Over the next few months, Twitch will begin rolling out changes that will adjust the prices for subscriptions based on the user's residing country. This will effectively bring down the cost for Twitch subscriptions in a majority of countries, but can also affect streamer's total income.
Subscriptions are one of the main ways Twitch streamers can make money. Fans can subscribe to their favorite channels on a monthly basis at different tiers, which can also directly pay the streamers themselves. Twitch Partners take home 50% of the monthly cost, while the other 50% is taken by the platform. In returns, subscribers get access to some perks, like exclusive emotes. At Tier 1, a Twitch subscription currently costs $4.99, and currently, all countries are charged the equivalency of USD, but $5 USD in one country isn't valued the same as $5 USD in another country.
Going forward, Twitch plans to adjust the price of subscriptions including existing subs, new paid subs, and gift subs in most countries proportionally to their cost of living. The first countries to be affected by this change will be Mexico and Turkey on May 20, where the price of a Tier 1 sub will be 48 pesos, about $2.42 USD, and 9.90 Turkish Lire, about $1.19 USD, respectively.
Twitch stated the reasoning for these changes is both based on user feedback and statistics. "We've heard from fans everywhere that it's not equally affordable" to support Twitch streamers with subs, Twitch says in a blog post on the change. This pricing model has negatively impacted who's able to subscribe to their favorite Twitch streamers. According to Twitch, the number of users with subscriptions in Europe and Asia is about 50% lower than in North America, while that number is about 80% lower in Latin America.
Users in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe can expect these changes to roll out sometime in Q3 2021. Twitch has provided a link to all countries with price model changes at some point in the blog post.
One downside to this new price model is that Twitch streamers with subscribers all around the world will see their incomes affected as well, especially for those in North America. For example, Pokimane's fans in Mexico will now only pay 48 pesos to subscribe to her at Tier 1, but this means she will now collect based on $2.42 from those users rather than $4.99. However, Twitch believes this change will eventually lead to more subscribers across the board as it becomes more affordable around the world.