I’ve written extensively about sponsorships on YouTube before. However, Twitch sponsorships are a different beast. Let’s go over where to find sponsorships, how much they pay, and everything else you need to know about sponsors.
Where To Find Sponsors For Your Twitch Channel
1) Outreach
Outreach is where you actively seek out brands to partner with (typically by emailing them).
Unfortunately at under 100 concurrent viewers (CCV), you’re going to have a hard time finding sponsors. At around the 100-1000 CCV level, you will begin seeing a higher success rates when reaching out. But, you’re still going to experience a lot of rejection from brands. Even at 1,000+ CCV brands could still reject you if your audience isn’t a good fit for their product or if they don’t do this type of thing, etc.
Consider reaching out to brands you want to partner with (if you’ve got the numbers for it). An excellent place to start is by trying to find the partnership webpage of brands that you’ve seen sponsoring other creators on Twitch. Google “Company Name partnership” and something is likely to come up.
The websites Fairly Odd Streamers and StreamScheme document popular Twitch sponsors and affiliates. Both are good options for finding companies that do this sort of thing. For example, by using these methods, I was able to find the partnership page of the following Twitch sponsors.
Your choices aren’t limited to the options listed here or those websites. You can attempt to sell any company where your audience is a good fit for their product. That said, your success rate will be higher with companies familiar with doing this type of transaction.
2) GamePlay Sponsorships
Twitch has a very unique form of sponsorship that doesn’t really exist on other platforms. Companies with newly released games want to get their product in front of gamers. And you have an audience of gamers that will watch you play the game for hours at a time.
You’ll be able to charge more for these types of sponsorships because it’s an ideal fit (more on the rate later). The only problem with gameplay sponsorships is you may have a hard time keeping your audience around if every game you play is sponsored.
3) Influencer / Brand Connection Services
All platforms (Instagram, YouTube, Blogs, etc.) have services popping up that promise to connect brands with influencers, and Twitch is no different. I haven’t used the following services, but here are a few popular examples of such services for Twitch. The rub is that the service will probably try to take a cut of the generated revenue.
- Brybe – I like this one because it’s a marketplace where you can set prices openly.
- Wehype.it
- Power-Spike
- Game Influencer
4) Grow Your Channel (Brands Will Come To You)
Brands will give more offers (and better offers) the bigger your audience gets.
If you’re under 100 concurrent viewers, it probably makes more sense to focus on getting to 1,000+ concurrent viewers rather than begging brands for sponsorships.
5) Affiliate Programs
Brands love affiliate programs because it’s a no-risk way for them to drive sales. Companies only pay when somebody clicks the link & buys their product, so it’s always profitable. Virtually every brand has an affiliate link you can put on your Twitch panels.
The problem is that a small percentage of people click on the links in Twitch Panels. YouTube and blogs are a much better fit for affiliate links because those platforms get more raw traffic, and it’s easier to get the traffic to click the link. However, for streamers, affiliate links aren’t usually the best source of income.
How Much Twitch Sponsors Pay
GamePlay Sponsorships
The mathematical formula for calculating what to charge for sponsored Twitch content is Average concurrent viewers * Hourly Rate * Hours of Sponsored Content.
All sponsorship rates are a negotiation. And that negotiation depends on the size of your audience, how good a fit they are for the product, the brand’s marketing budget, profit margins, etc. Luckily, with gaming sponsorships on Twitch, most of these factors are in your favor, which should allow you to charge a very high hourly rate.
What’s high? I can’t tell you how much you can charge specifically. I’ve heard of game companies paying $1000 per 1,000 impressions per hour to get in front of a Twitch audience. Anecdotally, I’ve heard of most streamers being closer to a $500 RPM/hr for a gameplay sponsorship. But keep in mind that it’s an open negotiation; there is no official rate.
Which is still off the charts compared to other platforms (and other types of Twitch sponsorships). With YouTube sponsorships and Podcast Sponsorships, the rates are closer to $30 per 1,000 impressions for a 30-second ad read.
Non-Gameplay Sponsorships
These are unlikely to pay anywhere near what GamePlay sponsorships will pay. The reason is that if you’re sponsoring a chair, the focus of your stream isn’t exclusively on the chair (to an audience that loves buying new chairs). Video games are also info products with a nearly 100% profit margin (which doesn’t hurt how much advertisers are willing to pay).
That said, your audience is still worth money. You can easily earn $20-$30 for a 30-second ad read on platforms like Podcasts. Advertisers will happily pay $10-$30 per 1,000 impressions for Facebook ads. And those are ads that random users see for maybe 3 seconds on their mobile phones.
With Twitch, you’re in an intimate setting with your audience (potentially for hours at a time). Suppose you’re charging less than $20-$30 per 1,000 average concurrent viewers per hour. In that case, you’re charging significantly less than brands are paying for random Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Podcast traffic. This rate should be your floor in any negotiation you enter into with brands.
Length of Sponsorship
Twitch sponsors are a little bit different than sponsors on other platforms. Sometimes Twitch sponsors will want you to sign a contract for some length of time where you’ll continue to show the ads.
The reason they do this is to take advantage of the growth of your stream. If sponsors project that your stream will 10x (or even double) over the next 6 months, then they get extremely cheap advertising rates by locking you into a contract now. Be wary of this, and make sure you factor in your growth before signing a contract.
Remember that nobody makes you sign contracts for things that you’re definitely still going to be enjoying down the line (cough, marriage, cough cough).
Twitch Metrics To Have on Hand for Brands
Your Twitch dashboard will have various metrics you can use to help sell yourself to brands. Things like viewers, concurrent viewers, subscribers, and engagement.
In addition, be sure to include any other platforms where you have large followings when selling yourself to brands. When I reach out, I include a very brief description of who I am and why my audience is a good fit for their product. Along with an infographic containing all the valid metrics they’ll need to make a decision. Here’s an example of an infographic I came up with for YouTube (You’ll have to modify the relevant metrics for Twitch).
Thanks for reading! And if you’re interested, I also created guides on how to get TikTok Sponsors, YouTube Sponsors, Podcast Sponsors, Blog Sponsors, and Instagram Sponsors. I recommend checking those out if you’re curious how the rates for those platforms compare with this one.