Young Ezee goes live on Instagram.
Career prospects for livestreaming creators extend far beyond the gaming space.
Sleepfluencers, lawyers, rappers, and more make healthy livings on the strength of viewer tips.
Other means of monetization include sponsored streams and commissions for digital shopping hosts.
See more stories on Insider’s business page.
Livestreaming has surged in recent years.
Twitch accounted for 6 billion hours of live watch-time in Q1, per a recent Streamlabs and Stream Hatchet report. And 808 million of those hours were in the ‘Just Chatting’ category, the platform’s catch-all hub for non-gamers.
As more creators from a diversity of genres embrace livestreaming, some describe the medium as a nostalgic way to intimately connect with fans in a fleeting era of TikTok swipes. Many creators also credit livestreaming as their chief source of income.
Lawtubers, or YouTube creators who share pro legal analyses, saw massive earnings spikes during the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard defamation trial, with the platform’s three top creators each banking six figures by streaming proceedings daily.
Read more about exactly how much 3 top law YouTubers made from livestreaming the trial
The majority of these earnings come from Super Chats, a tipping tool unveiled by YouTube in 2017 that enables viewers to have their comments emphasized during broadcasts.
In addition to VTubers (and Lawtubers), pastors are another top-earning contingency when it comes to Super Chat, per to Playboard, which uses bots to track viewer spend. One top YouTube televangelist, the Nigerian pastor Jerry Eze, made $80,000 on his YouTube channel in one month, he said, with the majority coming from Super Chat.
Read more about top-earning livestreaming pastors on YouTube and controversy they’ve faced
Other creators are finding other lucrative niches in the live space.
Musician Harry Mack said fans can suggest different words he might use in his freestyle raps, with monthly streams fetching between $4,000 and $8,000. (Read more about how he built his business.)
And Aussie sleepfluencer Jakey Boehm earned $34,000 in one month via TikTok Live, where fans pay to thwart his rest – turning on neon lights, for example, or loud music.
Brands are also embracing TikTok Live, paying three times as much for sponsored streams as compared to static posts. That said, social shopping – a massive industry in Asia – has yet to deliver in the west.
Amazon, for instance, has seen mixed results. Some influencers, like fashion and DIYer Tamara Bradshaw, have earned six figures by hawking products on Amazon Live, a three-year-old social shopping hub. But others are ditching the program, citing lackluster viewership and in converting actual sales.
Insider has spoken with a handful of creators, startups, and industry insiders about the rise of livestreaming and how creators are making money by going live.
On YouTube:
How much a YouTuber with about 200K subscribers earns in a year from videos about celebrity legal issuesYouTube channel LegalBytes has surged by livestreaming the Depp vs. Heard trial — and earned $5,000 in a weekThe Depp v. Heard trial led to huge income boosts for law YouTubers. Here’s how much some of the top livestreamers earned.How YouTuber Harry Mack built an audience of 2M subscribers with freestyle rap and what he earns livestreamingA YouTube pastor who prays over requests and touts miracles is making over $80,000 per monthYouTube televangelists earn tens of thousands of dollars in live tips, but one prominent pastor got cut off from monetization for an anti-vax video
On TikTok:
Why brands pay up to 3 times more for sponsored TikTok Live videos than for static posts from top influencersA TikToker makes money by letting fans pay to disrupt his sleep with sounds like a duck quacking. Here’s how much he earns.How an ASMR creator makes up to $300 per livestream
On Instagram:
How one micro influencer uses live shopping as part of her affiliate marketing strategyHow one Instagram creator made $1,000 in about one week by livestreaming and getting “Badges”How influencers are getting paid hundreds of dollars to go live with “Bonuses”How some influencers are landing sponsored livestreams for hundreds — even thousands — of dollars
On Twitch:
How a Twitch channel known for ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ earned over $9 million in the last 2 yearsHow much a Twitch streamer earns in a month combining gaming and ASMRHow a Twitch streamer with over 29,000 followers makes $2,800 each month
On Amazon Live:
How an influencer has made 6 figures on Amazon by livestreamingLeaked emails reveal what Amazon offers to pay influencers to post shoppable livestreams, and its requirementsWhy Amazon’s live-shopping program has struggled to win over influencers, even though it’s handing out bonus paymentsHow an influencer is making almost as much money using Amazon Live as she is doing brand deals