"Never sub, never donated" - Twitch increasing mobile subscription price to $7.99 leaves netizens displeased

Amazon-owned streaming platform Twitch has made an official announcement regarding the increase of mobile subscription price to $7.99. For those unaware, the previous amount was $5.99 per month. Readers should also note that this cost change only applies to Tier 1 subscriptions, which means Tier 2 and 3 will remain as they were. Here's what Twitch wrote:

"Starting October 1, we’re increasing new Tier 1 sub and gift sub prices on the mobile app in over 40 countries."

Twitch bumps up the price for Tier 1 subs on the mobile app (Image via X/TwitchSupport)

The announcement has angered many in the streaming community. The post was shared to the popular r/LivestreamFail subreddit, which garnered a slew of comments from Redditors. One user comically wrote:

"Never sub, never donated, AdBlock, neighbors wifi," said u/I_will_take_that.

Some were more upset with the change, calling out the user interface of the mobile app for Twitch:

"You'd have to f**king pay me to use the app with that new garbage-a** UI," said u/bebop_cola_fizz.

Here are some other remarks:

"Rolling out the worst update known to man and they want more for it?" said u/glutes_lord.

"Am I dumb? Can you not just sub on pc and then watch on mobile?" said u/SpazzGod

"Switched to a third-party app when they rolled out the UI update. It’s awful," said u/WilHelmut

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What is the Twitch subscription price on the web version?

Twitch's mobile app and web versions (accessed via PC or laptop) have different subscription pricing. For example, on the web version, a Tier 1 subscription now costs $5.99 per month in the US, reflecting a $1 increase that came into effect in July 2024.

For those wondering why the mobile app has different pricing, it's due to Apple and Google charging Twitch app store fees. According to the official Twitch website, this is the reason behind the pricing disparity:

"There are costs associated with selling subscriptions within mobile platforms. We want to offer you the option to subscribe in our apps, while preserving the same payout to streamers when you subscribe, and in order to do that, the price has to reflect the added costs."

The platform explains why the pricing is different on mobile apps (Image via Help.Twitch.Tv)

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Incidentally, this isn’t the only change Twitch has implemented in recent weeks. The platform also announced that streamers will need to sign up for their DJ Program to livestream DJ content. Failure to do so could result in DMCA strikes.