Gems, Trigger Tickets and what viewers pay with

Viewers pay for Treats with one of two things. Understanding the difference is what stops you building a menu only six people can use.

Gems are the currency

Gems are what a viewer spends when they want to support you with something more than attention. They are bought, and they are the reason Gleem can pay you anything at all.

Gems can be obtained in more than one place — on the web, and through the Twitch extension using Bits. Where a viewer's gems came from matters more than you would expect, and the details are in the Gems Usage Policy. For building a menu, the thing to know is simply that gems are the paid route.

Price your Treats in gems the way you would price anything: the number is a signal about effort, not just a transaction. A Treat priced at a level nobody picks is telling you something, and so is one that gets picked constantly.

Trigger Tickets are the free route

Trigger Tickets are passes you hand out. You set the rules for how viewers earn them — most commonly by redeeming Twitch channel points, which viewers accumulate simply by watching.

Tickets exist because a menu that only accepts money is a menu almost nobody tries. Channel points cost a viewer nothing but time, and time is the thing your audience is already spending. A ticket is how somebody discovers that requesting a Treat is fun, and that discovery is what makes them consider spending gems later.

Set up your ticket rules on the Rules & Tickets page in your dashboard, then make sure at least your cheapest Treat accepts them.

Why you want both

The two do different jobs and neither replaces the other.

Tickets get people through the door. They turn a passive viewer into someone who has used your menu once — and someone who has used it once knows what it feels like. Without a free route, the first step is also the most expensive one, and most people do not take it.

Gems are how the people who want to support you actually do it. Some of your audience genuinely wants to give you money and would rather get something small and specific in return than drop an anonymous tip. A Treat is a much easier thing to buy than a donation, because it is a named thing with a clear outcome.

A menu with only gems gets used by your most committed handful. A menu with only tickets is a very elaborate way of doing requests for free. You want both, and you want the cheap end of your menu reachable by ticket.

Refunds return what was spent

When you refund a request, the viewer gets back exactly what they paid with. A gem-paid request returns gems; a ticket-paid request returns the ticket. This is worth knowing because it removes the last reason to hesitate over refunding something: nobody is out of pocket, in either direction.

A sane default to start with

• Your cheapest Treat accepts Trigger Tickets. This is the on-ramp and it should be genuinely easy to reach.
• Your middle Treats are priced in gems, at a level where somebody who enjoys your stream would not think twice.
• Your most expensive Treat is priced for the effort it actually costs you, and you should be entirely comfortable with someone buying it.

Then watch for a week. If nothing is ever bought with gems, your prices are probably not the problem — the menu is. If everything is bought with tickets and never with gems, your channel point rules may be too generous, or your gem tier may not be offering anything people want more.

Next: getting the menu in front of viewers, on your Twitch panel and your overlay.