I used to do this quarterly for paid subs, but I can’t keep up with accounting that frequently anymore. I just finished up 2023’s accounting for taxes, SO… Here’s my business revenue breakdown for 2023:
TBF I only streamed like 16 times in 2023
that being siad, I never really earn much from Twitch.
I started streaming a bunch again in January to test the Enhanced Broadcasting beta and already made DOUBLE in january than I made in all of 2023 due to the gifted sub bombs people were dropping xD
Good question.
I didn’t expect the in-video ad spots to still be so high. End of 2022/all of 2023 has been BARREN for in-video sponsorships. I left my agency at the start of 2023, which wouldn’t have made much of a difference, thinking I had some big sponsored videos lined up and basically every company is “recession-proofing” ATM, shrinking marketing budgets. The % here is from the dedicated sponsored videos, I basically ONLY ran ads for my own stuff on everything else. The number is still considerably smaller than previous year.
Amazon affiliate links continue to shrink in total %, which is what I wanted, but sucks when I don’t have as much to make up for it.
I didn’t entirely expect the OBS Course & other digital sales to be so kind to me this past year, so that’s been wonderful.
Probably most importantly, I didn’t expect to have still spent it all. Something like 90% of the revenue I brought in is also written off as “expenses” from 2023, despite the scaled revenue. I’m still broke and in debt and 2024 needs me to REALLY work on that.
As a gear-focused channel, Amazon’s affiliate service is an extremely lucrative stream of revenue. I don’t like supporting Amazon, but it’s hard to ignore it. In 2020 it was nearly 40% of my income, netting me about HALF of what I made this year. (Amz aff $ in 2020 = half of EVERYTHING I made this year.)
I’ve made efforts to reduce my dependency on it (since it can be taken away overnight) but it’s gotta stick around for now.
They’ve also lowered their rates on a lot of stuff since 2020, but similarly, ALL affiliate links have plummeted since then. In 2020, my “misc affiliate links” made up 11% of my total revenue, compared to the measly 1.7% this year.
I do when I can. Logistically, it’s a nightmare. There’s so many complicated processes for generating links for other places sometimes, and it’s a lot to generate 3-5 links for every product. But I absolutely try to hit these when relevant:
Amazon
Newegg
B&H
Sweetwater
Sometimes eBay (but I always lose the bookmarklet so I haven’t recently)
Thanks for sharing this. The timing was perfect as I’ve considered becoming more ‘serious’ at creating content. From a revenue perspective my thought was that selling my own product would be most lucrative/satisfying. Do you find with the climate of companies reducing their marketing budgets, is it still worth the hassle to sell ad spots along with affiliate links?
Yeah I agree with Greg. It’s a hassle, and the “business side” is BY FAR my least favorite aspect of this job, BUT
It can be the difference between being sustainable and not. Ad revenue and affiliate link revenue fluctuates a ton, too, you want as many streams as possible to make sure you’re protected.
I’d love to be at a point where one source is big enough that I’m making “fuck you money” and have a nest egg and not worry about the un-fun stuff, but most of us don’t get there, haha.
If you wondered why my revenue report has lower affiliate revenue than previous years, it’s because each year they become less and less worth dealing with the nonsense they each provide.
