The StreamElements Tipping system currently allows receiving donations with either Pay Pal or SE.Pay! Here, we will go over the tipping page setup and settings, including additional information about SE.Pay and common questions and issues creators might stumble upon while using the tipping system
The first step, of course, would be initially setting up your tipping page and panel, which means generating your tipping page link and creating a Twitch 'Donate' panel that will redirect users to your StreamElements tipping page. This happens as part of the initial setup process you can review here.
Important to take into consideration when it comes to PayPal:
For your donations to trigger alerts, your tipping page must be set up and linked in your channel and an alertbox must be configured with the tip alert type enabled. From there, as long as the tip was given via the tipping page and the transaction was successful, the donation will trigger the alert.
Indications for a successful transaction would show in your Revenue History and in turn, your Activity Feed.
For tips given via PayPal, we have no involvement in the processing of the payment - we receive the confirmation of a successful transaction once a tip was given through the tipping page, and list it in your activity feed and revenue history (and of course, the alert is triggered at that stage).
If users say they've tipped through your tipping page but nothing happened - check if you see any indication of that in the pages mentioned above. If the tip isn't listed there, it was either not given through your tipping page or the transaction wasn't fully processed yet\ was refused.
Also, please note that each streaming platform has its own tipping link in our system. There is no option to 'combine' these tipping pages as they are meant to be separate; each tipping link used only while streaming under its respective platform and shared only on that platform's channel.
The Revenue History page
There are several tabs available in the Revenue History page that show different information of events that took place in your channel:
Tip List - Pretty self explanatory! You can see the list of tippers based on a time frame you can filter by. You'll see the tipping method (Pay Pal or SE.Pay) and you will be able to search by username, email or message, just select what to filter by in the left dropdown, and enter the text in the right field -
You can also export a CSV file of that list. Clicking 'Export CSV' will start a download of a CSV file containing your username, dates that were selected in that page, and these fields:
Date, Transaction ID, Provider, Amount, Currency, Tipper and Email.
You can edit each tip, delete it from the list, or block the user -
Blocking the user would prevent them from tipping via your tipping page.
Top Tippers - Here you will see your all time top tippers! Ordered by amount (highest to lowest) and including the total tipped amount, average tip amount and total tips given!
Cheers list - You can sort it by date or amount, filter by username and period. It will show all the cheers that were received in the channel since the account was created (at least 2 years back).
Top Cheerers - Pretty self explanatory too. A list of top cheeres showing their overall amounts!
Income Report will allow you to generate a monthly based income report that includes your business name, address and Tax number (you'll need to fill it up there). Simply save that information, select the month, and press 'Download'!
Merch History will let you review your previous income from merch!
An additional possible tab would be the Payments tab. Depending on whether you've previously requested a merch withdrawal or had a campaign payout coming your way, you may have already set up the payments portal for them in your account (review this article to make sure). If so - that tab would also be available in the Revenue History section and would offer you tracking of payment for the above mentioned revenue generators.
To avoid confusion,
Note that the Payments tab is completely separate to SE.Pay (Adyen, see below). The payments portal is where you set up a method to be paid out to for taking advantage of the mentioned programs (SE.Merch / SE.Sponsorships) while SE.Pay is solely a method to receive tips directly to your bank account.
SE.Pay
What is SE.Pay?
SE.Pay is StreamElements' own tipping service, giving you a hassle-free way to keep the revenue rolling in. SE.Pay gives your viewers an easier way to support you, letting them use their credit cards and various other local payment options to donate tips to their favorite streamer (that’s you!)
We also don’t charge anything for chargeback claims and cover 100% of your fees in case of malicious chargebacks; we would also help you with any needed documentation.
On top of that, SE.Pay has the lowest fees in the streaming industry. These low fees are made possible thanks to the fact that StreamElements doesn’t take a cut of your tips. All of the fees are directly paid to our payment processor.
SE.Pay Advanced chargeback protection shields you from wrongful chargeback claims by pre-emptively banning those who like to file them. We maintain an ever-updating list of these bad apples and permanently ban them from donating to our users. So, we stop them in their tracks before they ever have a chance to ruin your day.
Who can use SE.Pay?
SE.PAY is available for creators who are at least 18 years old, with a bank account under their name in one of the following countries and have at least 101 followers (Twitch\ Trovo\ Facebook) or Subscribers (YouTube):
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland , Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States.
At the moment, for Twitch accounts, SE.Pay should be automatically enabled once the follower threshold is met. For the rest of the platform this requires a manual change to the account. If you meet these criteria, please reach out to us and let us know where you're from and how old you are. Include your Account ID and channel URL. We will review this request and let you know what's next!
Once enabled and you can see the SE.Pay section in your account, in order to receive tips with it and connect it to your tipping page, you need to set it up in the SE.Pay section of your dashboard.
- First, click “Create Account”
- Next, you will have to create your SE.Pay account. Choose your bank account type (individual or business) and fill in your personal details. USA based streamers will need to insert their social security number as well. If “business” bank account is selected you will need your legal business name, company registration number and your DBA (doing business as)
- Click “Submit”
- The next window is a summary of your details. Please review them carefully before confirming; editing them is only possible now, before confirming
Your account has been created, and a confirmation email will be sent to you.
Congratulations! You can now start receiving tips using SE.Pay.
After receiving your first tip with SE.Pay (the tipping method of a received donation can be confirmed in the Revenue History page), you will get an email letting you know that you will be able to set up the withdrawal and see your current balance.
Note: In addition to the verification period of documents (about 7 business days), there's also an extra period of an additional 7 business days, meant to increase the security of the account. This extra period will need to fully pass before you can make withdrawals.
- Click “Setup Withdrawal”
- You’ll need to fill in personal information such as address and phone number. StreamElements DOES NOT save your details in any way; they are used by our payment processor for verification purposes only.
Note: That is also the reason you will need to reach out to us if changing the bank details (or anything on the SE.Pay account, for that matter) is required. Just message us with your account ID and we'll be glad to help!
- Fill in your bank details for the account you want to receive payments to and click "Submit"
- Streamers from all countries other than the USA will have to insert their IBAN number as well. Confirm your bank details (or edit if needed)
Once approved (takes up to 7 business days) you can withdraw money from SE.Pay directly to your bank account! You will be able to perform a withdrawal every time you have more than $5 in your available balance.
A short explanation about the Pending status of your balance:
Please refer to the tipping fees page; compare the information you see in the Transactions tab of your SE.Pay page (displays the tips you have received and your withdrawals) with the tipping methods and settlement periods described in the fees page.
By clicking individual tips in your Transactions tab, you will be able to see the payment method used for it.
As you can see in the tipping fees link above, some payment methods have slightly longer settlement periods and can take longer to fully process.
The pending balance will automatically be removed once the tips settle and all the amount will become available to withdraw.
Now that we're all set up, it's important to mention -
Offline tips
When your SE.Pay account gets a tip at a certain amount while you're offline, we receive a notification for that. As part of our chargeback prevention we require big amounts of tips to have an alert and a clip of the alert happening on stream, and since you received this tip while being offline, this was marked as suspicious. Naturally, for offline tips no alert can be playing at the time of receiving this tip.
In such cases, your account will probably be blocked from withdrawals and we will reach out to you about this tip, asking you to provide us with a replay of the tip alert from your next live stream (since the alert from a live stream is an indication for the tip intentionally being made by the user) and more information about the tip and tipper. Whether or not that tipper previously donated, they should be made aware of the fact that offline tips are marked as suspicious and avoid tipping you while you're offline. We will then review the provided information and update you on the next steps.
Note that SE.Pay is only meant to receive donations while live streaming. Avoid receiving payments of any sorts or monetary rewards by having your SE.Pay account tipped and avoid tipping yourselves, we review and if needed block accounts that break our Terms of Services. Please review them here, with emphasis on item 7 - Tipping.
Common issues
"Form Submission Failed"
When you see this after submitting your bank details, it means that your previously submitted it and your account was never fully verified (no matter the cause). When that's the case for over 2 months, the account is automatically suspended and you won't be able to submit your bank details. Contact us with your account ID and let us know that's the error you see, and we will review and update you on the next steps!
"Personal information invalid"
There could be several reasons for this error. In general, we suggest to submit a national ID as personal identification. You can do it here if you see this error. The system requires a front and back pictures for a national ID.
All submitted images (even if passport or drivers license) should be high quality and resolution (around 1MB), no reflections on the card, and have it almost fill up the entire frame. If you're still having trouble we can assist with understanding the root cause, and even manual review and submission of the documents, feel free to reach out!
"Bank details invalid"
This can happen even if your bank details were working for a while, no reason for concern. There are occasional reviews and automatic inspection of accounts by the payments mediator, if anything is found to be out of order or out of date, this may happen. Alternatively, your account may also have went up a security tier if you've received larger amounts of donations through your SE.Pay account.
Navigate to this page and upload your up-to-date bank statement.
Since there could be several causes for this error, feel free to contact us.
General guidelines for the bank statement:
Accepted documents: Either a voided check, screenshot of online banking environment, or a stamped/signed letter from the bank.
Information on the document: Should show your bank's logo, your full name as the account owner and your account number or IBAN.
Lastly, when you see one of these issues occur, make sure all of your personal information here matches all of the data that's showing in your submitted document.
As stated, for any request that involves changing SE.Pay account details,
Reach out to us :)
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the fees?
StreamElements commits to providing the lowest fees in the industry. All the fees are available here.
What information will my viewers see?
The viewers who tip you don’t receive any of your information besides the channel name. The charge appears on their credit/debit card bill as “STREAMELEMENTS*<Your Channel Name>-tip”'
What happens with my personal information?
Besides your name and email address, none of your personal information is stored on StreamElements servers. The information submitted on these forms is sent directly to our payment processor, Adyen, for verification purposes. Adyen is a world-wide company that processes payments for companies such as Netflix, Uber, Steam and Spotify. You can read Adyen’s privacy policy here.
Why do I need to provide my Social Security Number?
Your social security number is only used to automatically verify your identity and confirm the legality of the transactions. It is sent through an SSL secured connection to our payment processor, Adyen, and is not stored on StreamElements servers. Adyen requires U.S. merchants to supply a social security number in compliance with International Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations in regards to Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and Customer Due Diligence (CDD) in order to verify that all transactions they process are not funding illegal activity or terrorism. With the exception of your name and email address which is stored by us, all financial information is securely stored by Adyen and stored with the highest security protocols in place.