YouTube is making it harder for creators to start earning money

By

Sydney Bradley

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Do you dream of making money as a content creator?

Well, it's about to get harder to qualify for YouTube's program that pays creators.

YouTube announced on Monday that it's raising the entry requirements for the main tier of its YouTube Partner Program (YPP), the video platform's advertising revenue-sharing program.

"The biggest changes are on what it takes to earn from ads rev-share," Amjad Hanif, YouTube's VP of creator product, said in a video about the changes.

The updates will particularly affect Shorts creators, who publish short-form content to YouTube.

Before you panic: "If you are in YPP today, you stay in YPP," Hanif said.

Here are the key changes affecting creators — which will go into effect on February 1:

• Creators who post long-form videos (aka not TikTok-style Shorts) now need 8,000 "qualified watch hours" in the last 12 months when applying to YouTube's ad revenue share program. Previously, that number was 4,000 "qualified watch hours." Creators will still need at least 1,000 subscribers to qualify.
• For creators mostly posting shorter-form content, they can qualify for YouTube's Shorts revenue-share program if they have 20 million "qualified Shorts views" within the last 90 days, also doubling the requirement (which was previously 10 million views). Creators will still need at least 1,000 subscribers.
• Once accepted, Shorts creators will also need to stay within the 10 million views threshold over the 90-day period to keep making money. (They'll be able to earn money from long-form videos even if they drop below the Shorts threshold, though.)
• YouTube is "broadening revenue opportunities" with new initiatives like incentive-based payouts for milestones, shopping bonuses, and "earning boosts for starting and growing trends." YouTube said it wants to diversify its creator monetization offerings so that the program isn't "relying solely on ad revenue."

Creator Austen Tosone told Business Insider that the changes could make it "so much tougher for small creators," adding that many creators already find monetizing their long-form video content challenging.

YouTube's Hanif said the platform is making the adjustments because of the "growth of the creator ecosystem over the last several years."

The creator economy looks very different than it did in 2018, when YouTube last updated its monetization requirements for long-form videos. Now, the program has 3 million creators. (YouTube's program launched in 2007, making it almost old enough to drink in the US.)

The rise of short-form videos, for which YouTube introduced a permanent revenue-sharing model in 2023, has also changed the platform.

Hanif pointed to the wide variability in views on short-form videos that creators encounter when he explained the requirement to maintain 10 million qualified views.

"We had a case where if you had only a few thousand views, you might have a few cents for that month," he said. "Instead, we'd like to design the program in a way where it rewards creators who are leaned in, who are driving views and engagement."

In other words, you won't be able to keep making money if you're a one-hit wonder with a viral video. You're going to have to keep those viral hits coming in order to cash out.

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Sydney Bradley

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Sydney Bradley has been covering media and tech for Business Insider since 2020. She breaks news and writes extensively about Instagram and Facebook, as well as new social media startups, dating apps, the creator economy, venture capital, and tech culture.She regularly contributes to BI's "After Hours" series, where our reporters dive into the social scenes shaping tech, media, and finance.Sydney's reporting on Instagram was nominated as a finalist for the 2021 Los Angeles Press Club National Entertainment Journalism Awards.She graduated from the University of Virginia with a degree in American Studies. You can follow Sydney's work on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram at @sydneykbradley.Have a tip? You can also contact her via encrypted messaging app Signal (@sydneykbradley.123), encrypted email ([email protected]), or standard email ([email protected]). Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.Selected stories:

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