SUBtember is upon us: Twitch’s season of giving. Throughout September each year, Twitch offers discounts for upgrading and buying new subscriptions. This is just one of many Twitch-exclusive events that streamers and developers capitalize on to grow their community – much like Twitch Drops campaigns.
In SUBtember 2024, the event is running from the 29th of August until the 1st of October, with discounts of up to 30% off depending on the duration of subscription purchased. In a more innovative move for SUBtember, there’ll also be two special 5-day periods: From the 12th to the 17th of September, Twitch will add 10% on top of your Bits every time you Cheer for your favorite streamer. And, rounding out the event from the 26th to the 1st, Twitch will give streamers an extra Gift Sub for every 5 Gift Subs purchased for their channel.
As one can imagine, all of these benefits encourage streamers to hop onto the platform, run marathon streams, and provide special incentives to get their community tuning in. In this article, we’ll look at how successful SUBtember is at raising the number of Twitch subscriptions and which streamers are benefiting most from the event.
SUBtember 2024 Discounts Have Their Intended Effect, Boosting Subscriptions
What are Subs on Twitch? Twitch subscriptions allow viewers to support and further engage with their favorite streamers. Depending on what “Tier” of subscription the viewer holds (Tier 1, Tier 2, or Tier 3), they can access custom Twitch emotes, equip Subscriber Badges, and unlock ad-free viewing. Further complicating the issue, viewers also get one free “Prime Sub” with Amazon Prime, and fans can also purchase Gift Subs for other viewers to grow the streamer’s community! Note that for the purposes of this analysis, only subs bought while streamers are online are included, but upgrading from one tier to another also counts.
Discounts on Twitch subscriptions successfully get viewers to open up their wallets. In the week beginning the 26th of August, new subscription numbers jumped by 21% from 2.8M to 3.4M. Note that this really only accounts for the first 4 days of SUBtember, however, since the event began on the 29th of August. For the first full calendar week of SUBtember, subscriptions rose by a further 13.5% up to 3.9M. It’s likely that in the weeks leading up to SUBtember, many viewers hold off on buying subscriptions until the discounts hit – leading to a large initial burst of demand in SUBtember’s opening days.
There are some caveats to this data, however. SUBtember has notable exceptions to which subscriptions are discounted: Prime Subs aren’t included (unless they’re being converted to regular subscriptions), and subs bought through Twitch mobile don’t count (viewers have to tune into twitch.tv to receive their discount). Naturally, Gift Subs also aren’t included outside of that special 5-day window near the end of the event.
Getting High Viewership Doesn’t Necessarily Mean Gaining Subscribers
Looking at the first 7 days of SUBtember provides an insight into who the most in-demand streamers for new subscriptions are. In SUBtember 2024, VTuber Ironmouse gained the most subs in the first week with 28K new subs – a full 4.4K ahead of Kai Cenat in second place with 23.6K subs. Kai Cenat’s skyrocketing popularity through 2024 no doubt led to his swelling subscriber count. But Ironmouse’s dominance is a little more surprising. She has been increasingly popular ever since she won Content Creator of the Year in 2023 – but this recent spat of success may be more due to her recent Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 collab stream with PirateSoftware. This is backed by PirateSoftware’s own popularity, gaining 14.9K new subs himself.
Leveraging SUBtember to one’s own benefit depends upon a combination of awareness, fan engagement, and extra streaming hours. Some common tips for how to garner new Twitch subs during SUBtember include:
- Labeling streams with SUBtember
- Giving viewers advanced warning of SUBtember and specific event details
- Running a marathon stream or subathon
- Offering limited time sub tier emotes
- Providing incentives for viewers based on hitting sub goals (such as community games, challenge runs, or trying out games requested by fans)
Intriguingly, the streamers with the most new subscribers aren’t simply those who generated the most hours watched over the same period. The most watched streamers between the 29th of August and the 4th of September were Caedrel and Junichi Kato with 2M and 1.9M hours watched, respectively. In fact, none of the top 10 streamers by new subscribers overlap with the top 10 streamers by hours watched except for Kai Cenat.
The key reason for this apparent disconnect could be up-and-coming streamers vs. established streamers. Established streamers already have an abundance of subscribers who will have taken advantage of previous years’ deals to buy Twitch subs. Streamers like Junichi Kato (who has been popular for years) and Jynxzi (who blew up several months ago) have already caught their wave of growth. Compare this to streamers like plaqueboxmax who gained masses of new followers after joining FaZe Clan in April of 2024. Established streamers may also be less focused on crafting SUBtember-specific content, instead sticking to their regular (and popular) VALORANT and League of Legends streams.
FaZe Clan Dominates Subathon and SUBtember Streams
As mentioned earlier, one common strategy to capitalize upon SUBtember is to run marathon streams known as subathons. Subathons typically run for more than 24 hours and encourage viewers to subscribe for all of the usual perks. However, an extra gimmick livens things up: Every time someone subscribes during a subathon, the clock gets extended. Combining streaming challenges, subathons, AND SUBtember together is a recipe for live-streaming success.
Naturally, a number of streamers plaster their streams with subathon and SUBtember titles to let their fanbase know they’re in it for the long haul. In SUBtember, streamer collective FaZe Clan blew everyone out of the water with 9 of the top 10 streams labeled “subathon” or “SUBtember” by hours watched. Ironmouse was the only exception, with 165K hours watched during her September 2nd stream as part of her subathon. Note that these streams are separate segments of multi-hour subathon streams.
The reason for this overwhelming response is FaZe Clan’s 30-day straight subathon event, announced in style with a live-action skit. This is one of the first major events that FaZe Clan has put together since it radically changed its roster back in April of this year, bringing in four new members that have upped FaZe’s viewership dramatically. Two of these new members have performed particularly well during SUBtember so far: Plaqueboymax and jasontheween. But it was long-term member stableronaldo (who joined back in June of 2022) who brought in the biggest labeled subathon stream with 386K hours watched.
SUBtember is far from over, with the Bits period commencing today and the Gift Subs period still to come at the end of the month. That’s even without mentioning the focal point of SUBtember: TwitchCon, this year hosted in Rotterdam. When all the festivity is over, Stream Hatchet will be taking a look back over the entirety of SUBtember 2024 and the history of SUBtember since its inception in 2017.
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