How to Become a Twitch Affiliate: Your Guide

If you’ve ever dreamed about turning your passion for video games into making money, then you’re going to want to know how to become a Twitch Affiliate. When you’re a Twitch Affiliate, you can start earning money while you’re streaming. 

So, how do you become a Twitch Affiliate? How many subscribers do you need and what are all the perks? Keep reading to find out!

Twitch Affiliate Requirements 

There are four key requirements to becoming a Twitch Affiliate. They re: 

• 500 total minutes broadcast within 30 days 
• 7 unique broadcast days in the last 30 days 
• 3 concurrent viewers or more on average for the last 30 days 
• 50 followers

Once you’ve met all of these criteria within the same 30-day window, within a few weeks the Twitch team will reach out to you to tell you what to do next. 

Steps to Register as a Twitch Affiliate

Once you’ve received the email inviting you to be a Twitch Affiliate, just click on the “Get Started” button. You’ll head to your Creator Dashboard and start the process to monetize your channel. 

You’ll need to provide basic information, sign the Twitch Affiliate Agreement, give some general tax information, and connect your Twitch account with a payment method. 

The different payment methods that that Twitch accepts are: 

• Direct deposit to your bank 
• Wire transfer 
• PayPal 
• Check 
• Hold Payments 

Hold payments simply means that the Affiliate won’t receive payment until they specify their payout information.

Once you’ve completed these steps, you’re an Affiliate! Your viewers will start earning Channel Points, which are used to reward members of your streaming community with perks. 

So now that you know what you need to do in order to become a Twitch Affiliate, how do you get there? 

 

Improve Your Stream Quality

The first thing you have to do to ensure that people want to watch your content is improve your stream quality. But there’s only so much you can do on a run-of-the-mill computer and internet connection. You have to make sure that you have a computer that’s meant for gaming and fast internet speeds. 

Without these things, you’re setting yourself up to fail. 

Some of the things that will affect the quality of your stream are your bitrate, resolution, CPU preset, frame rate, and the motion and changing colors in what you’re playing. 

The higher the resolution, frame rate, and motion, when mixed with a lower bitrate, the worse your stream’s quality will be. 

In general, Twitch recommends a bitrate that goes no higher than 3.5, otherwise, you risk viewers not being able to watch your speed. Their download bandwidth won’t be able to keep up. 

Make sure you read a live streaming guide before getting started. 

Growing Your Follower Count 

Once you’ve got a watchable stream, it’s time to start building your follower count. The best way to do that is pretty easy. You have to consistently play the games you love. 

While there is certainly something to be said for playing popular games when they’re trending. But the thing that’s going to build you consistent, interactive followers is playing a game that you’re passionate about. 

People can see through fakeness. Be yourself and build the fanbase that will show up for you. 

Additionally, make sure that you’re being consistent in your streaming efforts. Invite your followers on other social media to watch you while you stream! 

Be Social and Interactive 

You can use your Channel Points to reward your viewers with different perks, including custom rewards. 

Channel Points are the best way to recognize your supporters for all they do for the Twitch community, whether they simply watch your channel or they join you for a raid.

They collect Channel Points every time they log in and watch and the more they support you, the more they can earn. 

This is a great way to take passive viewers into active followers. When you’re active and social and engaging your audience, you’re turning your stream into an activity instead of just something to watch. 

Important Terms to Consider 

It’s important to read the terms and conditions every time you sign an agreement. But, we figured that there were a few important terms to bring to your attention directly. 

First, if your account goes inactive, you will lose your affiliate status. Twitch uses different parameters to determine what activity means for them. In general, you can’t go a long period without uploading, otherwise, you risk losing your status. 

Also, there is a period of time after you upload your stream to Twitch that you cannot upload it to any other site. You can’t share it anywhere else until this exclusivity period ends. 

If Twitch decides to close your affiliate account, you can be charged up to $25 of your leftover earnings as a “maintenance fee.” 

The Perks of Twitch Affiliate

There’s a ton of perks to becoming a Twitch Affiliate. Twitch Affiliates have access to cheering with bits, subscriptions, and ads. They also have access to transcoding when available, subscriber streams, and reruns and premiers. 

They can use Channel Points and polls to engage and encourage their audience as well. 

 

Keep Streaming to Become a Twitch Affiliate 

All it takes is consistency, an entertaining stream, and a little time to become a Twitch Affiliate. Set aside a few days a week to stream for two or more hours, advertise your stream to your social media followers, and soon you’ll start growing a following to start earning some extra cash! 

For more information about how to grow your following, keep reading!