Every “how much do streamers make” answer online is one of two things. Either it is one famous streamer’s bank statement, or it is a number somebody made up with confidence. This streamer earnings calculator does something less exciting. It takes your average viewers, hours and paid subscribers, then applies the rates Kick, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok publish. Every guess is labelled as a guess. And the result is a range, because a single number would be lying to you.
How the streamer earnings calculator does the maths
Everything starts with viewer-hours: average viewers times hours live. Fifty viewers for twenty hours a week makes about 4,330 viewer-hours a month. Ads and tips grow out of that number.
Subscriptions are simpler. Subscribers times the price times your share. Ads take viewer-hours, your ad minutes per hour and two 30-second spots a minute. Then the calculator keeps only the ads that actually play, applies an ad price and takes the platform’s cut. Tips are viewer-hours times a small dollar figure. We estimated that figure, because no platform publishes it.
Subscriptions are the only number platforms print
Kick says it splits 95/5, so a $4.99 sub leaves about $4.74 with you. Twitch starts at 50/50 on a $5.99 US web sub. Its Plus Program then moves you to 60/40 at 100 Plus Points, or 70/30 at 300, held for three months in a row. YouTube gives creators 70% of memberships. TikTok gives 50% of a $9.99 Super Fan subscription, after the app store takes its fee.
So if you want a number you can plan around, grow subscribers. The streamer earnings calculator treats everything else as weather.
Ads pay less than people think, and Kick pays nothing
Twitch pays 55% of net ad revenue when you run at least three ad minutes an hour. Run fewer and the share drops to 30%. YouTube pays 55% of watch page ad revenue. Neither publishes what an ad is worth, which is why the calculator uses an editable range of $3 to $15 per thousand ads and assumes that only 40 to 70% of them actually play, because ad blockers and ad-free subscribers exist (sadly for everyone’s spreadsheet). Nobody likes this part.
Kick now runs ads too, and its own help page says they do not pay creators directly. Kick pays partners through the Partner Program instead, at a rate it does not publish. We estimate that pay per viewer-hour. The calculator only counts it once you clear the bar: 75 average viewers, 30 hours and 25 active subs over 30 days. Multistreaming halves it, Kick says. TikTok has no ad program for LIVE at all.
What this streamer earnings calculator leaves out
Sponsorships, affiliate links, merch and taxes. The streamer earnings calculator also skips Twitch Prime subs, because Twitch pays them at a fixed rate per country that it does not publish. YouTube Shorts and TikTok videos outside LIVE stay out too. For many streamers sponsorships beat everything above, but they depend on who you are, not on a formula. So treat the result as the floor your platform pays. It is not the ceiling of what your channel earns.
Prices are US prices. Twitch charges less in many countries, and YouTube now sets regional membership prices. Apple and Google also take a slice of mobile purchases before your share comes out.
Raise the number without streaming more hours
More hours is the obvious lever and the worst one for your sleep. Skip it. Instead, stream on a fixed schedule so that the same people come back at the same time every week, recognise each other in chat and start treating your channel like a place rather than a random tab. Ask for subs at moments people already like you. Run your ad minutes in one predictable break, rather than ambushing viewers mid fight.
Also, protect the income you already have. A DMCA strike can mute a VOD or end a partner deal. On Kick, following the DMCA policy is a condition of Partner eligibility. Background music you are licensed to use is cheaper than finding that out.
For the platform by platform detail, read how Kick, Twitch and YouTube pay streamers. Or check which social media platform pays the most. Then come back to the streamer earnings calculator and move the sliders again. Everyone does.
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