If you searched for the Twitch Bounty Board, you probably remember it one of two ways. As a brand, it was a simple way to buy streams of your game without signing streamers one by one. As a streamer, it was the tab you kept checking, hoping a bounty had shown up.
Both of those needs are still there. The tab isn’t. We’ve run sponsored streams on Twitch since 2016, so below the history you’ll find our take: what our own campaign data says the bounty model got right, and what it got wrong.
How the Twitch Bounty Board worked
Twitch launched the Bounty Board in May 2018 as a closed beta for Partners in the US. A brand posted a paid offer, a bounty, and eligible streamers saw it in their dashboard. A streamer picked one, did what it asked, and got paid. Twitch handled the relationship with the brand, the sponsorship terms and the money.
Games were the main buyers. Brands bought bounties through Amazon Ads in two formats:
- Gameplay Features: the streamer plays your game live for their audience.
- Trailer Blasts: the streamer watches your trailer on stream with their chat.
A bounty came with a short brief of talking points, a call to action with a link, the brand’s logo and color around the stream, and game keys when the game wasn’t free. A typical bounty asked for about an hour of streaming, and viewership had to hold up for the whole stream.
The weak spots showed quickly. There were far more streamers than bounties, offers were limited to Partners in a handful of countries, and targeting was mostly by country. You couldn’t pick streamers by the games they actually play, and the small channels where a lot of Twitch culture starts were out of reach.
What replaced the Bounty Board
Twitch rebuilt sponsorships in steps.
- February 2025: Twitch added a Sponsorships tab to the Creator Dashboard, with Creator Profiles that streamers fill in for brands. Twitch said the Bounty Board would move into that dashboard to offer opt in campaigns to Partners worldwide.
- 2025 and 2026: Bounties became Open Invite campaigns. A brand sets requirements and a number of spots, and eligible streamers join until the spots are gone.
- April 2026: Minecraft’s Tiny Takeover became the first sponsored campaign on Twitch that Affiliates could join.
- August 20, 2026: Twitch opened sponsorships to Affiliates worldwide. Affiliates who complete the Creator Sponsorship Certification can be invited when they match a brand’s criteria. The same day, Twitch named Wehype as a partner supplying campaigns in the dashboard, starting with EA’s Battlefield 6.
So the Bounty Board didn’t die so much as grow up. The opt in idea is the same. What changed is who can see the offers, and that partners can bring campaigns straight into the dashboard streamers use every day.
What our data says about the bounty model
We went through every completed sponsored Twitch stream we ran from 2024 to 2026 and compared each one with what we expected when we booked the streamer. Held up against the old bounty rules, five things stand out.
The worry about viewership was overdone. Bounties asked viewership to hold for the whole stream, as if sponsored streams scare viewers off. They don’t. The median sponsored stream drew 9% more viewers than we expected, 59% beat the expected audience and only 5% fell below half of it.
An hour was too short. Sponsorships with under 90 minutes of streaming drew 5% fewer viewers than expected. With 4 to 8 hours, they drew 17% more. Chat needs time to find its rhythm, and the game needs time to get going.
Country targeting missed the biggest lever: the game. Depending on the game, the median sponsored stream landed anywhere from 19% below to 41% above the expected audience. Mobile games drew 13% below on Twitch; the rest, mostly PC and console, 12% above. Picking streamers by what they actually play matters more than picking by country.
Leaving out small channels left out the conversation. Streamers with 25 to 99 viewers got 318% more chat messages per viewer hour and 172% more link clicks per viewer than streamers with 2,000+ viewers. The biggest channels still bring most of the viewer minutes, which is why we mix both.
Trailer Blasts had a point. Watching something together works on Twitch. In our data, watch party streams got 45% more chat messages per viewer hour than sponsored Let’s Plays. A reveal or trailer watched with chat earns its place next to gameplay.
And one thing bounties never planned for: what happens after. In 2026 campaigns we followed for 30 days after the paid streams ended, 18% of sponsored streamers came back to the game without being paid. A one off bounty leaves that to chance; Community Rewards gives the rest a reason to return.
Source: Wehype campaign data, completed sponsored Twitch streams from 2024 to 2026 and Twitch viewing data for the 30 days after 2026 campaigns, pulled November 4, 2026. “Expected” is the average audience we expected for each streamer when we booked them.
Running a bounty style campaign with Wehype
This is where Twitch Integration comes in. We’re an official Twitch partner, so your campaign appears in the Twitch Sponsorship Dashboard as an offer from Wehype for your game. Streamers read the brief and accept it in a couple of clicks. There’s nothing for them to install.
What we kept from the bounty model:
- Streamers opt in themselves. No cold emails, no negotiating every deal.
- One brief, many streamers. You write it once and it reaches the whole group you target.
- Clear requirements. Stream time, what to show and the link to share are set up front.
What we changed, based on the data above:
- Targeting on what streamers actually play. Viewership range, country, the games they’ve streamed and brand safety checks. A horror game reaches horror streamers in the markets you care about.
- The long tail. Partners and Affiliates, so small channels can join, not just a shortlist of big names.
- Room to play. Stream time set for the game and the goal, not a fixed hour.
- Fast pay. Streamers get paid through the Wehype platform in 3 banking days.
- Live data. You watch viewer minutes, peak viewers and link clicks while streams run.
For GeoGuessr, we went almost entirely small: 376 creators, mostly smaller ones, delivered 8.5M+ viewer minutes on Twitch.
When a bounty isn’t enough
Opt in offers are great for reach and the long tail. Some moments need more control. For a launch you might want a hand picked lineup, a specific day and a creator who knows your genre inside out. That’s a Creator Campaign, where our team picks, contracts and briefs every streamer personally.
Some moments need everyone at once. A Twitch Boost puts a big group of streamers live in the same short window. For Dying Light 2 we brought 349 creators live together, the stream reached 500K+ peak CCV on Twitch and the game hit #1. Read how the Dying Light 2 Boost worked.
Most of our Twitch work mixes the three. Read how to run a Twitch influencer campaign, how Twitch sponsorships work for brands now, or compare Twitch sponsorship platforms.
For streamers who miss the Bounty Board
If you stream and you’re here for the bounties: the offers moved. Fill in your Creator Profile in the Sponsorships section of your Creator Dashboard, and if you’re an Affiliate, complete the Creator Sponsorship Certification on Creator Camp. Then watch for third party campaigns, including ours. You can also join Wehype as a creator and get offers from games directly.
