Pre-Requisites to Setting Up Twitch Donations

You need to be a Twitch partner to use the native option which requires you to complete some achievements that include:

Streaming for more than 25 hours in 30 daysStreaming for at least 12 days in the past 30 daysHave at least an average of 75 viewers on your streams

If you don’t meet the conditions, use a third-party app called Streamlabs. It will allow you to set up donations immediately and for free.

How to Set Up Donations on Streamlabs

Streamlabs does not collect any cut from your donations making it a better option compared to Twitch which takes a 30% cut. Here’s how you can collect donations using Streamlabs.

  1. First, open the Streamlabs website and click on the Login option at the top right corner.
  2. Here you can log in with your Twitch, YouTube, or Facebook account. You can use any service to log in irrespective of what service you want to set up donations for.
  3. This will open Streamlabs Dashboard. Click on the Settings option in the left sidebar.
  4. It directly opens the Donation Settings page. Connect your payment method like Paypal, Credit Card, or Skrill to Streamlabs by clicking on the respective button.
  5. Go through the process of logging in to those accounts and connecting them to Streamlabs. You have successfully completed the donation setup using Streamlabs. Now you can connect with Twitch or any other streaming service that you use.

Using Streamlabs Donations on Twitch

Here I am using Twitch as it is the most used live streaming service, but you can repeat the same steps for others too. Once you have set up Streamlabs to collect donations on Twitch:

  1. After connecting the Payment method on Streamlabs donation settings, your tip page will be available at streamlabs.com/USERNAME. You will find the URL at the top of the donation page, but in case you have dismissed it, change the USERNAME with your username in the above URL to find your donation page.
  2. Now you need to paste this URL on your Twitch profile. Open Twitch, click on the profile pic at the top right corner and select the Channel option.
  3. On the Channel page, select the About tab and enable the toggle Edit Panels.
  4. Now click on the Plus icon to add a new donation panel to your Twitch profile.
  5. Select Add a Text or Image Panel.
  6. On the newly created panel, click on Add Image. You can find many donation Twitch Panels online to use or create one using Twitch panel makers or from panel templates. If you already have a Twitch panel collection, use the Donations panel here.
  7. Then paste the URL that you copied from Streamlabs in the Image Links to section.
  8. Once done, click Submit. You have successfully added a Streamlabs donation panel on Twitch. Now when someone clicks on the donation panel which watches your Twitch streams, they will be redirected to your Streamlabs tipping page where they can pay you.

How to Manage Donations in Streamlabs

Streamlabs provides the option to customize the donations option just as you like. You can change the currency to what you like to see. You can set the minimum amount, maximum amount, suggested amount, the leaderboard for donations, etc. You can configure these settings from the Streamlabs dashboard in your browser from Settings > Donation Settings > Settings.

How to Customize the Tip Page

To customize your tipping page on Streamlabs, you have to be a Streamlabs prime member which costs $19/month. If you are already a Prime subscriber, open Streamlabs dashboard > Themes and Overlays > Tip Page Themes. Here select any theme that you want to apply to your tipping page and click on Install. Also, if you are a Prime subscriber, you can select the Custom Tip Page option in the sidebar and customize everything on the page. Some examples include videos, merch, leaderboard, contact form, social media feed, Discord server invite link, and customize the page if it’s your website for collecting donations.

Collecting Donations on Twitch Using Streamlabs

You will notice the Tip History section in the sidebar where you will find all the tips/donations you have collected so far. As people can also donate monthly using subscription, you can check all your monthly tips in the Monthly tips section and all the members who have enabled recurring payment in the My Members menu. Other than donations, Streamlabs also comes with Streamlabs OBS which makes your streaming easy.