YouTube Super Chat pays a VTuber 70% of Supers revenue confirmed by Google, and that 70% is calculated only after local sales tax and iOS App Store fees are deducted. A direct FanBell tip has no subscriber threshold and carries a 12% platform fee charged only when a fan pays, which leaves 88% of the fan's payment before card processing is deducted separately.
Sources for both figures: YouTube Help — Super Chat & Super Stickers and FanBell pricing.
Disclosure: FanBell publishes this page and sells one of the two support routes it compares. Every FanBell fee, eligibility, and feature statement below is a first-party product claim, sourced to FanBell's own published pricing and how it works pages rather than to independent third-party testing or audit. Readers should treat those claims as vendor documentation and verify them on those pages before budgeting. Every YouTube, Apple, Stripe, and California tax figure on this page is cited inline to the organisation that published it and can be checked independently. Last: FanBell is free to start with no monthly fee and applies a 12% platform fee only when a fan pays.
Super Chat is the payment a viewer sends during a live stream to highlight a message in chat, and it is one of the most visible ways a VTuber's audience shows support in the moment. But "what the viewer paid" and "what the VTuber keeps" are two different numbers, and the size of that gap is set by YouTube's revenue-share terms and Partner Program rules rather than by anything the creator controls. The 88% FanBell figure is a pre-processing number too: it is the share left after the platform fee alone, and card processing comes off separately, so the worked examples below put both sides on the same $10 payment.
How much of a Super Chat does a VTuber actually keep?
A VTuber keeps 70% of Supers revenue confirmed by Google, calculated only after local sales tax and iOS App Store fees are deducted (YouTube Help — Super Chat & Super Stickers). A $10 Super Chat bought in a web browser with no sales tax nets roughly $7.00; the same $10 bought in the iOS app nets less.
YouTube states the revenue share for Super Chat and Super Stickers together, since it documents both as "Supers" on identical terms:
"Creators receive 70% of Supers revenue that is confirmed by Google. The 70% is calculated after local sales tax and App Store fees on iOS are deducted. Transaction costs, including credit card fees, are currently covered by YouTube." — YouTube Help — Super Chat & Super Stickers
Two deductions sit ahead of that 70%, and each rate comes from its own primary source. Apple's developer documentation states the App Store commission in a single sentence:
"The commission on the sale of digital goods and services through the App Store is 30% (15% if you're enrolled in the App Store Small Business Program, Video Partner Program, Mini Apps Partner Program, or News Partner Program)." — Apple Developer Program — Membership details
Apple's reduced 15% rate is not automatic: Apple states that the App Store Small Business Program's 15% commission is open to developers whose App Store proceeds were up to 1 million USD in the previous calendar year (Apple Developer — App Store Small Business Program).
California applies a base sales and use tax rate of 7.25% statewide, and California district taxes add a further 0.10% to 2.00% on top of that base rate depending on the buyer's address (California Department of Tax and Fee Administration — Sales and Use Tax Rates).
Two limits apply before reading any worked Super Chat example. YouTube's help page says "App Store fees on iOS are deducted" but does not publish which commission rate Apple charges on Supers specifically, and YouTube does not publish the order in which local sales tax and the App Store fee are applied. The $10 Super Chat scenario table below therefore applies Apple's standard published 30% rate as an illustrative simplification, not as a confirmed Supers-specific term, and it does not assert a deduction order. Read the iOS figure as arithmetic, not as an expected payout:
| $10 Super Chat scenario | Deducted before the 70% is applied | Illustrative arithmetic — not a YouTube-published payout |
|---|---|---|
| Web browser, no local sales tax | Nothing | ~$7.00 (70% of $10, per YouTube's published share) |
| iOS app, no local sales tax | An App Store commission, illustrated at Apple's standard 30% (~$3.00) | ~$4.90 — illustrative only. YouTube does not publish the App Store rate applied to Supers, so treat $4.90 as a worked example at Apple's standard 30%, not as a likely payout |
| Web browser, local sales tax applies | Local sales tax on the purchase | Below $7.00 |
| iOS app, local sales tax applies | Local sales tax and an App Store commission, in an order YouTube does not publish | Below $4.90, by an amount this page cannot source |
To restate the limit plainly: the ~$4.90 iOS figure is arithmetic performed on Apple's standard published 30% commission, not a Supers-specific rate, and YouTube publishes no per-scenario Super Chat payout table. Every dollar figure in the $10 Super Chat scenario table is arithmetic on the published YouTube, Apple, and CDTFA rates rather than payout data published by YouTube; the actual in-app number could be higher if Apple applies a reduced rate to Supers, and this page does not claim to know which rate applies. YouTube states that transaction costs including credit card fees "are currently covered by YouTube" and that YouTube may change these terms, so the YouTube help page rather than a remembered percentage is the source of record for anyone budgeting around Super Chat.
What do you need before YouTube pays out a Super Chat at all?
The lowest published door to Super Chat is 500 subscribers, not 1,000. YouTube's expanded Partner Program tier unlocks fan-funding features at 500 subscribers, 3 valid public uploads in the last 90 days, and either 3,000 qualified watch hours in 12 months or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days, in eligible countries only (YouTube Help — Expanded YouTube Partner Program requirements).
The widely quoted 1,000-subscriber figure is the standard Partner Program door for ads-and-Premium revenue sharing, not the Super Chat minimum. YouTube lists that standard path as "Get 1,000 subscribers with 4,000 qualified watch hours in the last 12 months" or "Get 1,000 subscribers with 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days" (YouTube Help — YPP overview and eligibility). Both paths lead into the same Partner Program; the expanded tier simply admits a channel to the fan-funding half of it earlier, which is why the two subscriber numbers on this page are not in conflict.
Size is not the only gate. YouTube requires a creator to be at least 18 years old, to live in a country or region where Super Chat and Super Stickers are available, and to have accepted the Commerce Product Module before Supers can be switched on. YouTube's help page describes Super Chat and Super Stickers as "ways to monetize your channel through the YouTube Partner Program", so Partner Program membership at one tier or the other is a precondition either way.
YouTube announced on August 10, 2026, in a post on its official blog, that it is raising Partner Program entry thresholds for new applicants from February 1, 2027, and YouTube documents the same change on its help site as "Starting Feb. 1, 2027, YPP entry thresholds for new creators are changing to 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days, or 20M qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days" (YouTube Help — Changes to the YouTube Partner Program). The blog post gives the exact scope:
"This update won't impact creators already in YPP. New creators applying for YPP will need 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days, or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. The entry thresholds for our Fan Funding and shopping products remain unchanged." — YouTube Official Blog — "New opportunities to earn and changes to the YouTube Partner Program," published August 10, 2026
The final sentence of YouTube's 2027 announcement is the one most often dropped from creator coverage of the change. YouTube's February 1, 2027 increase to 8,000 qualified watch hours in 365 days or 20 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days governs the ads-and-Premium revenue-sharing entry path, and YouTube states in the same post that fan-funding entry thresholds — the tier that governs Super Chat — remain unchanged. YouTube attributes the threshold increase to platform scale, citing "over 200 billion daily Shorts views and over a billion hours of watch time on TV everyday" in that same announcement. A brand-new VTuber avatar with a small but engaged audience can sit below even the 500-subscriber expanded-tier threshold for months, during which Super Chat is not an option — not because the audience will not pay, but because YouTube has not unlocked the feature on that channel yet. That gap is exactly where a funding goal earns its keep: a VTuber can fund a new model with viewer support while still working toward the subscriber threshold, rather than waiting on Super Chat to open up first.
Is there a lower bar for YouTube fan-funding without full Partner Program status?
Yes — 500 subscribers, in eligible countries only. YouTube's expanded Partner Program tier unlocks fan-funding features including Super Chat without ad revenue sharing: creators can apply at 500 subscribers, 3 valid public uploads in 90 days, and either 3,000 qualified watch hours in 12 months or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days.
YouTube publishes those expanded-tier thresholds as "Get 500 subscribers with 3 valid public uploads in the last 90 days, and 3,000 qualified watch hours in the last 12 months, or Get 500 subscribers with 3 valid public uploads in the last 90 days, and 3 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days". YouTube's Expanded YouTube Partner Program requirements page also limits the expanded tier to creators in eligible countries and requires the channel to follow YouTube's channel monetization policies, so availability is region-dependent rather than universal. The expanded tier is a genuinely lower door into Super Chat than full Partner Program status, but it is still a fixed subscriber-and-activity gate that a channel either has cleared or has not — it is not something a VTuber can switch on the day they start streaming.
How does a direct FanBell tip compare on take-home?
A direct FanBell tip leaves the VTuber 88% before card processing, because FanBell's 12% platform fee is charged only when a fan actually pays. On a $10 tip that is $8.80 before processing and roughly $8.21 after typical US online-card fees, versus about $7.00 on a browser Super Chat.
One disclosure before the numbers, repeating the note at the top of this page: the YouTube, Apple, Stripe, and CDTFA figures here come from those organisations' own published documentation and can be checked independently, whereas the three FanBell claims that follow — no subscriber threshold, a 12% fee charged only when a fan pays, and the availability of the shoutout, paid-question, service, and project-support formats — are first-party vendor claims with no independent third-party verification available. FanBell's pricing page states that FanBell is free to start, charges no monthly fee, and applies a 12% platform fee only when a fan actually pays, and FanBell's how-it-works page is the authoritative source for its feature list and for the absence of a follower minimum. Anyone weighing the comparison should confirm current terms on those two pages, since a vendor can change its own fee at any time.
Working the $10 tip through in full: FanBell's 12% platform fee takes $1.20, and Stripe's published US rate of "2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction for domestic cards" takes another $0.59 (Stripe pricing), leaving roughly $8.21 — about 82% of what the fan paid. Card processing is not unique to FanBell, and FanBell's pricing page states plainly that payment-processing fees are deducted separately from creator earnings. Stripe's published US pricing adds 1.5% for international cards and a further 1% when currency conversion is required, on top of the 2.9% + $0.30 domestic rate, so the 2.9% + $0.30 figure describes typical US domestic online-card pricing rather than a universal rate.
The larger structural difference is not the percentage — it is the gate. A FanBell tip link works the moment a VTuber sets one up, at any subscriber count, because FanBell publishes no follower or subscriber minimum — a first-party claim sourced to FanBell's own documentation, not to an independent audit. Super Chat only works after a channel clears YouTube's thresholds, whichever tier applies.
| YouTube Super Chat | Direct FanBell tip | |
|---|---|---|
| Creator's cut | 70% of confirmed Supers revenue, after local sales tax and iOS App Store fees | 88% after the 12% platform fee, before card processing |
| Illustrative net on $10 | ~$7.00 web; ~$4.90 in-app on iOS is illustrative arithmetic at Apple's standard 30%, not a published Supers rate | ~$8.21 after typical US domestic card processing |
| Eligibility gate | 500 subs via the expanded fan-funding tier where available, or 1,000 subs on the standard Partner Program path | None published by FanBell — no follower minimum (first-party claim) |
| When it happens | During a live stream only | Anytime, via a bio link |
| Fee if nobody pays | N/A — tied to a live payment | $0 — the fee applies only on a paid transaction |
Does a direct tip replace Super Chat, or work alongside it?
A direct tip link works alongside Super Chat rather than replacing it. Super Chat is a live-stream mechanic that highlights a fan's message in chat while a VTuber is streaming, which a static tip link cannot replicate. A direct tip link is asynchronous and works from a video description or social bio between streams.
A VTuber running both is using each for a different moment: Super Chat for real-time, in-stream recognition once the channel is eligible, and a direct link for support that arrives outside the stream window or before YouTube's subscriber threshold is cleared. It is the same diversification logic behind how pro gamers earn outside tournament winnings: no single income source has to carry the whole channel. Presenting a direct tip as a total replacement for Super Chat overstates the comparison, because the highlighted-message mechanic has no equivalent on a bio link.
What else can a VTuber offer beyond a plain tip?
Beyond a plain tip, a VTuber can sell four other paid interaction formats on the same FanBell page: personalized shoutouts, paid private questions answered by text or voice, defined creator services, and wishlist or project support that collects cash toward a stated goal with a funding progress bar. A shoutout can be as simple as a fan request to put a fan's name in your next video, which needs no extra recording setup beyond what a VTuber already streams with.
- Personalized Shoutouts — an in-character video message a fan requests and the VTuber records and delivers, with the price and turnaround set by the creator.
- Paid Private Questions — a fan sends a text question and the VTuber replies privately by text or voice, which suits the "can I ask you something" DMs that do not need a live stream.
- Creator Services — a small, defined deliverable such as a review, a mini audit, or a custom asset, published at a set price and turnaround.
- Wishlist / Project Support — cash toward a stated goal with a funding progress bar, which fits a VTuber saving toward a specific cost like a new model or rig rather than open-ended tipping.
Shoutouts, paid private questions, creator services, and project support all sit on the same FanBell page as the tip option — feature availability described by FanBell's own product documentation rather than by an independent reviewer — so a fan who wants to support a VTuber has more than one route without leaving the link already in the creator's bio or video description. Some VTubers turn the voice-question option into its own standalone offer and sell in-character voice messages rather than answering only in text.
Frequently asked questions
Six questions come up repeatedly when a VTuber compares Super Chat with a direct tip link: whether the 70% share covers Super Stickers, whether YouTube's February 2027 threshold change affects Super Chat, whether a direct link works below the Partner Program threshold, how FanBell's 12% fee compares with YouTube's 30% share, whether the Super Chat minimum is 500 or 1,000 subscribers, and whether an already-eligible channel benefits.
Does Super Chat's 70% cut apply to Super Stickers too?
Yes. YouTube documents Super Chat and Super Stickers together as "Supers," and creators receive 70% of Supers revenue confirmed by Google across both formats, calculated after local sales tax and App Store fees on iOS are deducted.
Does YouTube's February 2027 threshold increase make Super Chat harder to reach?
No, based on YouTube's own wording in two of its own publications. YouTube's blog post of August 10, 2026 states that new applicants from February 1, 2027 will need 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days — a change YouTube also documents on its help site — and that "the entry thresholds for our Fan Funding and shopping products remain unchanged". Super Chat is a fan-funding product, so the doubled watch-hours requirement governs the ads-and-Premium path rather than the Super Chat door.
Can a VTuber use FanBell tips before reaching YouTube's Partner Program threshold?
Yes. FanBell publishes no follower or subscriber minimum, so a VTuber can set up a tip link the same day they start streaming, regardless of subscriber count — FanBell's own documentation, disclosed at the top of this page as a first-party claim. Setting up a FanBell link does not unlock Super Chat, which still requires meeting YouTube's own eligibility thresholds separately.
Is FanBell's 12% fee the same as YouTube's 30% Super Chat cut?
No — the two are not directly comparable line items. FanBell's 12% platform fee applies only when a fan pays, with no monthly fee and no charge on unpaid activity, while YouTube's 30% share is taken from a Super after local sales tax and iOS App Store fees have already been deducted. Stripe's typical US domestic online-card rate of 2.9% + $0.30 per successful transaction applies on top of FanBell's fee, whereas YouTube states it currently covers credit card fees on Supers itself.
Is the Super Chat minimum 500 subscribers or 1,000?
For Super Chat specifically, the lowest published door is 500 subscribers, via YouTube's expanded Partner Program tier in eligible countries. The 1,000-subscriber figure is the standard Partner Program threshold for ads-and-Premium revenue sharing (YouTube Help — YPP overview and eligibility). A channel outside the expanded tier's eligible countries reaches Super Chat through the 1,000-subscriber path instead.
What if a VTuber already qualifies for Super Chat — is a direct link still worth setting up?
A direct tip link still adds a support channel Super Chat does not cover: asynchronous support that arrives outside live streams, placed in a video description or social bio. Super Chat and a direct tip link are not mutually exclusive, and running both lets fans support a VTuber whether or not they catch a live stream.
The neutral takeaway
Super Chat and a direct tip link differ on two axes, and neither wins outright. On rate, Super Chat returns 70% of confirmed Supers revenue after local sales tax and iOS App Store fees but YouTube absorbs card processing, while a direct FanBell tip returns 88% before card processing, which a payment processor then deducts (YouTube Help — Super Chat & Super Stickers and FanBell pricing).
On access, Super Chat requires clearing YouTube's 500-subscriber expanded fan-funding tier where that tier is available, or the 1,000-subscriber standard Partner Program threshold otherwise, while a direct FanBell link has no published follower minimum (YouTube Help — Expanded YouTube Partner Program requirements, and FanBell — How It Works, a first-party claim). A VTuber already inside the Partner Program with a strong live-stream habit gets real value from Super Chat that a static link cannot copy; a VTuber below the threshold, or one whose audience shows up between streams, has no Super Chat option at all. Running both is the common outcome rather than choosing one.
Keep reading
Ready to get paid for the interactions you already get?
Create your free FanBell link