Which Twitch Streamers Earn the Most per Hour?
Enter your annual salary into this interactive tool, and we’ll compare your meager earnings to that of Twitch’s highest earner, RanbooLive. Then, while you’re drying your tears, scroll on to see the rest of our comparisons.
Twitch is Amazon’s hugely popular games streaming platform. It’s a closed universe where semi-anonymous teens become low-key celebrities off the back of their charm and gaming prowess. But curtain-twitchers saw how the platform rewards its personalities when hackers stole a bunch of ‘creator payout data’ from the site in October 2021.
The leak seems to reveal that half of the streamer earnings on Twitch go to just 10% of the streamers. According to some creators, this indicates that Twitch is more invested in driving viewers to superstar channels than boosting discoverability for up-and-coming talent – including marginalized groups.
But those outside of the story are dizzied by the mindboggling earnings of the top streamers compared to the hours they spend streaming. For example, pokimane spent 2,177 hours online in the 15 months leading to October 2020, earning $1.53m – which works out at $702.02 per hour. A teacher would need to work 29 hours for every pokimane hour to earn that much.
Well, nobody said that celebrities are supposed to earn normal salaries. But, our team at Kapwing got curious about how these figures compare to more regular modes of employment. So, we figured out the effective hourly rates of Twitch’s 100 biggest earners and made some tools to help you visualize them.
RanbooLive has Twitch’s Highest ‘Hourly Wage’
When news of the Twitch leak dropped, Ranboo tweeted an image of some masking tape with the caption, “Dont worry everyone ill fix the leak.” With Twitch earnings of $2,401,021.84, he can afford a million rolls of tape if he even cares that folk know his income.
Little else is known about the Minecraft-playing Twitch star, who wears a monochrome mask and shades to protect his privacy and cope with dysmorphia. However, he has teased a big reveal at 5 million followers (he’s just reached 4m). Divided across his 1,001 hours of streaming, Ranboo earns $2,398.62/hour.
Twitch’s 10 highest earners earn an average of $1,477 per hour of streaming. Even when you even the earnings out across the top 50, you still get an average rate of $732/hour. The top 10 streamed for an average of 2,709 hours (1st Aug 2019 - 1st Oct 2020), while the top 50 worked an average of 3,719 hours.
Twitch’s partner scheme offers varying splits on subscription earnings, depending on the popularity of the streamer. Some claim that highly popular streamers can negotiate this split, which may be how the highest earners capitalize on streaming for relatively few hours.
RanbooLive has Twitch’s Highest ‘Hourly Wage’
Next, we figured out how RanbooLive’s effective hourly rate compares to that of more common American jobs. For example, a doctor earns $35.90/hour on average. They would need to work 67 hours to match what Ranboo earns from an hour of streaming. Looked at another way, in the time it takes Ranboo to earn $35.90, a doctor earns just 54 cents.
And that’s for a doctor. Waiting staff earn an average of $15/hour, so they’d need to work 160 hours to match Ranboo. Teachers – trusted with the future of our children and our culture – need to put in 99 hours at $24.34 to earn a Ranboo hour. The problem is not so much the freak earnings of Ranboo, but the low compensation to the mass of America’s workers, nearly half of whom earn less than it takes to achieve ‘economic security.’
The Boss of It All
The highest earner in the Twitchosphere is the owner of its parent company, Amazon. But does anyone care what Jeff Bezos earns anymore? Like picturing the universe, imagining Bezos’ income is an tough task.
Still, Amazon’s payroll remains of interest. Not just the company’s failure to honor even the low wages of its regular workers, but the distribution of wealth and opportunity across Twitch’s creator community. And what it means for the rest of us average Joe’s, who would love to earn $2k doing what we love for an hour or so…
For our full analysis of the leaked Twitch streamer earnings, check out the table below.
Methodology & Sources
We used data from the recent Twitch data leak to discover the top 100 earning Twitch streamers. Then we used Twitch Tracker to find out how long each Twitch streamer spent streaming during the time period used for the leaked figures (August 2019 to October 2021). We took the earnings for each streamer and divided it by the number of hours streamed. The average earnings for UK and US professions came from Talent.com.
Did you enjoy this deep dive into the incomes of popular Twitch streamers? Our team at Kapwing, an online video editor, loves creating content related to video and internet culture. Learn and read much more on our resources section and blog.