Giveaways
A giveaway gives your viewers something to chase. They enter with a chat command, with channel points, or both. When you are ready, Community picks the winners fairly, and your overlay shows who won.
Giveaways are built into Community. You run them from one page, your moderators can run them too, and a Flow can run a past one again.
Where to find it
Open Giveaways in the sidebar. Only one giveaway can run in your channel at a time.
By default your moderators can run giveaways. This is the Run giveaways permission, and you can change it on the Permissions page.
Set up the channel point reward
Skip this if you only want a chat command.
On the Giveaways page, find Channel point reward and fill in:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Name | The reward's title on Twitch. It starts as "Giveaway ticket". |
| Cost (channel points) | What one ticket costs. |
| Description | The reward's prompt. Optional. |
Choose Create reward. Later, Save reward applies any changes.
The reward starts off. It only turns on for viewers while a giveaway that takes channel points is open, and it turns off again when entries close. A chat-only giveaway never touches it.
You can see the reward on the Channel Points page too, linked back to Giveaways.
Start a giveaway
Fill in New giveaway and choose Open giveaway.
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Prize | What you are giving away. Shown in chat and on stream. |
| Chat command and Command word | Viewers type this word to enter. You pick the word, with or without the !. |
| Channel points | Viewers redeem your reward to buy tickets. |
| Most tickets bought per viewer | A cap on bought tickets. Empty means no cap. |
| Winners | How many winners to draw. |
| Close after (minutes) | Closes entries by itself. Empty means you close it yourself. |
| Skip recent winners (days) | People who won here in the last few days cannot win again. Empty means anyone can. |
| Minimum follow age (days) | See Minimum follow age. |
Turn on at least one way to enter. Channel points stay greyed out until you have made the reward.
A command word cannot be one of Community's own chat commands, because that command would fire for every entrant.
Tickets
- Typing the chat command gives one free ticket. Typing it again does nothing.
- Each channel point redeem buys one more ticket.
More tickets mean better odds. Because redeems keep adding tickets, a long giveaway keeps viewers watching all stream.
If a redeem does not count, the viewer gets their points back. That happens when the giveaway is closed, channel points are not part of it, the viewer hit the ticket cap, you removed them, or they are too new a follower.
Chat announcements
Community can post to chat when a giveaway opens, as a reminder, when it is about to close, when entries close, and when winners are drawn. Under Chat announcements you can edit the wording of each one. Leave one empty to turn it off.
Use these placeholders in your wording:
| Placeholder | Becomes |
|---|---|
{prize} | The prize. |
{entry} | How to enter, such as "To enter, type !win in chat." It only names the ways this giveaway takes. |
{count} | The number of entrants. |
{time} | The time left. |
{winners} | The winners' names. |
Viewers can also type !giveaway in chat to hear the prize and how to enter.
Entering is silent. Replying to every entrant would flood chat and hit Twitch's message limits, so Community posts one rolled-up line every few seconds instead, such as "@a, @b and 47 others joined, 312 tickets in".
Minimum follow age
Set Minimum follow age (days) to keep brand new followers from winning. Read these first:
- Checked when a winner is drawn.
- Unfollowing and following again resets the date.
- Chat entrants who are too new are skipped at the draw.
- Channel point buyers who are too new get their points back.
If Community cannot check follows yet, the setting is greyed out and says Reconnect Twitch to use this. Reconnect your Twitch account to grant the permission.
If Twitch cannot answer when you draw, the draw stops and the giveaway stays closed. Try again in a moment. A hiccup never knocks out a real winner.
Run it
While a giveaway is running, the page shows its Entrants and Tickets, and the time left if it closes by itself.
- Entrants lists everyone in. Search by name, and choose Remove beside someone to take them out. A removed viewer cannot come back in, and their later redeems are refunded. Tickets they already bought stay spent.
- Close entries stops new entries but does not pick anyone yet.
- Draw winners picks the winners. Close and draw winners does both in one go while entries are still open.
- End giveaway finishes it, so you can start another.
Draws happen on Community's server, weighted by tickets, and a winner is never picked twice. People who are banned, too new as followers, or recent winners (if you set those rules) are skipped.
If nobody is eligible, the draw finishes with no winners and tells you so.
Redraw a winner
If a winner cannot take the prize, choose Redraw beside them. They are marked Forfeited and stay on the list, greyed out, and they can never be picked again. A new winner is drawn in their place.
Use Copy name to copy a winner's Twitch name so you can message them.
History
Past giveaways are listed under History with their winners.
- Download CSV gives you one row per entrant: login, display name, chat ticket, bought tickets, total tickets, when they first entered, and the outcome (winner, forfeited, removed or none).
- Run again opens a new giveaway with the same settings.
- Edit and run again lets you change the settings first.
Show it on stream
Add the Giveaway Group widget to your overlay in the Overlay Editor. See Widgets if you have not added one before.
The Giveaway Group shows what is inside it only while a giveaway is running, then hides it a moment after it ends. Its settings:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Stay after it ends | How long it stays up after the giveaway ends. |
| Fade duration | How long it takes to fade in and out. |
| Invert (show while no giveaway runs) | Shows its contents only when no giveaway is running. |
It comes with a Giveaway Panel already inside, so it works straight away. The panel shows:
- the prize;
- how to enter, naming only the ways this giveaway takes;
- entrant and ticket counts;
- a countdown, when the giveaway closes by itself;
- the most recent entrants;
- a name roll that lands on each winner, then holds them on screen.
Turn each part on or off under Show. Under Reveal, set the Roll time and how long to Hold the winner. Under Look, change the font, colours, sizes and alignment. For a backdrop, put a Colour widget behind the panel.
If your overlay reloads mid-giveaway, it picks up where it was.
Flows
Giveaways work with Flows.
| Trigger | When it fires |
|---|---|
| Giveaway opened | A giveaway opened for entries. Outputs the prize and chat command. |
| Giveaway closed | Entries closed, by hand or by the timer. Outputs the prize, entrants and tickets. |
| Giveaway winner drawn | A winner was picked, once per pick. Outputs the prize, the winner's login and name, their tickets, and Replaced. |
| Giveaway ended | The giveaway ended. Outputs the prize, entrants and tickets. |
Replaced is the forfeited winner's login after a redraw, and empty otherwise.
| Step | What it does |
|---|---|
| Run giveaway again | Opens a copy of a past giveaway. Pick it in Past giveaway. |
| Close giveaway | Closes entries. |
| Draw giveaway winners | Draws the winners, closing first if needed. |
| Redraw giveaway winner | Replaces the winner whose login you give it. |
| End giveaway | Ends the giveaway. |
A Flow cannot open a brand new giveaway. Use the page for that, or Run giveaway again for one you have run before.
Every step has Done and Reason outputs. If a step cannot do its job, Done is false and Reason says why, so you can check it with an If.
Troubleshooting
I cannot turn on Channel points
Make the reward first, under Channel point reward.
The reward is gone
If you deleted the reward on Twitch, a giveaway cannot open with channel points. Create the reward again.
Opening says the command is taken
Your command word matches one of Community's own commands. Pick another word.
Minimum follow age is greyed out
Reconnect your Twitch account, then try again.