Twitch viewers can expect the local subscription pricing to come to other countries soon.
Twitch has announced it will introduce local subscription pricing in most countries to align with their local cost of living. The first countries to receive this change will be Mexico and Turkey, but other regions will follow soon.
A standard Twitch subscription costs roughly $5 irrespective of the user’s location. After this announcement viewers in most countries will soon see lower sub rates. A viewer’s subscription price will depend on where they live and have set up their Twitch payment methods.
We have designed this pricing model to ensure that prices are appropriately set for viewers, wherever they live. For creators this means that some viewers in their channels may see different prices.
What does this mean for content creators?
Localized pricing will reduce the economic impact for low-income countries. It will make subscribing more affordable to non-US viewers. Content creators can expect more subscribers and therefore engagement on their channels. Content creators can grow their communities which starts with Mexico and Turkey for now. However, Twitch has announced plans to expand to many more countries in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe starting in Q3 2021.
Here’s a list of all countries that can expect local subscription pricing.
Twitch clocked more than 2.2 billion hours watched in April 2021 with more than 9 million active channels. As the global pandemic forced people to move indoors, Twitch has seen significant growth across all sectors. The new Tier 1 price in Turkey is 9.90 TRY and 48 Pesos for Mexico.
Twitch introduces a 12-month program to aid streamers
However, the Amazon-owned company acknowledges, content creators might experience potential dips in creator revenue. As such Twitch is also rolling out a 12-month program that guarantees a certain level of revenue for eligible content creators.
Here are the details of the new program that will help streamers adjust to the potential changes in revenue.
- Twitch will cover 100% of baseline channel and Prime sub revenue (if needed) for three calendar months, including the month of the price change. After that, we will slowly decrease incentive payments by 25% every three months over the following 9 months, totaling a 12-month period of providing revenue adjustment incentives.
- It all starts with “baselines.” Basically, we’ll take a look at how much money a creator has made from paid and prime subs in the last three months, as well as how many hours were streamed live, and calculate averages. These averaged baseline stats will be visible in the Creator Dashboard for eligible creators in countries where the price has changed.
- As long as that creator streams at least 85% of their live baseline hours in a month and meets certain other eligibility criteria, we’ll pay that creator a “revenue adjustment incentive” to make up for any lost revenue from subs. When creators out-perform their average – i.e. get more subs revenue – they will receive that increased amount, not the incentive payment, but may be eligible for future months should they need it.
- Once local sub pricing begins rolling out, eligible creators will be able to use their Creator Dashboard to view their monthly baseline amounts, actual subscription revenue, and upcoming streaming requirements.
Why did Twitch introduce local Subscription prices?
For starters, local subscription prices mean a more affordable way for viewers to show their support for their favorite streamers. While it might reduce the average earnings per subscriber for content creators, it should result in more income in the long term.
Twitch streamers can expect a significant bump in the number of subscribers which will eventually translate to increased earnings.
We conducted several price tests and saw that lower sub prices boosted overall monthly subs and sub revenue for creators. In one recent test in Brazil, lower sub prices more than doubled creator revenue and total subscriber count.
Twitch
Twitch also said its promotions for first-time subscribers and first-time gifters showed revenue increases in Latin America and Europe.
The changes in subscription prices should get more users to support their favorite streamers via subscriptions. More subscribers would also mean more revenue for Twitch and streamers can also expect more revenue over a period of time.
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