Ed Craven discloses Kick will start running ads, tells viewers to "enjoy ad-free experience while it lasts"

On December 14, 2025, Kick Streaming CEO Ed Craven announced that the platform would be introducing in-stream advertisements. So far, the website has displayed only banner ads on its homepage. These aren’t typical pre-roll or mid-stream ads like on Twitch or YouTube, but they are official ad placements on the platform itself.

In a recent interview, Craven spoke about including in-stream advertisments to the platform "at some point":

"Kick will have ads at some point...so enjoy the ad-free experience while it lasts. At some point, Kick will have to add ads."

These advertisements will supposedly run automatically within streams, in formats like pre-rolls or mid-rolls that viewers must watch. This change is noteworthy, particularly because a large portion of the appeal behind Kick is that the platform, at this stage, does not hamper the viewer experience with ads.

In late 2023, popular Fortnite Tfue creator praised Kick for not running ads, saying:

"I mean, 95-5 is all cool and all but, my favorite thing about Kick, this is no bullshi*t and it is one the main reason I signed up in the first place... but one of the main reasons I like the platform is because there's not ads. I f*cking hate ads, bro."

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"At the moment, Kick loses a little bit of money": Ed Craven speaks on how Kick loses money by not running advertisements

Ed Craven continued with the discussion by suggesting that advertisements would be required to prevent the platform from losing money, while repeating that viewers should enjoy the ad-free experience while they have it:

"At the moment, Kick loses a little bit of money, and, sure, that's whatever, right? At some point, it does need to have ads. Enjoy it while they're off. There's no release date at the moment."

Further, he went on to speak on the challenges with introducing ads, specifically in relation to the viewer experience:

"They're gonna come. The goal for Kick is to add ads in a way that isn't overly intrusive and doesn't really kill that viewer experience. That's a challenge to us... adding ads in a way that doesn't completely destroy your ability to enjoy a live stream."

Ed Craven then assured viewers that they would not be bombarded with commercials, acknowledging that a significant part of users are attracted to the platform because of zero advertisement interruptions:

"Leave that with us, we are very conscious, we can't just throw a thousand ads at people and just assume they're gonna stick around... We know a big part of why people use Kick is because of the lack of ads."

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In other news, Kick CEO Ed Craven responded to allegations that streamers' payouts have been reduced, claiming that "payouts are only reduced when underlying views aren't truly authentic."

Edited by Vishnu Menon