Kick as a Livestreaming Channel for Brand and Influencer Marketing

The short answer

Kick is a live-streaming platform launched in 2022 by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani, the founders of Stake.com, and owned by Easygo Entertainment Pty Ltd — the same company that owns the crypto casino Stake. Kick's core pitch to creators is a 95/5 revenue split on subscriptions, well above Twitch's standard 50/50, backed by the Kick Creator Incentive Program, which pays qualifying streamers a fixed hourly rate on top of subscriptions and tips. The platform's close ties to gambling make brand safety a central question for any brand considering a collaboration — especially after Kick tightened its own gambling-content rules significantly in February 2025.

What is Kick, and why does it exist alongside Twitch?

Kick launched in December 2022, founded by Ed Craven and Bijan Tehrani — the two founders behind Stake.com, the world's largest crypto-based online casino — together with streamer Trainwreckstv. The platform is owned by Easygo Entertainment Pty Ltd, the same company that runs Stake, and Kick's funding has largely come from that relationship rather than from Kick's own advertising revenue. The background is worth knowing: the same year Kick launched, Twitch tightened its rules on streaming gambling sites without documented consumer protections or a US license — a change that in practice excluded Stake from Twitch. Kick emerged partly as an alternative where gambling streaming remained allowed, combined with a markedly more creator-friendly revenue model. That link is broadly documented across independent sources, and it's worth keeping in mind because it explains why the platform's relationship with the gambling industry is still relevant when evaluating it as a marketing channel — see the brand safety section below.

Looking purely at growth, Kick is today a genuine competitor to Twitch, not a niche player: per several independent reports, the platform passed 100 million registered users during 2026, driven by deals with former Twitch personalities like Adin Ross and xQc, as well as chess grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura. These user figures don't come from Kick itself and should be read as a broad, directional picture rather than an official, audited count.

Kick's creator economics: the 95/5 split compared with Twitch

Kick's central sales pitch to streamers is the same regardless of channel type or size: 95/5. Of every dollar a viewer spends on a subscription, a gifted subscription or a donation, 95 cents goes to the streamer and 5 cents to Kick — and on direct tips, per multiple independent sources, Kick takes no cut at all. The standard subscription costs $4.99/month, the same starting price as Twitch's first tier; whether Kick also consistently offers Twitch's higher price tiers ($9.99 and $24.99) isn't clearly documented across the sources used for this research, so it isn't treated as a fixed part of the model here.

By comparison, Twitch's standard split is 50/50, with the option to move up to 60/40 or 70/30 through Twitch's own "Plus Program" for streamers who earn enough Plus Points over three consecutive months — see Twitch influencer marketing: sponsorships, subs and Bits explained for the full model. Even at Twitch's best case (70/30), Kick's 95/5 is still markedly higher — and it applies from day one, with no vesting period.

	Kick	Twitch
Owner	Easygo Entertainment (also owns Stake.com)	Amazon
Launched	December 2022	2011
Standard subscription split	95/5 to the streamer, from day one	50/50 by default, up to 60/40 or 70/30 via the Plus Program
Standard subscription price	$4.99/month	$4.99 / $9.99 / $24.99 (three tiers)
Fixed hourly-pay program	Kick Creator Incentive Program: roughly $16–32/hour, based on viewership, chat activity and an internal "Authority Score"	No comparable fixed hourly-pay program documented
Gambling content	Allowed, but since 1 February 2025 only from sites with visible 18+ ID verification; excluded from the Creator Incentive Program	Banned from sites without a US license/documented consumer protections since 2022
Known mainstream brand deals	UFC (global partnership, Oct. 2024); a one-season Everton sleeve sponsorship (2023/24)	No comparable sports sponsorship deal found documented

The Kick Creator Incentive Program: hourly pay on top of subscriptions

Beyond the high subscription share, Kick runs its own Creator Incentive Program (KCIP), which per multiple independent sources pays qualifying streamers a fixed "base rate" of roughly $16 to $32 an hour, on top of ordinary subscription and tip income. Eligibility requirements in 2026 are reported as around 75 average concurrent viewers (CCV), at least 250 followers, and 2FA plus phone verification on the account. The hourly rate is adjusted by a "chat velocity" factor — the frequency and density of messages from unique chat users, introduced as a 2026 update to stop idle streams from earning full payment — along with an ongoing "Authority Score" that tracks consistency, audience retention and adherence to Kick's rules.

For a brand evaluating a potential Kick collaborator, the relevant point here isn't the exact figure but the structure: a streamer with KCIP status already has a fixed income floor independent of whether a brand collaboration succeeds — unlike a streamer who relies entirely on sponsorships and donations, where a single sponsorship can make up a larger share of total income.

How brands actually sponsor on Kick

Like Twitch, Kick has no published, official rate card for sponsorships. Most deals are negotiated directly between brand and streamer (or the streamer's agency), typically following the same underlying logic as Twitch: a flat fee per stream, a CPM-based price against expected concurrent viewers, or an ongoing retainer arrangement — see the structure table in the Twitch article for the full walkthrough of the three models, which also apply on Kick.

Two documented examples show that Kick also attracts mainstream brands, not only gambling- and crypto-related deals: in October 2024, UFC entered a global partnership with Kick, naming Kick an "Official Partner" with visible branding inside the Octagon itself during select UFC pay-per-view events and Fight Nights — a deal placing exposure in front of UFC's own reported 700+ million fans globally. In summer 2023, Kick also signed a sleeve sponsorship deal with English Premier League club Everton for the 2023/24 season, a one-year agreement reported to be worth a seven-figure sum. As with any channel, a brand shouldn't put its entire budget on a single Kick streamer — see reducing platform risk in influencer marketing for the broader logic behind spreading a budget across several channels and creators.

Brand safety: Kick's roots in the gambling industry

Even as Kick increasingly lands mainstream deals like the UFC partnership, that doesn't change the fact that the platform's ownership, funding and part of its content culture remain closely tied to the gambling industry — relevant to include in a brand safety assessment, regardless of which specific streamer a brand is considering.

One concrete, current example shows how close that connection still is: the Premier League agreed in April 2023 that, starting with the 2026/27 season, gambling sponsors would no longer be allowed on the front of clubs' matchday shirts — only on the sleeve, on training wear, or on pitchside advertising boards. That ban has taken effect with the ongoing 2026/27 season. For Everton specifically, that means Stake — not Kick — has moved to the sleeve sponsorship slot for 2026/27, while financial services firm CMC Markets has taken over the shirt front itself. That corrects an obvious assumption: it isn't Kick that took over Stake's former shirt-front slot, but Stake itself that moved to the less prominent sleeve position — a concrete example of just how closely Kick's sister company still sits inside mainstream sports sponsorship, and how regulation directly shapes deals like this.

Kick has itself tightened its own gambling-content rules noticeably: as of 1 February 2025, per multiple independent sources, casino streams on Kick may only feature gambling sites that use visible, verifiable 18+ ID checks — and streams in the "Slots & Casino" category were simultaneously excluded from the Kick Creator Incentive Program's fixed hourly pay. Streamers in that category are therefore now dependent on ordinary subscriptions, tips, sponsorships and affiliate income rather than a guaranteed income floor — a change reportedly introduced, per the same sources, to reduce the incentive to run long, continuous casino broadcasts. Kick's own help pages blocked automated fetching during this research, so these details are confirmed via multiple independent, secondary sources rather than Kick's own primary text — worth re-confirming directly against Kick's own rules if precision becomes decisive for a decision.

Kick's own terms of service, per multiple independent sources, set a minimum age of 13 to use the platform (16 in the EU), with parental consent required under 18 — but without a documented, real age-verification mechanism. That's relevant for a brand to know if a campaign specifically targets an adult audience: without real age verification, a brand can't assume Kick's whole audience is genuinely 18+, even though gambling content is formally restricted to that age group.

Disclosure rules apply on Kick too

A sponsored collaboration on Kick is advertising, and the Danish/EU disclosure baseline — covered in full in influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU — applies to Kick the same way it applies to Twitch: the requirement that commercial intent must be clear before the audience engages is medium-agnostic, and therefore applies just as much on a Kick stream as on an Instagram post. As with Twitch, disclosure should be repeated periodically through a multi-hour stream, because new viewers keep joining — a single disclosure at the start doesn't reach the whole audience.

Worked example

The figures below are hypothetical and illustrate only what the difference between Kick's and Twitch's revenue splits actually means in money for a streamer — they are not a documented, typical campaign effect and not a real Make Influence customer case.

A brand runs a shoutout campaign with a streamer, and the streamer hypothetically sees a net gain of 200 new subscribers at the standard tier ($4.99) over the following month. On Kick's 95/5 split, the streamer keeps 200 × 4.99 × 0.95 = $948.10. On Twitch's standard 50/50 split, the same gain would only produce 200 × 4.99 × 0.50 = $499.00 — a difference of $449.10, equivalent to 90% more for the streamer on Kick for the exact same number of new subscribers. Converted to Danish kroner at an illustrative rate of 6.90 kr. per USD, that's roughly 6,541.89 kr. (Kick) and 3,443.10 kr. (Twitch) respectively.

The calculation doesn't say a brand should choose Kick over Twitch — it simply shows why a 95/5 split is a real economic argument a streamer weighs, and therefore part of the context a brand should understand when a potential collaborator explains why they stream on Kick rather than Twitch. Whichever platform a brand chooses, a unique, trackable discount code or tracking link per streamer is required to actually attribute the resulting sales — see how influencer tracking actually works for the full walkthrough.

Decision framework

IF the target audience is already present on Kick, and the streamer already has an established channel there → a direct sponsorship can deliver real exposure, the same way it can on Twitch.

IF the campaign needs to be clearly separated from a gambling context — for example a child-friendly or particularly trust-sensitive category → be extra thorough in the brand safety check of both the streamer and the platform, per the section above.

IF the decision is between Kick and Twitch for an otherwise comparable streamer → Kick's higher 95/5 split is a real benefit to the streamer themselves, but says nothing about which platform actually reaches the most relevant viewers for this specific brand — that's checked separately, via the streamer's own documented viewership figures.

Common mistakes

• Assuming Kick is only about gambling. The platform has both mainstream partnerships (UFC) and a broad range of content — but the gambling connection through ownership doesn't disappear because of that.
• Confusing Kick's 95/5 split with a signal of how many viewers a streamer actually has. The split percentage says something about the streamer's income per subscriber, nothing about total viewership.
• Assuming Kick's whole audience is verified 18+. There's no documented, real age-verification mechanism for the platform as a whole, only for the gambling content itself.
• Skipping the brand safety check because the streamer seems mainstream. The platform's ownership and funding should factor into the assessment, regardless of how "ordinary" the specific streamer's content looks.

Make Influence's operational perspective

In Make Influence's experience, Kick isn't yet a channel Danish brands themselves request as part of an ordinary influencer collaboration — the platform's Danish user base isn't documented to the same extent as Twitch's, and the gambling connection means several brand categories will factor it in before a collaboration. Our recommendation is to treat a Kick collaboration as requiring a thorough brand safety check first — not only of the specific streamer, but also of how the platform's own history and ownership fits the brand's values — before evaluating exposure and price the same way as on any other live-streaming channel.

FAQ

Is Kick only about gambling?

No. The platform covers a broad range of content and has mainstream partnerships like UFC — but it's still owned by the same company as the crypto casino Stake, and part of the content culture is still gambling-related.

How does Kick's revenue split compare with Twitch's?

Kick gives the streamer 95% of subscription revenue from day one. Twitch gives 50% by default, with the option to move up to 60/40 or 70/30 via Twitch's Plus Program — still lower than Kick's fixed 95/5.

What is the Kick Creator Incentive Program?

A program that pays qualifying, eligible streamers a fixed hourly rate (roughly $16–32/hour per independent sources) on top of ordinary subscription and tip income, based on viewership, chat activity and an internal "Authority Score".

Has Kick tightened its gambling-content rules?

Yes. Since 1 February 2025, per multiple independent sources, casino streams on Kick must only feature gambling sites with visible 18+ ID verification, and that content is simultaneously excluded from the Creator Incentive Program's fixed hourly pay.

Do the Danish disclosure rules apply on Kick too?

Yes. The rules are medium-agnostic and apply to a sponsored Kick collaboration the same way as on any other platform — see influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU.

What about Twitch?

Twitch gives the streamer a lower default share (50/50 versus Kick's 95/5), but in return has no documented gambling connection in its ownership and a stricter ban on unlicensed gambling sites. See Twitch influencer marketing: sponsorships, subs and Bits explained for the full model.

Is there real age verification on Kick?

Not documented as a comprehensive mechanism. The terms of service state a minimum age, and gambling content formally requires 18+ ID verification on the gambling site itself — but there's no documented, general age-verification system for the platform as a whole.

Does Kick have anything like Twitch's Hype Trains?

Not documented. Kick's pitch to streamers is its markedly higher 95/5 revenue split rather than a community-triggered mechanic like Twitch's Hype Trains — see Twitch Hype Trains: a community-driven sponsorship mechanic distinct from subs and Bits for how that feature works on Twitch.