUclips after the stream like I was doing before. In this context. I saw this as part of "creating a funnel". Would you say streaming on Twitch still loses money in this context? I've recently backed away from Twitch streams again because some days it's just easier without a crowd, but I have found myself wondering if doing the Twitch streams and then uploading individual videos to YT was seen as positive or negative versus the data of your video.
i think twitch can work in a content strategy IF you have an existing community, as a % of net income. YT is the best way to monetize that i've seen (speaking generally, every creator is different) but twitch can add some pizza change, fun, and relationship / community development on top. there are multiple benefits, but financial is not one of them imo
@@ashnichrist yeah, once you start getting paid on YT, Twitch money seems incredibly inconsequential. When I stream, I range 20-40 viewers so it's not MASSIVE by any stretch but I was noticing both things grow, Twitch and YT. Is there a way to quantify the value streaming on Twitch brings to a YT channel that you know of? I feel like YT progresses whether I stream or not
Really helpful, thanks so much. This actually came up in my suggestions because I was looking for vids on how to start on Twitch. I already have a YT channel and stream here. But I thought maybe Twitch would help open up an additional audience. Maybe I could dual-stream to both. I know viewers will sometimes ask if I'm also on Twitch, apparently the way its' structured there is more fun for viewers, with all the little plugins and fun things you can do. But, I feel like Twitch would have been a good idea maybe 5 years ago. Not now. I am thinking after watching this, that the potential for growth would probably not be enough to justify the amount of time and effort it would take to learn a new system and set up on a new platform. Much better to stay focused on the platform where I'm already growing.
Thanks Ashni for this wonderful post, I have been thinking of starting my streaming career as a part time, I bumped into this video in the course of my research, I have 20-30 hours I could be using per week but your video just gave me another thought. What do you think I could do to save myself from being broke via streaming? I would really appreciate your advice please 🙏 Thank you
I don't know that there are very many jobs out there that a 6% rate of return over 15 years can get you to the $2.5M that you seem to want to retire. I mean that's roughly $9,000 a month invested. The only anecdotal way I've heard of doing that is with a couple both making over $100k/year and investing a whole person's salary. I get the point that you are trying to make that Twitch steaming doesn't pay enough to plan for retirement. I completely agree. But most jobs don't pay that sort of money.
yeah thats why I did an exmaple with a longer timeline. 15 years is too short for most people unless you're gonns eat out of the trash can lol. but it's a good way to show the difference between streaming vs working contracts
I think it's definitely important to make sure you have some solid passive income besides streaming/content creation, because there is always the chance your numbers are gonna drop off at some point and so it's not really a reliable source of income. However, imo what makes content creation have an invaluable ROI (and I know this video talks more specifically about streaming, but imo they go hand in hand, very few people out there who purely do streaming) is that it allows you to build a platform/a following, which you can use for a ton of other income opportunities and I'm pretty sure thats what you did as well. Without your following you wouldn't have been able to have such a successful ebook launch, coaching, courses etc. I think this fact alone makes it very hard to quantify the value of your time spent on content creation, because it is so much more complex/nuanced than that. Yeah, you might make 50$ per hour as a medium streamer, but the opportunities created by the following you've built might as well quadruple the worth of that time spent.
oh wow, maybe you remember my name maybe you don't that's not the important, the important is that this feels weird in a very positive way, when I first started to stream 5 - 6 years ago, you where there to help me (I mean your channel and your videos) and now that I was thinking about returning to stream, suddenly your channel pop's up again,
Very well researched vid and great advice for creators esp ones living in the USA. One thing to note is that although your advice is practical, if someone wants to get to the 0.01% they have to be a bit delusional and ignore all logic and just go for it. Some are ok with trying and some aren't.
If you're absolutely top tier in your game, or really attractive man or woman or REALLY outgoing and sociable then do it. Nothing to lose. A lot of people don't stream for money though. Money isn't everything.
lets be real tho, which you seem to ignore... you would be playing this duration, so really, your being paid, to play the game. you only have to start the stream, alt tab, and play... i played ark 1, average of 18 hours a day xD
Lol, the investment rate with inflation accounted for will equal to a value loss of $9000. Meaning your $28,830 now would get you $19,830 worth of stuff when you finnaly get it. Lol, BIEDENNOMICS!!! YAYYYYY
Retirement estimates are usually inflation-adjusted. 30 years ago you could retire on $500k. Right now you need about $1m to retire. 30 years from now when most millennials reach retirement age, they will need $2m, just as Ashni says. Their children will need $4m, and their grandchildren will need $8m, etc. All because of inflation. When people quote these numbers, inflation is always taken into consideration. No need to be alarmed here.
as I said in the end of the vid, streaming as a hobby is totally fine. but "streaming as a hobby" while desperately hoping to make money is not. it's very ironic to be an ass in my comments section when i literally agree with you lol
what do yall think about this? wild data tbh. anyways follow me on X: x.com/ashnichrist
I'm a small streamer and I look at it differently. I have a day job. I have investments and side hustles. I also play video games. After a long day of work, family and side hustles, I like to unwind and play some video games at the end of the day. I'd do it even if Twitch didn't exist. So why not fire up the webcam and stream what I was going to be doing anyway? Will I make a career out of it? nope. Will I make a ton of money? Nope. Will I meet new people, and add personal value to the gaming I was going to do anyway? Absolutely yes. That's why I do it. It reminds me of being a kid in the 90's arcade. Just getting together with old friends, making new friends, and playing games together. If I make a little scratch on the side, Bonus!
The key is managing expectations.
Well, you've cleared up my questions about wanting to stream. Thanks.
glad to help :)
i enjoy streaming on twitch. what you said is so true and to the point. and I see the small streamers struggling to build a community and can't even get no more than 3 viewers to stay on their channel. This data and information was very valid. it concerns me when I see other people say that they're going to be fulltime streamers and end up quitting their day job. i couldn't do that. i rather stick with my day job and still stream.
for reeal! like you can have both!!
If you're going to look at streaming as a potential income, you REALLY need to come in with the mindset that you have to make content on other platforms as well to earn more revenue. I'm sure many younger people assume it's an easy way to pick up cash but it takes SO much time and TOO much dedication to get to a place in which you're financially stable
totally agree with you!
It actually depends in what country you live, here in Bulgaria if you make 8000$ , that is very good, but most of streamers here are not making it, so I thing its good for a side job it helps a lot. Smart people don't depend of a one platform its very unsafe, so I do recommend to diversify.
Totally agree. This is a very US based example
To many people goes into streaming thinking they'll make money from the first stream. A week or months later they'll quit because they didnt earn money. When most streamers stream for 5,10,15 years before success. Guess people need to understand that streaming should start as a hobby and move forward from there. In life you have to do something a 1000 times, or a 1000 hours before ur good at it, then another 1000 times/hours maaaby u can earn money from it. Then another 1000 times/hours were probably have something to work with.. Take that 1000 times/hours and do it x100 times, and then.. THEN this is most likely is ur main income. Or be a girl, get naked on camera and dress the right way on stream and ur the top streamer. OR win the streaming lottery and get 10.000000 million views on a video on social media (go viral). So if ur not a girl u dont get the option to get naked and get money and views that way or not winning the lottery.. Then put the time and effort into it. Become the new Shroud, Dr.Disrespect, TimTheThatman etc.
totally agree!!
I think most streamers go all in on twitch when they should be doing multiple things on the side. Sure just money from twitch isnt enough but if they combined Twitch/YT/Patreon/Ko-Fi+ and other outlets they could for sure make a decent wage even as a small streamer. Hard part is getting a small audience to saturate multiple platforms but its possible.
yeah I agree with you there. diversity is super important
Hey Ashni! I've been following you since the stream academy and got your ebook forever ago, you inspired me to become a twitch streamer from the get go, then it's kinda funny because I realized all of this around the exact same time you sorta quit streaming. Which I also watched your vod on that as well! I went back to school to get my bachelors in marketing because I loved it so much! So I kinda owe it to you that I found my life path in an interesting sort of way so thank you! This is basically the reality I've lived in where twitch streaming is seriously not good money and the ROI of it was just awful. Especially considering the social resources of it as well because you're not just losing money I feel you also leave social time you could be having with the people you love too, Twitch comes with lots of self learning experience of how to do some things but overall, your investment in time and money could definitely be used elsewhere. Thanks for sharing this! :D
Wow this is an incredible comment. I’m so happy for you!!!!!!!
Oh, if i get 1000 dollars over 15 years i would be happy. im on my 5th year of streaming as a hobby, and i have earned 100 dollars so far xD
omg no way!!!
@@ashnichrist There must be millions as me, but we normaly stream as a hobby. Dont have the time for fulltime work AND the streaming part togheter 😅
12:14 that's just madness. 😮😮😮 and honestly I'd just stick with my office job and other 2 irl jobs to retire naturally. And I am 31 currently
tbh same. im making so much more (and reliable) income from contract work
I stream in the music category and according to those numbers I fit into the medium size streamer group. But I'm so so so far from ever making 8k a month 😂 It's very important to diversify your income, but it's a long process, especially with streaming being so time consuming. Thank you for this video, this is not talked about enough!
Yeah tbh this is also something worth discussing. Where is the twitch streamer middle class????
@@ashnichrist haha exactly!
Very important and informative ! Perfect way to wrap up my work day
yay im so glad to hear it!!
Trying to be a large streamer sounds like being a professional/elite athlete. Not probable to happen even if you are good, and hard to maintain it even if you get there. Too many sacrifice, luck and downsides related to that carrear to be worth pursuing it professionally. Doing it part time with no expectations or purely as a hobby sounds way more worth it... like a semi-professional league or sunday matches with friends.
I did it part-time once with medium expectations and it was ok. Doing it was fun, but got 100€ after almost a year... Stopped that project and I've been wanting to get back after 2 or so years... but with another mindset. No schedule, no expectations, never more than 3 or 4 hours, purely to have fun with some friends, meet people with similar interests, build a (really) small community and that is it.
thats a great comparison!!
I tried making streaming work for me but I came to conclusion I could only do it as a real hobby to have fun. I thanks you for all the information you have provided that has help me along in this journey. Making money would be nice but show would winning the lottery and since neither realistically going to happen I choose to just have fun and enjoy journey instead. Thanks for this video was real informative.
im so glad to hear it!! yeah i thiink streaming for fun is totally valid but obviously you shouldn't do it for the money
Thank you for the next level. Shout out!
Great video. I think i might do a react video to this because i think i have some other great things to add to your video. Because i now work 80 hours a week thrashing myself. 😂
But i make over $120,000 a year. Value yourself, people! You don't need to quit streaming, but you can walk away! You can come back when you have something spectacular! And it NEEDS to be. And i can not give that myself yet. But i have goals. Have goals. Then, use your wealth to help push your impactful entertainment. I think MOST people want to be a streamer, and i think we need to think about what can we give. Thank you for a great video!
of course!! and you should def do a react video. i'd love to hear what you think :) thats a GREAT income btw. I don't think most streamers realize their skillset makes them eligible for that kind of reward
You read my mind as a DJ streaming 3 years everyone has chosen there loyal streamer I was doing 40 heads a stream now 6 and 4 of them are mods. Life happens work hours change. To the point I don't make payout. Time lost when I can be working or enjoying time with the kids.
its really such a bummer huh
That what bothers me is the dashboard revenue is way lower than actual revenune though
I've taken a hiatus from my Twitch streams lately. I used to only play Hearthstone and I just saw the game dying and fell out of love with the game. I stopped streaming on Twitch and started doing music reactions on RUclips and saw a massive influx of growth on the YT side like Hearthstone content had never done for me before. It gave me the idea to stream my music reactions instead of playing a game and then upload those reactions to RUclips after the stream like I was doing before. In this context. I saw this as part of "creating a funnel". Would you say streaming on Twitch still loses money in this context? I've recently backed away from Twitch streams again because some days it's just easier without a crowd, but I have found myself wondering if doing the Twitch streams and then uploading individual videos to YT was seen as positive or negative versus the data of your video.
i think twitch can work in a content strategy IF you have an existing community, as a % of net income. YT is the best way to monetize that i've seen (speaking generally, every creator is different) but twitch can add some pizza change, fun, and relationship / community development on top. there are multiple benefits, but financial is not one of them imo
@@ashnichrist yeah, once you start getting paid on YT, Twitch money seems incredibly inconsequential. When I stream, I range 20-40 viewers so it's not MASSIVE by any stretch but I was noticing both things grow, Twitch and YT.
Is there a way to quantify the value streaming on Twitch brings to a YT channel that you know of? I feel like YT progresses whether I stream or not
Really helpful, thanks so much. This actually came up in my suggestions because I was looking for vids on how to start on Twitch. I already have a YT channel and stream here. But I thought maybe Twitch would help open up an additional audience. Maybe I could dual-stream to both. I know viewers will sometimes ask if I'm also on Twitch, apparently the way its' structured there is more fun for viewers, with all the little plugins and fun things you can do. But, I feel like Twitch would have been a good idea maybe 5 years ago. Not now. I am thinking after watching this, that the potential for growth would probably not be enough to justify the amount of time and effort it would take to learn a new system and set up on a new platform. Much better to stay focused on the platform where I'm already growing.
Thanks Ashni for this wonderful post, I have been thinking of starting my streaming career as a part time, I bumped into this video in the course of my research, I have 20-30 hours I could be using per week but your video just gave me another thought. What do you think I could do to save myself from being broke via streaming? I would really appreciate your advice please 🙏 Thank you
I don't know that there are very many jobs out there that a 6% rate of return over 15 years can get you to the $2.5M that you seem to want to retire. I mean that's roughly $9,000 a month invested. The only anecdotal way I've heard of doing that is with a couple both making over $100k/year and investing a whole person's salary. I get the point that you are trying to make that Twitch steaming doesn't pay enough to plan for retirement. I completely agree. But most jobs don't pay that sort of money.
yeah thats why I did an exmaple with a longer timeline. 15 years is too short for most people unless you're gonns eat out of the trash can lol. but it's a good way to show the difference between streaming vs working contracts
Today I learned that even Americans with jobs will never be able to retire because we have to save more than we've ever made.
I think it's definitely important to make sure you have some solid passive income besides streaming/content creation, because there is always the chance your numbers are gonna drop off at some point and so it's not really a reliable source of income. However, imo what makes content creation have an invaluable ROI (and I know this video talks more specifically about streaming, but imo they go hand in hand, very few people out there who purely do streaming) is that it allows you to build a platform/a following, which you can use for a ton of other income opportunities and I'm pretty sure thats what you did as well. Without your following you wouldn't have been able to have such a successful ebook launch, coaching, courses etc. I think this fact alone makes it very hard to quantify the value of your time spent on content creation, because it is so much more complex/nuanced than that. Yeah, you might make 50$ per hour as a medium streamer, but the opportunities created by the following you've built might as well quadruple the worth of that time spent.
oh wow, maybe you remember my name maybe you don't that's not the important, the important is that this feels weird in a very positive way, when I first started to stream 5 - 6 years ago, you where there to help me (I mean your channel and your videos) and now that I was thinking about returning to stream, suddenly your channel pop's up again,
Omg that makes me so happy. 🎉
Very well researched vid and great advice for creators esp ones living in the USA. One thing to note is that although your advice is practical, if someone wants to get to the 0.01% they have to be a bit delusional and ignore all logic and just go for it. Some are ok with trying and some aren't.
If you're absolutely top tier in your game, or really attractive man or woman or REALLY outgoing and sociable then do it. Nothing to lose.
A lot of people don't stream for money though. Money isn't everything.
why is the assumption that you retire after only 15 years?
1.3 million i can make that work 😊
lets be real tho, which you seem to ignore... you would be playing this duration, so really, your being paid, to play the game. you only have to start the stream, alt tab, and play... i played ark 1, average of 18 hours a day xD
can confirm
bad money, so sad :(
Lol, the investment rate with inflation accounted for will equal to a value loss of $9000.
Meaning your $28,830 now would get you $19,830 worth of stuff when you finnaly get it.
Lol, BIEDENNOMICS!!! YAYYYYY
Retirement estimates are usually inflation-adjusted. 30 years ago you could retire on $500k. Right now you need about $1m to retire. 30 years from now when most millennials reach retirement age, they will need $2m, just as Ashni says. Their children will need $4m, and their grandchildren will need $8m, etc. All because of inflation. When people quote these numbers, inflation is always taken into consideration. No need to be alarmed here.
:)
i love your name
This literally almost gave me brain rot. If you're a small streamer you shouldn't do it to be a roach. Do it as a hobby to have fun
as I said in the end of the vid, streaming as a hobby is totally fine. but "streaming as a hobby" while desperately hoping to make money is not. it's very ironic to be an ass in my comments section when i literally agree with you lol
@@ashnichrist your energy in the video is essentially " You like to knit? Fuckin idiot. Go work for a textile company"
How are you suppose to make money when platform's has lots of policy rules LOL