
Currently, Twitch is the streaming platform par excellence. Many content creators do their thing on the purple platform, even you could be a regular streamer on the platform, as it offers great accessibility for anyone who wants to make their first steps playing their favorite games, chatting and entertaining more people doing what you like.
The most complex thing about Twitch is, perhaps, monetize content. For this reason, at TecVideos we are going to explain one of the most recurring methods to earn money, especially if you are a small streamer on the platform: donations. We are going to tell you what donations are, what types there are, how to activate donations on twitchhow to put them through PayPal, how to put them through external pages and how to encourage them.
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What are donations on Twitch
The donations on twitch they are a way for the viewer to support the content creator in question without committing too much to a subscription. This can be done on an occasional basis as a thank you for how entertaining their live shows can be or simply because you like them and want to support their project. In addition, you can accompany that contribution with some kind of message for the streamer, be it a positive message, a question or whatever comes to mind.
So, as you can see, it’s a ideal way to support any creator no compromises. By the way, another good thing about donations is that almost the entire amount sent is received by the streamer if you do it through platforms outside of Twitch. This is important to keep in mind, as all forms of content monetization on Twitch extract a high percentage that Twitch keeps.
Types of donations on Twitch
Before starting to unravel the most important types of donations that is on Twitch, we are going to tell you the methods that are available to you for it. Basically, you can enable donations using:
- PayPal or other platforms to send money online
- The Twitch Bits
- external pages
- cryptocurrencies
So suddenly, it may seem that these methods are not very simple, but to reassure you, we will tell you that they really are, at least more than you think. If you want to learn more about Twitch’s monetization methods and how to encourage people to give you money, check out our How to Make Money on Twitch article.

How to activate donations on Twitch – Bits
Bits are essentially the official donation system of the purple platform. These are kind of virtual currency that is bought from Twitch with real money to be able to support your favorite streamers and say hi. The downside to this method is that it’s only available to content creators who are in the affiliate program, so if the streamer a viewer was planning to donate to doesn’t meet that requirement, they won’t be able to donate.
As we said before, Bits are usually used in the chat of a Twitch stream to trigger a special alert on the screen. As a reward for using Bits, the user earns special badges that are displayed next to their name in stream chat. The more Bits a user uses, the higher the rank of badges they earn. Usually the streamer wins €1 for every 100 bits (1 cent per bit) used during the stream.
Now yes, we are going to tell you how donations are activated with Bits on Twitch.
- Go to Twitch and click on your avatar to reveal the configuration options.
- Find the Creator Dashboard and click Affiliate Settings. Go down and go to the Bits and cheering option.
- You will see that the option to Enable animations with Bits appears. Now you just have to click on that option and you can start receiving donations from your followers, always taking into account what we have mentioned before.
How to activate Bit alerts
In order for the bits to show up on the screen every time a viewer cheers you on, you’ll need to set up your alerts. If you’re just starting out on Twitch, we recommend do it from Streamlabs, because it is very easy to customize. Over time, you’ll be able to create your own custom alerts that go along with the rest of your stream’s image. At the moment, to activate the alerts you must do the following:
- Sign in to Streamlabs with your Twitch account.
- Go to the option Alert Box in the bar to the left of the screen.
- Here you can see all the alerts for the different events that happen in the stream: new followers, new subscriptions, new donations, new bits, new assaults or raids and more.
- Click on Bits and configure the alerts as you like. You can add gifs, sound effects, change the font and also change the color and animation of the text.
- Later, you will have to copy the link in the program you use, be it OBS, Streamlabs OBS or another.
- To do this, copy the Widget URL at the top of the alerts settings and add it as a Browser source in the software you use to stream.
- Move the font around or resize it and test how it looks by clicking Test Bits.
Pretty simple, right? Now if you’re wondering if you can donate on Twitch without being a memberwe are going to go with another of the most recurrent methods: donations through PayPal.

How to put donations on Twitch by PayPal
If the option of receiving donations through Bits has seemed simple to you, through PayPal it will seem much easier. Basically, if you are a streamer, it will be enough to provide your followers with the email address registered in PayPal so that they can give you their donations and deposit them directly into your PayPal account. You can also set up a link to your PayPal account to be seen in your streams so that someone who wants to donate some money can open it without any further complications. we are going to tell you how to set up your paypal account to receive donations.
- You can directly put the link of your PayPal in your broadcast chat using bots or mention it while you’re live.
- After doing the first thing we have indicated, you can also go to your channel and open the Edit panels section. Then select the More button.
- Now you have to fill in the Panel Title and Description. In that section, you can put your PayPal account link and some sort of short message regarding donations.
- Once you have completed these simple steps, you will have your donation section ready to receive money from the people who see your direct if they wish.
It is important that you keep in mind that if your PayPal account is personalthe people who donate to you they can see your name and personal information. You may prefer that no one can see this type of information, so you’ll need to set up your PayPal account as a business account and choose a different name that you don’t mind displaying, like your channel name.
Now that we’re done talking about donations through Bits and PayPal, let’s talk about how to receive donations on Twitch through external sites.
Donations on Twitch with external pages
The procedure with this method is very similar to that of PayPal. As a content creator, you can have your Twitch account connected to a variety of external sites for donations and alerts. Some of these pages are: StreamLabs, Gaming For Good, Muxy and StreamElements.
These services create a donation page for your channel on their server, so you don’t have to enter your PayPal information directly. Instead, the server is responsible for acting as an intermediary between your PayPal and the donors. The most used of these services is StreamLabs and since we have used it, we can guarantee that it is safe. With that said, let’s tell you how to set up a donation page on StreamLabs.
- Go to StreamLabs and log in with your Twitch account.
- Go to the control panel and click on Settings. Then, hit the PayPal icon to connect your account to StreamLabs so your supporters can send donations directly to your PayPal account from the donation page. We say PayPal, but you can use other payment options.
- Then, in the same section you’re in, Donation Settings, select the Settings tab. Here, choose your currency and donation limits.
- When you’re done configuring everything, click Save Settings.
- Once all this is done, you should now see the address of your donation page on the Settings page.
- You can customize or view your donation page by clicking on Custom Tip Page on the left bar of the screen.
- With StreamLabs premium you can change the theme of this tipping page to make it more attractive to your viewers.
- You can add the donation link as a command in your Twitch bots or add it as a banner in the About section of your channel.
- You can too customize donation alerts in the Alert Box section, just as we have seen with the Bits.
Now, to finish, we are going to give you a series of tips to encourage donations on your Twitch channel.

How to incentivize donations on your channel
Your followers may not be sure whether or not to donate money to you, so we are going to leave you with a series of brief tips for you to keep in mind and so that you can use them to encourage your viewers to contribute to the cause.
- Thank your viewers who have donated money to the channel during the direct.
- Add alerts, widgets or animations for first time donors or any donation. Sound effects are a great way to encourage donations, as viewers will need to give Bits or make a mandatory donation to activate these features.
- Create a donor list on your Twitch profile to thank those who have donated.
- set a goal so that viewers are encouraged to donate, and thus be able to meet the goal set with the contribution of the entire community. Also, if people know what they give you their money for, they will surely do it more willingly.
- Make personalized alerts for the occasion. This always generates a good vibe in the viewers, since it is a way to thank their contributions in a very simple way.
So far our guide on how to activate donations on Twitch and all the methods to do it. We hope this has been of great help to you and that you can have more success on Twitch.
If you want to read more articles similar to How to activate donations on Twitchwe recommend that you enter our Streaming category.