Twitch vs Kick vs YouTube: subscription splits and payout calculator

Twitch, Kick and YouTube use different revenue-share arrangements for subscriptions and memberships. A percentage alone does not tell you a streamer’s income. The amount eligible for the split, audience spending, other income and expenses all matter.

The calculator below lets you apply the published subscription rates to the same hypothetical amount. It is an arithmetic comparison, not a forecast of actual payments or a comparison of the price viewers pay at checkout.

What the percentages leave out

Twitch’s published payout framework describes a standard 50% net subscription share and qualifying Plus Program levels of 60% and 70% on paid and gifted subscriptions. Prime subscriptions use a separate country-based model. Not every streamer qualifies for an improved rate.

KICK describes its subscription split as 95/5, with the 5% covering processing. YouTube’s earnings overview says memberships and other fan-funding features pay 70% of net revenue under its Commerce Product Module. That is different from its advertising arrangements.

A useful comparison starts with a specific product and the platform’s definition of revenue. A gifted sub, a Prime sub, a membership and an ad view are not interchangeable units. Treat an exclusive contract, a sponsorship or a leaked historical payout as a separate data point, rather than multiplying it into someone’s present-day salary.

Use the example carefully

Try $1,000 of eligible revenue, then change the Twitch level. The difference shows the effect of the rate while holding the input constant. It does not assume that the same audience would spend the same amount on each service, that all subscriptions cost the same worldwide, or that fees and taxes are treated identically.

For actual earnings, the creator’s agreement and dashboard are the relevant records. Public subscriber counts alone leave too much unknown. The documented examples below provide context; none establishes every streamer’s income.

Twitch: 50/50, unless you hit Plus

Twitch’s own blog calls 50% “the standard rate.” Its Plus Program pays more: streamers who keep 100 Plus Points for three straight months get 60/40, and 300 Plus Points gets 70/30 on paid and gifted subs.

Points come from subs: Tier 1 is worth 1 point, Tier 2 is 2 and Tier 3 is 6. In January 2024 Twitch removed the old US$100K cap on the 70/30 level, and from May 2024 it let Affiliates qualify too.

New in 2026: on May 13 Twitch opened subs, Bits, emotes, badges and Channel Points to streamers who aren’t Affiliates yet. The catch is that you still need Affiliate or Partner status to get paid out, and the $50 minimum payout still applies.

Kick: the 95/5 pitch

Kick’s streamer page advertises “KICK’s industry-leading 95/5 subscription revenue split.” That split is for subscriptions, not everything a streamer earns.

YouTube: 70% on fan money, less on ads

YouTube’s partner terms say it pays creators 70% of net revenue from channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers and Super Thanks. For Super Chat and Super Stickers, its help page adds that the 70% is calculated after local sales tax and Apple’s App Store fees on iOS.

Ads pay differently: 55% of net ad revenue on long-form videos, and 45% of the Shorts revenue allocated to a creator from YouTube’s creator pool.

The deals that went public

xQc and Kick (2023): His agent, Ryan Morrison, told The New York Times the two-year, non-exclusive deal was worth $70 million, with incentives that could push it to about $100 million, Dexerto reported. Non-exclusive meant he could keep streaming on Twitch.

Adin Ross and Kick: Kick has never published his terms. When rumors of a $100 million deal spread, Ross called that figure “exaggerated” in an interview with Jake Paul, The Independent reported in 2024.

What the 2021 Twitch leak showed

In October 2021 hackers dumped Twitch data, and Twitch confirmed the breach. Leaked data showed Critical Role received about $9.6 million in Twitch payouts between August 2019 and October 2021, with xQc at about $8.4 million and summit1g at about $5.8 million, according to Digital Music News.

Those numbers only covered Twitch payouts. They didn’t include sponsorships, merch or donations, and they’re now five years old.

Where it stands now

As of October 2026, the public splits are 50–70% on Twitch subs, 95% on Kick subs and 70% on YouTube fan funding. Twitch’s big 2026 change made earning tools available to more streamers, not a bigger cut. Anything you see beyond these numbers, like a streamer’s “real” yearly income, is a guess unless they or the platform said it.

Update, November 1, 2026: Added the subscription split calculator and explanations of eligible revenue, Prime subscriptions and product-specific rates. The original publication date is unchanged.