Former Twitch manager claims 1000 gifted sub feature exists to “squeeze every penny”
TwitchA former Twitch staff member who helped build monetization tools says the platform’s new 1000 gifted sub feature is designed to hit revenue targets amid pressure from Amazon.
On November 26, Twitch gave viewers the ability to gift 1000 subscriptions at once. While this would typically cost $6,000, the 1K bundle comes with a $1,000 discount.
The feature was almost immediately hit with criticism with big streamers rallying against it, worried that viewers would go into debt donating, fear of chargebacks, and accusing Twitch of focusing on profit.
The option was removed amid the backlash, likely due to another discount being implemented in its place for a limited time, but that hasn’t stopped discourse about it from continuing.
According to Dev Iyer, a former Senior Project Manager at Twitch, the Amazon-owned site only implemented the ability to gift 1000 subs at once to hit end-of-year revenue goals.
Ex Twitch dev says platform is under pressure from Amazon
In a post on X, Iyer, who helped launch products like Hype Trains, Leaderboards, and other features, called out Twitch for the 1000 gifted sub option.
“As a former member of the Twitch product team who built out gift subs, I can tell you the only reason this feature exists is that internal staff are scrambling to hit EoY revenue targets with ‘low-hanging fruit’ features to squeeze every penny they can get to keep leadership happy,” he said.
He continued, noting that while he views Twitch staff as good people who care about creators, the site is under a lot of pressure from Amazon to be profitable.
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“[This] creates a system where ‘are we hitting the revenue target?’ will generally beat ‘is this healthy for users?’” he remarked.
Last year, Twitch reportedly lost money, despite posting an annual revenue of $2 billion in 2024.
Twitch staff explains why 1000 gifted sub feature was added
In response to Iyer, Mike Minton, Twitch’s Chief Product Officer, disputed claims that the gifted sub feature was added to hit revenue targets.
“We did this because we have a small number of users that gift in large amounts and this makes it easier for them,” Minton explained. “The revenue lift here doesn’t make a difference as most of these users were already gifting large amounts.”
Iyer, however, wasn’t buying it.
“I understand the business angle and on-platform creator benefits of gifting, but when you’re talking about thousands of dollars for a single transaction, revshare does more harm than good,” he shot back.
“It makes more sense for that cash to be donated so the streamer can purchase better equipment, pay mods, pay the bills, etc.”
Earlier this year, Twitch’s CEO Dan Clancy directly donated money to a streamer during a broadcast instead of gifting her subs so that she could keep 100% of the funds without the site taking a cut.
While it appears that Twitch will be bringing back the 1000 gifted option, some streamers are taking drastic measures to prevent their viewers from spending so much money.
Asmongold, for instance, has vowed to ban anyone who spends $5000 on gifted subs unless they can prove they can afford it.