Advertising on Kick: what brands can buy and how

For years, the answer to “can you advertise on Kick?” was “only through streamers.” That changed in August 2026: on 5 August, NetInfluencer reported that Kick had launched Kick Ads, opening the platform to advertisers for the first time since it was founded more than three and a half years earlier.

What has changed

Until then, Kick showed no ads. On 11 August, Tubefilter reported that Kick had launched ads in its live streams. According to the same article, creators had earned through an incentive program tied to watch time, and CEO Ed Craven had confirmed in December 2025 that ads would come at some point. The ads interrupt the broadcast, and Kick tells creators to expect breaks of varying length.

What Kick says about its ads

NetInfluencer adds a few details about how Kick presents the move. Kick says it hired advertising specialists from Google, Spotify, Omnicom and Seven Network to build the ads platform and its service model. Ryan Webb, its Head of Growth & Revenue, says the company waited to introduce ads until it had built lasting trust with its audience, and that viewers take part through chat rather than watching in the background. Kelly Lenihan, the Global Advertising Lead, pitches live streaming to advertisers whose audiences spend less time with traditional media: brands, she says, are not simply buying impressions but becoming part of communities and conversations. In April, co-founder Bijan Tehrani said Kick had rushed to market and spent the three years since rebuilding its infrastructure while the platform kept running.

Tubefilter adds that Kick says its ads can reach Gen Z viewers who are hard to reach, and asks creators to report inappropriate ads. For badly timed interruptions it points to the stream rewind feature it introduced in 2025. The same article notes that Twitch has had to give streamers more control over ad breaks and manage how long interruptions last.

Who you reach

These are figures from Kick itself, and they should be read as such:

• More than 100 million active users; 81.7% of the audience is aged 18 to 34.
• Kick added 39 million users in 2025 and 27 million in the first half of 2026.
• More than 1.5 billion hours watched in the second quarter of 2026 and more than 41,000 creators streaming every month.
• 48% of the content is gaming and 37% is talk shows, podcasts and IRL streams.
• Kick says it is the top live-streaming platform in the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America, and that it is growing in Asia, Europe and Australia.

One independent figure: according to Stream Hatchet's 2025 annual report, cited by NetInfluencer, hours watched on Kick rose 131% to 4.5 billion, the fastest growth among the major live-streaming platforms. That put Kick third in 2025, behind Twitch and YouTube Gaming.

Three ways to advertise on Kick

1. The platform's own ads (Kick Ads). This is the new channel. Beyond the ad breaks, the articles we reviewed don't detail formats or how to buy, so ask Kick directly.
2. Sponsorship with streamers. One agreement per streamer, a fixed fee and the report the creator supplies. It works well with a few channels but is hard to scale.
3. In-stream advertising. Your creative appears inside the stream and the broadcast carries on. APIQ shows it in live streams on Kick, Twitch, YouTube Live and TikTok Live and charges per verified view (CPV), with a guaranteed volume.

For more on payment models, see CPV, CPM or flat fee.

What in-stream advertising looks like on Kick

In February 2025 the Mion campaign ran a bottom banner on Twitch and Kick at the same time, across 80 streamers. It produced 182,927 verified views and 779 clicks. Kick delivered more views and Twitch a higher CTR. It ran through the streamers' overlays, not as a Kick Ads placement, and the figures come from the client report on our case studies page.

What sets this route apart from platform ads:

• You approve the list of channels before launch and can remove a streamer during the campaign.
• Channels are checked automatically: gambling and betting are excluded, and age limits, country and language are verified.
• Every view is verified with a screenshot, and on Twitch and Kick the system also checks that the link in chat has been posted and pinned.

What the public sources don't say yet

The two reports we reviewed don't say which ad formats Kick offers, how a brand buys them, what brand-safety or targeting controls advertisers get, which markets the product covers or whether there are pilot advertisers. Where the sources are silent, ask Kick, and read its audience figures as the platform's own numbers.

What to ask before you buy on Kick

• Which formats are available and how are they bought?
• How is a view counted and which views are billed?
• How is the audience split by country and language?
• Which channels will your brand run on, and can you exclude the ones you don't want?
• What proof do you get for each view: a total figure or a screenshot?

And on Twitch

Most brands start on Twitch, and much of the playbook carries over: we cover it in Advertising on Twitch and, for working with creators, in Influencer marketing on Twitch. The campaigns we have run, with their figures, are on the case studies page.