With each passing year, online donations become a more and more reliable source of income for live streamers. Partly, it is due to the growth of the live streaming market. Regardless, people are willing to tip the artist online. However, that’s not the only way a live streamer can make money. Paid fan subscriptions can also add to your income.

Well-established live streamers become partners or affiliates with the major platforms like Twitch, Facebook, YouTube, etc. Platforms have different requirements you should meet before you are eligible for a partnership. After you become an affiliate, your live streams can roll ads, which your audience views. This is essentially how monetization works. The more views your live streams have, the more money you get.

Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, musicians can now use some new revenue opportunities. For instance, Bandsintown allows you to qualify for a simplified Twitch affiliate program for absolutely free. There’s some good news for SoundCloud artists as well. The music platform has teamed up with Twitch to help artists get the Affiliate status much easier and quicker.

Let’s say a live streamer has 1,000 viewers watching them performing their music. With so many people on the channel, the chat can go absolutely nuts. It can be barely possible for the streamer to interact with the audience. That’s where YouTube’s Super Chat comes to the rescue. Viewers can pay to leave pinned comments so that the artist can read them more easily. The game is simple: the more you pay, the more characters you can use and the longer your comment stays on the screen.