The streamer Ludwig “Ludwig” Ahgren (25) has been live on Twitch for 326 hours. So far, he has generated about $552,000 in revenue. But he calculates himself to be poor. According to his calculations, after taxes, Twitch’s share, and other expenses, he only gets a small fraction of that: He estimates around $10,000.
That’s why Ludwig earns so much money:
- The streamer Ludwig started a “marathon” stream on Twitch about 2 weeks ago. The more money he earns in the stream through donations and subscriptions, the longer he stays live: A countdown increases when viewers donate money. The stream has now lasted 326 hours – almost 14 days.
- Fans are recording his earnings and are actively writing. He himself is transparent about his earnings and shows them repeatedly. Currently, he is at about $552,216. When he made his calculations a few days ago, he estimated $471,000 in gross earnings.
- However, the streamer said in the stream that after all deductions, he gets very little money from the total earnings: he calculated from $471,000 down to $3,000.
How the unusual stream of Ludwig works, we explained in an article on MeinMMO.
Taxes, donations, moderators, and Twitch take most of the money
Why does he only get such a small portion of his share? In the stream, Ludwig explained why only tiny $3,000 would remain from $471,000, which he had earned at that time:
“It’s not that simple. I can’t rely on so much money because there are things in life that you have to pay. That’s called taxes. But before I pay taxes, we need to talk about my share. Because Twitch takes money too. So it’s not all my money; it’s also Twitch’s money.”
Ludwig
Ludwig says: Twitch takes 35% of the revenue because the streamer is still under an “old Twitch contract” that dates back to a time before he became huge with Among Us. So 35% is deducted, which goes to Twitch. He is left with about $300,000.
From the $300,000, half goes to taxes. Because he lives in California, there are extra taxes, the state income tax. This is why many streamers and YouTubers live in Texas, New Hampshire, or Florida and pay less tax, explains Ludwig. But he lives in California, so more taxes are deducted: In California, one pays 13.3% income tax.
Of the approximately $150,000 that are now left, he still has to give his team their share. He employs about 15 moderators and compensates them together with about $5,000 a day. So he was down to $83,000.
From this $83,000, he has promised to act charitably. He wants to donate one US dollar to a charitable organization for every subscription. With about 80,000 subscriptions, the remaining money then dropped to about $3,000.
However, Ludwig also says: Due to tax deductions, he would ultimately be left with between $10,000 and $15,000.
Is it still worth it for him? Even though he has calculated himself to be so poor, Ludwig explained to the fans that the marathon stream is still worth it for him. Because the long-term growth of his channel through the event stream is impressive. An article about him was published in the New York Times. The attention is invaluable.
Ludwig is considered one of the big winners on Twitch last year. The former “Super Smash Bros.” pro seeks contact with established Twitch stars: He even paid $43,000 to play with Shroud for an hour.
Are the numbers correct? As the US site Kotaku finds out in conversation with a tax expert, Ludwig made some mistakes in his calculations. Because he would have to pay taxes only after he had paid Twitch, compensated the moderators, and donated to the charitable organization. The tax share is therefore significantly lower than the $150,000 he assumed.
While indeed a lot of money would go away, he would be left with about $80,000 from the $450,000 he had at that time. Since then, he has also added about $100,000 in total revenue, he would probably be safely over $100,000 in profit.
That’s not a bad net hourly wage for 330 hours.
Marathon stream is continuing in the absence of the streamer
How is the Twitch stream doing right now? It’s strange. Ludwig’s marathon stream is still ongoing, but without Ludwig. He set off on a trip. He had already arranged the trip before the stream started. He couldn’t and didn’t want to cancel it.
Ludwig’s roommate “Slime” is currently visible in the stream. He is representing Ludwig. The timer continues to count down and has reached 13 hours and 37 minutes.
The announcement is: Should the timer continue to run down, it will be stopped at one hour and only continues when Ludwig takes over again. That would be a sort of “restart”; Ludwig would then have to convince the viewers again to donate to keep him on Twitch.
A quirky situation for a stream that is already making Twitch history.
With about 130,500 subs, paid subscriptions, Ludwig is currently in 2nd place on the “all-time best list” – but he probably won’t come close to the legendary 270,000 from Ninja during the “Amazon pushes Fortnite” peak times.
Fortnite star Ninja reveals subscription record on Twitch: “I will never reach it again”
