Kick's Relaxed Moderation Leads to a 37% Increase in Monthly Revenue

A few weeks ago, an app I didn't recognize rose to the top of the US charts.

Kick, a Twitch competitor from Australia, peaked at #3 on Sunday, October 19th, seemingly out of nowhere. It didn't go viral on TikTok. It didn't run a massive paid ad campaign. It wasn't even ASO.

It was Westcol.

Kick, in case you're like me and haven't heard about it, is a streaming platform that competes with Amazon's Twitch, but with much lower fees (5% vs 50%) and more relaxed moderation, especially around gambling which Twitch doesn't allow and Kick welcomes.

According to Appfigures Intelligence, Kick's downloads were higher that entire weekend, but more than tripled on the 19th to 262K, the most the app has ever seen in a single day. For reference, the last peak came in at the end of 2024.

The spike, which started the Friday before and went back to normal a week later, drove about a million new downloads for Kick, according to our estimates. That's more than twice the downloads it saw the prior week.

Westcol?

Based on my research, the spike was a result of several events that took place that weekend, but primarily a stream that broke the record for most viewers - 1.6M. That was a stream from a creator called Westcol who talks about boxing and is now one of Kick's most followed creators.

Westcol matters to Kick because he left Twitch for being too strict in its moderation, showing the benefits of Kick's more relaxed moderation to some creators, and helped grow Kick's popularity among Spanish-speaking users.

Where's the Money?

Did the downloads spike cause a revenue spike? No, but Kick didn't need it!

Kick's quarterly app revenue growth has been somewhat flat, ebbing and flowing around the $4.5M (pre-fees) since 2024, according to Appfigures Intelligence. However, things changed this summer as Kick has been gaining momentum thanks to the company making aggressive deals to get big names on the platform.

Our estimates show users have spent $6.3M in the app in Q3, by far the most the platform has ever seen.

Over the last few years it's become obvious that catering to creators is a winning strategy. Kick's creator-first approach and increasing popularity are sure to change the market Twitch once dominated. The only question is how.