Twitch is increasing its price for Turbo, the platform’s monthly ad-free subscription, from $8.99 to $11.99. Twitch informed their Turbo subscribers about this increased price via email. Despite the price hike, Turbo won’t receive any added benefits, add-ons or perks.
Check here to find the new pricing for your country. Interestingly, it appears a few places have decreased in price. Twitch says you need to cancel your current subscription and subscribe again to take advantage of the price.
Price hike due to layoffs in Twitch and AWS
Current subscribers have a grace period of three months before they can opt in for the new prices. Though, bad news to the new subscribers: You will have to pay with the new pricing.
According to The Verge, this price increase is due to Amazon-owned Twitch employing a new CEO and announcing layoffs that cut 9,000 jobs, including the Twitch division. Additionally, according to Twitch, this hike is to “locally appropriate prices and currencies globally.”
Subscribers disagree with this price increase
As expected, a lot of Turbo subscribers are not happy with this change. Since there are no additional features that accompany such a price jump for subscribers, this seems like another move by Twitch to take more money from viewers.
Users on Reddit and Twitter aired their dismay over this change, some saying, “I will not be renewing,” and “Yeah just canceled. Not even worth it if it’s just going to add more costs.”
The new prices are unjustifiable for a lot of subscribers
Despite Twitch saying they have more updates on Turbo for the upcoming months, the new prices are not justifiable, as it directly takes from streamers’ income. Additionally, with the increase in ads across the platform due to Twitch’s switch to a 50/50 revenue split, it seems just like another questionable tactic for Twitch to earn more money for viewers not wanting to get hit with even more ads. It should come with more features for the subscribers to enjoy, at least, given that this is a 25% increase in the monthly rate. Let’s see what updates they will do to justify the price.