Elias “EliasN97” Nerlich is one of the biggest German streamers on Twitch. In addition, he operates several YouTube channels and is active as an entrepreneur. It pays off: In a Q&A session, the Berliner revealed his earnings from the year 2022.
Who is EliasN97? After an injury ended Nerlich’s career as a soccer player, he discovered esports and started his journey on YouTube in 2018 with FIFA 17. In 2020, he began streaming on Twitch as well and quickly became the largest and most viewed content creator on the platform.
Although EliasN97 hasn’t been around as long as other larger German-speaking streamers, in 2022, no one could surpass him: The 25-year-old dominated 2022 in pretty much all relevant metrics – whether it was watched hours, average viewers, or gained followers (via sullygnome).
Where does the name come from? Elias Nerlich was born in 1997 in Berlin. This information also makes up his Twitch name. On YouTube, the streamer is also known as Eligella, a combination of his own first name and a variation of the last name of magician Uri Geller.
Twitch and YouTube are not the main sources of income
Where does the information come from? In a Q&A that the streamer calls his “most honest video”, he reveals his earnings from the year 2022 and answers questions from his fans. It was also supposed to address personal topics like money and love.
Especially the finances of EliasN97 interest the fans, which he can also understand well. It had always made him very curious about other influencers as well. However, he had kept quiet about it because he didn’t want to come off as arrogant.
That he is now disclosing his earnings is therefore also “not a flex”, he just wants to be open with his fans.
How much does EliasN97 earn? Besides his work as a content creator, EliasN97 has built several other revenue streams. For example, he has a streetwear brand, sells vitamin water, and his trademark, the neck pillow.
Before revealing his earnings, EliasN97 clarifies that these are gross amounts before any deductions. Just from YouTube alone, he earned €74,000 last month. That’s a bit more than usual; usually, he makes between €50,000 and €80,000.
In 2022, the content creator earned a total of €736,796 with his main channel EliasN97, while his secondary channel Eligella earned €261,741. Since the creation of his channels, he has earned about €1.6 million with YouTube.
However, Elias could not be as transparent with all his earnings as he was on YouTube. After all, he is not allowed to disclose any internal company secrets. However, he provided rough estimates. For the whole year, the earnings looked like this:
- Vitamin water VitaVate: €1.3 million
- Streetwear label Elevate: €1.1 million
- Twitch: €1.1 million
- YouTube: €1 million from both channels
- Placements through cooperation partners: min. €1 million
- Podcast: €150,000
- Esport club FOKUS: €120,000
- Fitness app PerformAll: €60,000
How are the earnings to be understood? The individual earnings vary somewhat. On Twitch, YouTube, and his podcast, EliasN97 earns through advertising, and on Twitch additionally through subscriptions.
Things look different with his companies: EliasN97 pays himself a (managing director) salary, the amount of which he can determine himself. However, it is important to him that the companies are doing well, which is why he does not pay himself too much.
Thus, FOKUS is a multi-million euro company, of which he also owns shares. With his vitamin water VitaVate, it works differently: there is a large payout once a year instead of a fixed salary.
You can watch the whole Q&A session here:
What does he do with all the money? As EliasN97 revealed in a similar Q&A session in early December, he reinvests most of the money back into his company. At that time, there were €52,000 in his personal account, while his business account held at least €1.2 million.
Even the Twitch colleague Maximilian “Trymacs” Stemmler places great value on transparency and recently showed his annual earnings from YouTube and Twitch. However, some viewers were rather unimpressed by the total amount, which left the streamer completely taken aback.
Trymacs shows his Twitch earnings, gets dissed by fans – “That’s a lot, you get €7 pocket money”
