How Much do Polk and Ingram Make From Twitch?

Our recent YouTube match-up between two of the game’s most popular vloggers might have surprised some people (myself included) but how do the same fine pair compare when it comes to their streaming activities on Twitch TV?

Let’s break down the figures and do some number-crunching and hopefully get close to the truth of how much money there is in the Twitch game for poker players…

From just a quick glance at these figures we can see that despite only being on air for half the time that our man Joey has been, Doug’s following is massively higher - not unexpected given that Polk is a big name player who will appeal to random poker fans much more than Joey – and in general would lead us to expect he is making much more money from his streaming activities.

Subscription numbers

A huge chunk of many streamers’ incomes - generally pull in about $1.00 - $2.50 per sub, although this figure can be higher for the most popular streamers. The problem, of course, is that these numbers aren’t generally available! And we can’t just say, oh Polk has 80K subscribers on YouTube so he’ll have the same on Twitch, because YouTube is free and Twitch costs $4.99 per month to subscribe to!

However, if we use the followers-to-subscribers ratio of those we do know, the $ figure for Polk is probably around $2000 per month from subs, but much lower for Ingram – about $500. But let’s be good to Joey and double that figure – because as streamers like Jaime ‘PokerStaples’ Staples have shown, sometimes followers are fanatical and desperate to back their horse come hell or high water – and Joey has a solid hardcore of fans.

Polk $2000    Ingram $500 per month

Social media bonuses

Polk’s Twitch channel is also linked to a dozen or more other social media and website outlets, such as Twitter, FB, Instagram, his own UpSwing Poker training site and a sign-up bonus code for WSOP.com. By themselves, nothing much – but all roads lead to Rome as they say, and Polk will get coins from people eventually if they visit his stream!

Ingram, on the other hand, has very little of this going on – concentrating more on leading fans and followers to his other streaming content, and so is missing out on the extra $ which Polk can claim. If I had to put a number on this extra help, I’d say…

Polk $250  Ingram $50 per month

Ad Revenue 

If we take direct ad revenue from views of each stream, the money is quite limited – as Doug admitted in his YouTube match up with Joey, he gets $1.1 per 1000 views, so his roughly 2.5million Twitch views versus Joey’s 200K, at the same rate, will have brought…

Polk $220 Ingram $20 total

Total Monthly Earnings ($$$)

Polk $2470  Ingram $570

As with all of these revenue streams, the exact figure is about as hard to guess accurately as Donald Trump’s tax returns – and just as unlikely to be made public! But what we do know is that for every little piece of the pie these guys can get a slice of, it all adds up to a reasonably tasty dessert – but it has to be said that Polk’s will have whipped cream and cherries on top compared to Joey’s plain-looking gateau!

Of course, if anyone out there knows any better, please feel free to correct these figures. In the meantime, the streams which we all love to follow need a bit more love – financial love that is – so subscribe or hit the donation button! And no, I’m not including donations in the totals just now, because experience of running something similar leads me to believe the $number would be embarrassingly low. But feel free to prove me wrong!