Shroud Net Worth: How Much Money He Makes On YouTube & Twitch
Shroud Net Worth – $32.5 Million
Michael “Shroud” Grzesiek is a semi-retired Canadian Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player from Toronto, Ontario but is of Polish descent. He is currently living in Orange County, California, United States. He has an estimated net worth of $32.5 million. He currently does Twitch streaming full time and uploads the various highlights on his YouTube channel. He is also a backup player for Cloud9. He has been playing for the team since its launch and rose to prominence through his immense talent and the popularity of his Twitch stream. He has been able to amass over 10 million followers on the platform and streams on a daily basis.
How Much Money Does Shroud Earn On YouTube?
The channel has over 7 million subscribers as of 2024 and has accumulated over 1.3 billion views so far. It is able to get an average of 1 million views per day (80% of the views are from Shorts) from different sources. This should generate an estimated revenue of around $1,600 per day ($585,000 a year) from the ads that appear on the videos.
YouTube content creators based in the US, UK, Canada and Australia generally get paid $2 – $12 per 1000 monetized views after YouTube takes its cut. Monetized views usually range from 40% – 80% of the total views. All these are influenced by several factors like the device played on, time of the year, the location of the viewer, ad inventory, how many ads there are on a video, how many people skip the ads, type of advertisement, ad engagement, type of content, etc.
The cost of an ad view is based on an auction between advertisers based on views. Advertisers have to bid a minimum of $0.01 per view. There is also a program known as Google Preferred where deep-pocketed companies can target ads on the top 5% most popular content. The ad rates here are higher than normal.
Apart from ads, YouTube content creators also generate extra income from other methods such as YouTube Premium, Superchats & Superstickers, Super Thanks, Channel Membership and Shopping.
YouTube Premium viewers pay a monthly fee to view premium content on YouTube and watch videos without ads. Here, content creators get paid based on watch time on their videos. The longer the viewers watch their videos, the more money they earn.
Super Chat and Super Sticker are used by fans to connect with creators during live streams and premiers. When one buys a Super Chat, their comment is highlighted within the live chat while the Super Stickers get an animated image that surfaces in live chat. Super Thanks lets creators earn revenue from viewers who want to show extra gratitude for their videos. Fans can buy a one-time animation and get to post a distinct, colorful, and customizable comment in the video’s comment section.
Shopping allows eligible creators to connect their stores to YouTube to feature their own products.
YouTube Shorts generate revenue in a different way as compared to traditional videos. The revenue from ads appearing between Shorts will be pooled together then a portion of the total revenue will be allocated to a Creator Pool. Each country has its own Creator Pool. Eligible creators will be paid based on their share of total views. Shorts that use music make less money due to licensing costs.
How Much Money Does Shroud Make On Twitch?
Shroud’s Twitch channel has over 11 million followers as of 2024. It is able to get an average of 18,000 viewers per stream and has accumulated over 600 million views so far. It has over 4,000 paying subscribers and from these, he gets an average of $2.50 per subscriber every month. This should lead to an estimated revenue of around $10,000 a month ($120,000 a year).
Officially, Twitch Partners and Affiliates receive 50% of the total subscription fee, so for the $4.99 tier, the streamer would get around $2.50. Twitch has been known to increase this amount for popular streamers to encourage them to remain on the Twitch platform, with some being upgraded to anywhere from 60% to 100% of the monthly fee
Streamers make money through the Cheering feature when a fan cheers with bits in the chat. A Cheer is an animated chat emote that uses bits. Typing “Cheer1” will generate a grey bouncing triangle, and cost you 1.4 cents. “Cheer100” brings up a dancing purple diamond, and costs you $1.4. You can Cheer any amount you please (including irregular figures, and the corresponding emotes get larger and larger, up to a “Cheer10000,” a $140 tip represented by a fractured red star. streamers will get 1 cent for every Bit pledged while Twitch will keep the 0.4 cents.
Fans can also donate directly to their favorite streamers through Paypal and also cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin, litecoin or ethereum. There are a variety of third-party services which Twitch streamers can connect to their account to activate additional features such as donations and alerts. Some of the more-popular services are Gaming For Good, StreamTip, Muxy, Stream Elements, and StreamLabs. All of these services create a unique donation page for your channel hosted on their own server which you can direct your viewers to make a donation.
General Expenses
Content creators incur a wide variety of expenses to create their content. These can include things like production costs, employee salaries, travel expenses, rent, buying new equipment, utilities, amenities, entertainment, subscription fees and other living expenses. One of the biggest expenses for most creators is taxes. Your tax brackets generally depend on your income. In a country like the United States, the highest tax rate is 37%. A combination of all these expenses determines one’s ability to save and invest, consequently how much one’s net worth grows.
Other Sources Of Revenue
Cloud 9 makes extra income from sponsors like HTC, Hyper X, Intel, Lootcrate, G2A, Logitech, Zowie etc. Shroud’s total career earnings as an e-sports player are over $250,000. He also has investments that generate passive income in terms of capital gains and dividends.
Shroud got a $10 million deal to stream his content exclusively on Mixer before the platform shut down.