Being fairly new in the industry, Beam's requirements for reaching Partner status have always been more achievable than on Twitch. It's all down to scale, of course, and a smaller total audience means you have to capture less viewers than you would elsewhere.
However, those requirements are soon changing and will mean a big move of the goalposts for anyone pushing to reach that level with their channel. While Twitch recently introduced a scheme to help more monetize their streams, Beam's changes could be seen as going the opposite way, but it's not as black and white as that at all.
Here are the facts.
What's changing?
The basic requirements for submitting a partner application are making a fairly significant jump. Previously you needed 300 followers and 30 people active in your chat on a regular basis. This is increasing from May 15 to 750 followers and 50 people in chat.
There's an important fact that needs highlighting as well. If you were on Beam prior to March 15 of this year, then you have until August 15 to hit the old requirements. So get grinding.
So Beam is making it harder for us, then?
Yes and no. More challenging is probably a better term, but at the same time the Partner Program will be adding new features that make it more worthwhile. Some of these haven't yet been announced, but one recent example is that Beam Partners can now be found in the Xbox Community Calendar, a great way of promoting their streams and growing the audience even further.
More recently you may have started seeing Beam streamers featured on the main Xbox One dashboard. This is another perk to partnership, and there are more to come.
Each Beam Partner application will still be processed in the same way as before, there's just a higher threshold to reach before you should be submitting your application. For more information hit the link below.
The full details on changes to Beam's Partner Program
