The price of a tier one subscription on Twitch has long been $4.99 no matter where you’ve lived. Twitch has roughly translated that cost to other currencies, but it’s generally meant that folks in other countries have paid a lot more for a month’s subscription, or that the price is abnormally high given the cost of living in that area.
Twitch is finally addressing the issue with local subscription pricing to try and level things out. “First up will be Mexico and Turkey on May 20, 2021, which are home to creators and viewers who have been passionate about this change for quite some time.” In the new system, a tier one sub will be priced at 48 pesos (around $2.42) and 9.90 Turkish lira (around $1.19). Countries in Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and Europe will follow later this year.
The reason for the change is a huge discrepancy between subscribers in the US and everywhere else. Twitch believes the price of subscriptions are to blame. “The percentage of active users in Europe or Asia who support creators with a subscription is roughly 50% lower relative to North America. In Latin America, it’s nearly 80% lower.”
While it’s good for subscribers, Twitch anticipates pushback from streamers who might see the change impact their bottom line. “Twitch will cover 100% of baseline channel and Prime sub revenue (if needed) for three calendar months, including the month of the price change. After that, we will slowly decrease incentive payments by 25% every three months over the following nine months, totaling a 12-month period of providing revenue adjustment incentives.” It’s not a perfect system by any means, but it good to see Twitch fixing an ongoing issue.