YouTube tightens conditions: It will be harder for new creators to earn money
The video giant is significantly raising the entry threshold for the partner program: starting in February, new creators will be required to accumulate 8,000 watch hours or 20 million views on Shorts. At the same time, the company is expanding Premium Lite and setting a new bar for revenue from short videos.
Earning money from YouTube is about to become a more difficult task. The company announced that starting February 1, it will significantly raise the entry threshold for its partner program, the YouTube Partner Program, in a move expected to primarily affect new creators and those who rely on Shorts videos.
According to the new terms, creators who want to start earning from ads and subscriptions on the platform will need to accumulate at least 8,000 eligible watch hours during the last 12 months, or reach 20 million eligible views on Shorts videos within 90 days. Currently, the threshold stands at 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the last year, or 1,000 subscribers and 10 million views on Shorts within 90 days.
In other words, at least as far as viewing volumes are concerned, YouTube is doubling the threshold for new creators. However, the company emphasizes that the change will not apply to creators who are already members of the partner program.
The change does not end with the entry conditions. YouTube also announced that creators will need to maintain at least 10 million views on Shorts during a 90-day period to continue earning through the Shorts creator revenue pool. Channels that fall below this threshold will not be removed from the partner program and will be able to continue earning from long-form content, but their revenue from Shorts will be paused until they cross the 10 million view threshold again.
YouTube explains the move by the platform's massive growth. According to the company, YouTube already records more than 200 billion views on Shorts daily, and at the same time more than a billion daily watch hours on televisions.
For creators, the meaning is clear: the path to revenue is becoming more competitive. The high threshold requires new creators to bring in a large audience consistently even before they can start enjoying revenue from the platform. For Shorts creators, the challenge is particularly great, because it is not enough to reach a high volume of views once - it must also be maintained to continue receiving revenue from the short videos.
Alongside the tightening of conditions, YouTube is also expanding another source of income for creators. The company announced that Premium Lite, the cheaper version of its subscription service, will be expanded to all countries where YouTube Premium is available.
Creators receive a portion of subscription revenue based on watch time and the number of views by service members. According to YouTube, 55% of relevant revenue is passed to long-form video creators and 45% to Shorts creators. The company claims that on average, partners earn more when a user joins Premium than when that same user watches ads.
The move by YouTube comes at a time when competitors are also changing the way they reward creators. Over the weekend, X, owned by Elon Musk, changed its payment program and decided to focus on rewarding original content only. Earlier this year, Facebook also launched a new monetization program designed to attract creators from competing platforms, including TikTok and YouTube.
