Starting this month, Twitch is offering more flexibility to their subscription model. The beta will introduce the option to subscribe for $9.99 or $24.99 in addition to the current $4.99 subscription. As this is a beta, broadcasters will be required to opt into the program and they’ll be adding in applicants on a rolling basis before opening this up to all partnered casters in a few weeks. In addition to these new subscription options, there’s a whole host of other awesome features being introduced.

New Emote Tiers

The requirements for broadcaster emotes is being completely revamped offering emotes spread across 50 tiers instead of the previous 14. Emotes will now unlock at a more gradual pace with smaller gaps along the way. With the $9.99 and $24.99 subscription tiers being worth 2 and 6 subscriptions respectively toward your emote unlocks, you’ll be able to get new emote slots easier.

Permanent Emote Slots

Something I think every partnered broadcaster has experienced: just hitting that next emote level and then falling back below the threshold, requiring a grind just to switch out some of your old emotes. Once the beta launches, the number of emote slots unlocked will remain available permanently and eventually you’ll be able to change them up directly through your partner dashboard. This means you can focus on keeping your emotes new and engaging without needing to wait on replacing those your community doesn’t use.

New Subscriber Benefits

First time subscribers will now be able to include a message with their subscription and higher tier subscriptions will be able to unlock exclusive emotes, if the Twitch Partner has allotted emotes for the higher tiers. They’ve even included integration with the Twitch App, allowing for custom subscriber roles at the new tier levels. It’s also worth noting that Twitch has partnered third-party services such as with Streamlabs, Muxy and others to ensure support for your various on-stream notifications and overlays once the beta launches.

Twitch teased at a few more big updates coming later this year including a self-service upload tool for emotes, the ability for viewers to see the next emote to be unlocked, and (finally) the ability to gift a channel subscription to someone else!

For more information, check the Twitch Blog.