What the username colours in a Chaturbate chat room mean

The colour of a name in a Chaturbate chat room tells you one of two things: what that person is, or how much they have tipped in the last two weeks. Orange is the broadcaster, red is a moderator and green is a fan club member. Everything else is a tipping tier that decays — purple, blue and grey describe recent spending, not standing, and they slide back down when the spending stops.

There is a third thing the ladder does not tell you, and it is the one worth knowing: a colour can be turned down but not up. So a grey name means almost nothing, while a dark purple one means quite a lot.

The full ladder

• Orange — the broadcaster, in their own room.
• Red — a moderator. Appointed by the broadcaster, and able to silence anyone in the chat for up to six hours. Broadcasters set how long someone holds the role, anywhere from a day to six months.
• Green — a fan club member, subscribed to that particular broadcaster.
• Dark purple — has tipped at least 1,000 tokens in the past two weeks.
• Light purple — at least 250 tokens in the past two weeks.
• Dark blue — at least 50 tokens in the past two weeks.
• Light blue — owns tokens, or has bought some at any point.
• Grey — has an account, and no tokens.

Orange, red and green are roles and do not expire on a timer. The four below them are counters.

What each tier actually costs

The thresholds are quoted in tokens, which makes them hard to read. Converted at the network's own pack prices, the cheapest route to each colour is:

• Dark blue, 50 tokens — one 50-token pack, $6.99. That is the cheapest coloured name on the site.
• Light purple, 250 tokens — a 200-pack and a 50-pack together, $27.98.
• Dark purple, 1,000 tokens — exactly the 1,000-token pack, $79.99. Bought fifty at a time instead it is $139.80, because the small packs cost nearly 14 cents a token against 8 cents in the largest.

So a dark purple name in a chat room represents somewhere between eighty and a hundred and forty dollars spent in a fortnight. The broadcaster received $50 of that, since tokens are worth a flat 5 cents each to them — the rest is the network's margin, which token prices sets out in full.

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Two things that break the inference

The tiers decay. The window is a rolling two weeks, so the colours describe current activity and nothing else. Someone who spent heavily last month and stopped is not purple today. Someone who is purple today may be blue a fortnight from now without having changed anything about themselves. Read a colour as "this person is spending at the moment", not "this person is important".

You can cap your own colour. The gear tab in any chat room lets you choose the highest colour you are willing to display, and the setting only works downward. You can present as less than you have spent; you cannot present as more.

That asymmetry is the useful part. A dark purple name is reliable, because nobody can fake their way up to it. A grey or light blue name is not evidence of anything at all — it may be someone who has never bought a token, or someone who has bought a great many and would rather not advertise it. Anyone reading the room to decide who matters is reading a signal that half the room can switch off.

The rung below the ladder

The colours only apply to people who are signed in. Watching without an account puts you in the viewer count and nowhere else: no name in the chat, no colour, nothing for anyone in the room to read. The chat is the only place the ladder exists.

That is worth knowing in both directions. If you want to say something, you need an account, and the account is free. If you would rather be in the room without being in the room, closing the chat is not necessary — not signing in already does it. Watching privately goes through what is and is not visible at each step.

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What it is for

For a viewer, the colours answer practical questions quickly. Red is the person who can silence you. Orange is the person you came for. Green marks the regulars who have already subscribed, which is a fair indication of whether a room has an established audience or is having a quiet night with strangers.

For a broadcaster, it is a read on the room. Purple names are the people currently spending, anywhere on the site rather than only in your room, and green names are your own fan club. A room full of grey is not necessarily a room with no money in it — see above — but it is usually a room of people who have just arrived.

None of it is a measure of a person. It is a measure of two weeks of transactions, which is all any of these colours have ever claimed to be.