There are 2 different ways that you can receive gifted subs on Twitch. You can either have a friend purchase the Twitch gift sub for you, or you can try and be active on a channel and hope that another user sends you a subscription. There's actually an incentive for to them do this, as they can climb the chat leaderboard.
I recently was gifted a sub from one of my favorite streamers. But I didn't realize it until someone pointed it out in the chat. Turns out, another user went through random viewers and sent me the Twitch gift sub by chance. They probably did this to climb the leaderboard I was talking about.
If you'd like me to take a closer look at how exactly they did this, and a bunch of additional information on Twitch gifted subs, like how you can buy gifted subs yourself, read ahead.
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There are 2 different ways that you can receive gifted subs on Twitch. I've taken a look at both of them below.
Let's get to it.
Try and be active in the community you want to be a subscriber to. Most Twitch servers have leaderboards to keep track of who has gifted the most subs. Also, when users get high up on the leaderboard, they get a cool sub-gifter badge, which is an extra incentive.
Users don't have to copy and paste a specific viewer name into the chat to buy them a subscription. Twitch makes it easy, as there's a special sub button to scan through the chat and find a random viewer for you.
Instead of relying on a random user, you can have a friend send you a gift subscription. This could be for your birthday, or as a Christmas present. Just talk to your friends and family about the Twitch community that you want to be a subscriber to, and see if they can grant this wish.
The moment someone gifts you a sub, it will land in your account automatically. You don't have to click anything special to activate it.
As you receive gift subs automatically, you might be in a situation where you're not happy with the channel subscription that you've got.
Although you can get rid of it, keep in mind that the Twitch partners or Twitch affiliates would still keep their points on the channel leaderboard. And the Twitch streamer would still keep the cash that they received from the subscription.
Here's how gift recipients can disable gift subscriptions:
On the flipside, you might be very happy with your Twitch gifted subs and want to upgrade them. Here's how you can upgrade your gift tier:
Once you're subscribed to a Twitch streamer, you'll be able to watch their streams without ads, use their chat emotes, access their sub-only chat, and even get a cool sub-gift badge.
Also, a benefit that not many users talk about is helping out the streamer monetarily. Remember that you have to pay for gift subs, which go directly to the streamer's account.
Gifted subs on Twitch do not auto-renew. There are no charges once your subscription expires either. Now, if you really liked the Twitch gift, you can pay and continue with the subscription, or even upgrade its tier. I ran through how you can do this earlier.
On the flip side, you might be wondering how you can gift a sub to another user. You probably want to do this to climb a channel's leaderboard. Follow these steps:
So, what if you want to buy a Twitch subscription for yourself instead? Here's how you do this:
If someone bought a Twitch gift sub but it's not landing, there are a few reasons why this might be happening. First of all, the person who bought the gift may have had trouble with the payment. So, no surprise, it wouldn't land on your account.
But also, the subscription might have fallen, but some kind of bug or glitch isn't letting it be shown. You should be able to fix this by restarting your phone, or even updating the Twitch app (if you're using your mobile).
You might be able to fix the problem by refreshing the Twitch app, or page. For whatever reason, there might be some kind of issue on it that's not connecting you to their servers. On computers, you can just right-click the page, and then hit the Refresh Page button to fix this. But on phones, you'll have to force-quit the Twitch app.
Here's how you do this on Androids:
Here's what you do on iPhone X onwards:
Here's what you do for iPhone 8, and earlier models:
Restarting your phone or computer can also help. There's a chance that you're not able to gift subs or buy subscriptions because of a system problem. By restarting, you should be able to clear it if it's minor.
On Androids and iPhones, there's also something called force restarting that you can do. It's essentially a more comprehensive restart method. It should be able to clear whatever is not letting you purchase gifted subs, even if it's more hardcore.
When it comes to Androids, you usually have to press and hold the Power button for around 10 seconds. However, on iPhones, it gets a bit more complicated.
To force-reboot the iPhone 8 and later models, as well as the SE 2 and 3:
iPhone 7 and 7 Plus:
iPhone 6, 6S and SE (1st gen):
On iPads with Face ID:
On iPads with Home buttons:
You might be dealing with some kind of bug if you're still having trouble. You probably haven't updated the Twitch app in a while. So, head to your respective app store, search for Twitch, and then click the update button that's next to it.
If you're getting gift subs but only can't buy a subscription, rule out whether you're using an expired card (or any other payment method that doesn't have enough funds). Once you've got this figured out, simply swap the payment method for another from the payment page.
Also, if you were trying to buy a Twitch subscription for a couple of months, you'd have to pay quite a bit of money. I'd recommend changing the number of months that you're trying to subscribe for and seeing whether this works.
The issue might be due to some kind of app bug that Twitch is not aware of. Reach out to them and tell them about it. Hopefully, they'll get back to you soon. Also, other viewers will face the problem if this is in fact the culprit. You check whether this is the case by seeing what others are saying on social media sites, like Twitter.
Lastly, you might not be able to buy Most banks and payment services have limits to how much cash users can spend. You might have gone above this limit. There's really nothing that you can do, other than wait for it to refresh. Usually, this happens weekly or monthly.
While on the topic of waiting it out, your banks' servers might be down. You'll have to check their system status page to figure out whether this is the case. You'll have to sit back and relax until their servers are back up again. If you're impatient, you can speak to their support team and ask when the problem will be solved.
As random people can gift you subscriptions, I can understand if you find this annoying. These users are doing this solely to climb a leaderboard. So, Twitch has a feature to disable this community gifting.
Here's what you do:
There are 2 different ways that you can receive Twitch gifted subs. You can either be an active member in the community you want the sub in and hope that another user gifts you a subscription. Or, you can have a friend purchase a subscription for you, possibly for your birthday or for Christmas.
Once you're subscribed to the Twitch channel, you'll be able to watch streams without ads, use the chat emotes, get a cool sub badge, and even gain access to the sub-only mode chat. Also, when you have a gifted subscription, you help your favorite Twitch streamer monetarily.
Not only did I run through all the ways that you can get gifted subs on Twitch, but additional information, like how much Twitch gifted subs cost, how you can buy one for other users, and even what you can do if you can't buy a Twitch gift sub.
Hopefully, you found everything that was discussed useful.
