Twitch Affiliate program

Sub emote = the custom image (static or animated) that flips from locked to clickable the second a viewer pays for the Subscribe button on your channel. The classic first-time rejection is a 1.04 MB GIF nudging just over the 1 MB cap — common enough that it's worth flagging up front. Affiliates kick off with 5 static slots and 1 cheer slot; the ladder goes up to 20 combined static plus animated through Sub Points. Partners start at 6 T1 slots and the top rung is 60. Statics are PNG only with a transparent alpha. Animated stays GIF in 2026 — APNG exports from Photoshop are rejected by the Creator Dashboard uploader at the input step (verified at twitch.tv/p/partners on 2026-05). Three sizes are mandatory: 28x28, 56x56, 112x112. Each capped at 1 MB. This guide covers the slot table after the December 2023 expansion, the exact upload flow on the Creator Dashboard, the eight rejection patterns the StreamRise team sees most often kill submissions, the four emote types your viewers see in chat, and a glossary of the words that come up in any sub-emote conversation.

A Twitch Team is a Partner-only collaboration space at twitch.tv/team/<name> that groups multiple channels under one shared page, with cross-promotion to viewers when members go live. This guide covers what a Team really is, how it differs from a Discord group or a Squad Stream, who can create one in 2026, and the exact steps to join an existing Team. Examples and FAQ included.

Twitch verification is not one thing. It is at least five separate checks layered on top of each other, and most help articles online conflate them. There is the email confirmation you do at signup, the phone number you may be asked for to chat in some channels, the two-factor authentication required to broadcast, the age-assurance flow that now applies in the UK, EU and Australia, and the Persona identity check Twitch silently introduced for some Affiliate payouts in early 2026. The purple Verified badge is a sixth thing entirely, and almost no creator under 75 average viewers will ever see it.