Twitch is still the bigger platform. In the 30 days to October 18, 2026, it logged 1.51 billion hours watched while Kick logged 782 million, about half as much, and the gap gets wider once you count channels instead of hours. Kick's case rests on two other things: it pays creators 95% of every subscription, and its audience is packed into a small number of channels, many of them streaming in Spanish, Arabic or Portuguese. Starting an English-language channel from zero? Go where the viewers are, which is Twitch. If you already have a crowd that follows you around, or you stream for Latin American, Middle Eastern or Brazilian audiences, Kick is a real option.
Kick vs Twitch at a glance
All figures below are Streamer Radar data for the 30 days to October 18, 2026.
| Twitch | Kick | |
|---|---|---|
| Hours watched | 1.51 billion | 782 million |
| Channels that streamed 10+ hours | 601,904 | 55,447 |
| Channels averaging 100+ viewers | 20,004 | 8,425 |
| Channels averaging 1,000+ viewers | 1,902 | 867 |
| Share of hours watched held by the top 100 channels | 18.3% | 39.9% |
| Most common language in the top 100 | English (50 channels) | Spanish (26 channels) |
| Creator's share of a subscription | 50% standard, 60% or 70% in the Plus Program | 95% |
Twitch has almost 11 times as many channels streaming at least 10 hours a month but only 2.4 times as many channels that hold an average of 100 viewers, and that ratio is the strongest argument for Kick: fewer channels compete for each viewer, so a mid-sized audience stands out more. You can see who sits at the top of each platform right now on the Twitch rankings and the Kick rankings.
Kick's audience sits in far fewer channels
On Kick, the 100 biggest channels took 39.9% of all hours watched in the period. Twitch's top 100 took 18.3%. Widen the lens to every channel averaging 1,000 or more viewers and the gap holds: those channels drew 65.9% of Kick's hours watched against 45.4% of Twitch's.
A few names explain a lot of it. Westcol averaged 106,197 viewers on Kick across 134 hours of streaming, Spreen averaged 63,273, and Adin Ross averaged 244,423 in a month when he was live for only 22 hours. Kick's platform-wide numbers lean hard on a few dozen accounts like these.
The language mix is just as different. Twitch's top 100 is half English (50 channels), followed by Russian (15) and German (12). Kick's top 100 breaks down as Spanish 26, English 22, Arabic 17, Portuguese 13 and Turkish 9, so for an Arabic or Turkish streamer the comparison flips and Kick becomes the smaller platform where your language sits near the top.
What happens when the same streamer goes live on both
The cleanest test of the two platforms is a creator who streams to both at once. We took the top 100 channels on each platform, matched them with same-name channels on the other one, and kept only the pairs whose streams started and ended within 15 minutes of each other on at least 10 days of the period. That left eleven creators, plus two esports broadcast channels we set aside.
| Creator | Twitch avg viewers | Kick avg viewers | Hours live (Twitch / Kick) |
|---|---|---|---|
| TheBurntPeanut | 38,513 | 3,670 | 211 / 213 |
| xQc | 27,637 | 9,207 | 287 / 290 |
| Buddha | 14,162 | 7,828 | 264 / 306 |
| JuanSGuarnizo | 10,140 | 7,633 | 237 / 232 |
| HutchMF | 6,864 | 1,006 | 253 / 274 |
| Aldo_Geo | 6,769 | 1,325 | 172 / 161 |
| GorgC | 6,248 | 59 | 234 / 221 |
| AnthonyZ | 5,155 | 724 | 275 / 258 |
| EsfandTV | 4,289 | 219 | 376 / 373 |
| Yoda | 1,263 | 5,033 | 112 / 208 |
| Gaules | 325 | 2,867 | 714 / 715 |
Nine of the eleven drew a bigger audience on Twitch. xQc, whose Kick contract made headlines in 2023, put almost identical hours into both platforms and still averaged three times as many viewers on Twitch. The two exceptions, Gaules and Yoda, are both Brazilian, which fits the Portuguese-heavy top 100 on Kick.
Simulcasting is rarer than the headlines suggest. Only 11 of Twitch's top 100 channels ran synchronized streams on Kick, and only 5 of Kick's top 100 did the same on Twitch, so most of Kick's biggest channels are Kick-first creators rather than Twitch stars who switched.
Kick vs Twitch pay
Subscriptions on Kick cost a flat $5 a month, and Kick's revenue split page says the creator keeps 95%, or $4.75 per sub. Twitch's standard rate is 50%. Its Plus Program raises that to 60% once a channel holds 100 Plus Points for three consecutive months, and to 70% at 300 Plus Points, where a Tier 1 sub counts as 1 point, Tier 2 as 2 and Tier 3 as 6 (Twitch's announcement). Sub for sub, Kick's share is close to double Twitch's standard rate.
The split is only half of the sum. Income is share multiplied by audience, and the simulcast table shows how often the same person draws a smaller audience on Kick, so a 95% cut of a third of the viewers can easily come out lower than 50% of the full crowd.
Kick also runs a Partner Program that pays per stream "based on how many viewers show up". To qualify, the Kick partner page asks for 30 hours streamed and 250 unique chatters in the last 30 days, 25 active subscribers, 250 followers and an average of 75 concurrent viewers. Plan to stream to both platforms? Then note the catch: while multistreaming, a Kick partner earns 50% of their usual Kick revenue.
Is Kick better than Twitch for new streamers?
Not because you will grow faster there. At the same audience size, follower growth on the two platforms is close: channels averaging 100 to 249 viewers gained a median of 140 followers in the period on Kick and 130 on Twitch, and at 250 to 499 viewers it was 324 against 311. Above 500 viewers the gap opens. Kick channels in that band gained 842 followers against Twitch's 612.
Kick's real advantage for a newcomer is the smaller field. A channel averaging 100 viewers on Kick sits among roughly 8,400 peers, while on Twitch the same channel is one of about 20,000, but that small field also means a small audience once you step outside the top channels and the top languages.
Twitch lowered its own entry bar in 2026. Affiliate status now needs 4 hours of streaming on 4 different days, a minimum of 3 average concurrent viewers on those days and 25 followers. If you are deciding where to start, our guide on how to get viewers on Twitch shows what channels that grew from under 30 viewers actually changed.
For brands: what changes on Kick
Kick channels carry far fewer followers per viewer. Among channels averaging 100 to 999 viewers that streamed 40+ hours, the median Twitch channel had 116 followers for every average viewer and the median Kick channel had 23, which makes follower count a weak size signal on Kick. Price a Kick channel on average viewers and hours watched.
Peaks are spikier too. For channels averaging 25 to 49 viewers, one Twitch channel in ten had a 30-day peak more than 6.4 times its average, while on Kick one in ten had a peak more than 26 times its average. Viewer data alone cannot tell you why. What it does tell you is that a Kick peak says much less about a channel than a Twitch one, and our guide to Twitch influencer marketing covers how to vet a channel on these numbers before you sign anything.
Where YouTube Gaming fits
YouTube is the third option. In the same 30 days, 141,545 channels streamed at least 10 hours in YouTube's gaming categories, and 10,573 of them averaged 100 or more viewers (more than Kick's 8,425), drawing 638 million hours watched between them. YouTube rounds public subscriber counts, so compare channels there on viewers rather than on follower growth. The YouTube Gaming rankings list the current leaders.
FAQ
Why are people moving from Twitch to Kick?
Money. Kick offers a 95% subscription share and a partner program that pays per stream, though our data shows fewer full moves than the coverage implies. Only 5 of Kick's top 100 channels were simulcasting on Twitch in the period, and the creators who stream to both mostly still pull bigger audiences on Twitch.
Is Kick paying $16 an hour?
Kick does not publish an hourly rate. Its partner page says partners earn per stream based on how many viewers show up, and it lists eligibility rules but no fixed figure.
What pays you more, Twitch or Kick?
Per subscriber, Kick: 95% against Twitch's 50% standard rate. Per stream, it depends on where your audience is bigger, and nine of the eleven simulcasters we tracked drew more viewers on Twitch, which can outweigh the better split.
About the data
Every number above is Streamer Radar data for September 19 to October 18, 2026. Average viewers is each channel's time-weighted average concurrent viewers across all its streams in the window, counting only channels that streamed at least 10 hours, and platform hours watched are full-platform totals. Very small channels are undercounted on every platform, so channel counts are floors. Kick and Twitch figures are the viewer counts each platform reports.
