Since launching last year, Kick has attempted to poach streamers by promising bigger payouts than the ones offered by Twitch. The platform has only been operating for a few months, but it’s already delivering strong financial returns for its early users. One creator, Ac7ionMan (real name Aaron Travis), revealed that he has made $38,000 since arriving on Kick at the end of February.
Travis, who streams games like Fortnite and poker, shared a screenshot of his Kick returns on Twitter. He claimed that he earned his $38,000 with about 7,000 followers. By his estimation, it would take about 16,000 followers to earn the same amount on Twitch. At the time of this post, Travis’ Kick account has about 26,000 followers.
Shout out @Trainwreckstv and @KickStreaming for making the payments process smooth.
Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top Stories
You would need 16k subs on twitch for this. This is around 7k subs on kick.
This is literally life changing. Make the switch to Kick today and live a life you never thought you could.🔥💯 pic.twitter.com/dj2d9fA3Sy
— Ac7ionMann (@Ac7ionMann) April 2, 2023
A major driver of those “life-changing” earnings is Kick’s pro-creator payout structure, which delivers 95% of subscription revenue to streamers. When streaming star Trainwreck announced Kick last year, he revealed his plan to work with the platform’s team to “help creators succeed where Twitch has failed them.” The latter platform upset some long-time users when it changed its revenue split last year.
Trainwreck’s pitch appealed to Twitch stars like Adin Ross and Hikaru Nakamura, who began streaming on Kick shortly after the platform’s launch. Within Kick’s nascent community, Travis is one of the top draws. He ranked fifth in total watch time on Kick during the final week of March.
Travis owes much of that viewership to the audience he built on Twitch, where he has about 680,000 followers. There are some questions about how sustainable Kick’s financial model will be, but Travis isn’t the only creator who is profiting during the early days of the gambling-friendly hub. Controversial streamer Heelmike said that he made more from four Kick streams than from 30 days of Twitch activity. Trainwreck’s own earnings have been lucrative as well.
Big creators seem to be happy with Kick, though there are some problems on the platform that disproportionately affect smaller voices. The streamer known as Sunlihyt said that she was forced to change her Kick moniker because the name “lyss” was reversed for another creator. The person who uses that handle on Twitch is a Call of Duty streamer who reaches about 20,000 followers.
Kick still has a lot to prove, but the deep-pocketed platform has proven that its financials can live up to their billing. Kick’s ownership structure is confusing, but it has close ties to Stake. The online casino is looking to add to the Kick hype machine through a marketing push. Stake recently announced that it would remove its own sponsorship from the Alfa Romeo F1 team in order to make room for Kick branding. That campaign may bring more viewers — and more “life-changing” income — to the Twitch rival.
