YouTube Gives Live Streamers a New Way to Earn Money with Super Chat

Ever watched a highly viewed livestream on Twitch? The comments come in every 10th of a second due to the large number of viewers. It is almost impossible to get noticed by the streamer if you comment there.

YouTube has worked out a solution to this issue. If you’re watching a livestream on YouTube and want to get noticed by the streamer, all you have to do is Super Chat your message in the stream.

Enter Super Chat

What this does is that it pins your message inside the chat which the streamer and others can view at any time. The message can be pinned for up to 5 hours and is pinned at the top of the chat box.

It works for the web version of YouTube as well as the Android app. iOS will be getting Super Chat support soon.

You will need to pay something to avail Super Chat though. This allows the super fans to get noticed and let the streamers cash in on it as well. How the amount is divided between YouTube and the streamer was not specified.

Super Chats stand out from other messages in two ways:

• Your Super Chat is highlighted with a color.
• Your Super Chat stays pinned in the ticker for a set period of time.

How To Super Chat

Sending a Super Chat is easy. All you need to do is tap the $ icon on the right side of your chat bar.

From there you can select the amount you want to pay for your Super Chat with duration and length of the message specified.

The color of your Super Chat, the period of time it stays pinned in the ticker, and the maximum message length are determined by the amount of your purchase. A $5.00 Super Chat for example stays pinned for 1 minute and allows 150 letters for the message.

Similar to Twitch Cheers

Twitch does something similar with its “Cheer” feature. You type Cheer then enter the amount of Bits you would like to cheer for (Cheer1 for example). The bits are money that goes to Twitch and the streamer. For reference, 1 Bit equals 1.4 cents (US Dollars) and the streamers get 1 cent for every bit, Twitch gets the other 0.4.

The Cheers have their own corresponding animated GIFs. There is a different GIF for 1 bit, another for 100 and so on for 1000, 5000 and 10,000 bits. These bits help the fans get noticed by the streamer, just like Super Chat.

For now the Super Chat is limited to a few select YouTube streamers only. It will be officially rolled out on January 31st for creators in 20 countries and viewers in 40 countries.