YouTube Just Made It Harder to Earn Money as a Creator

YouTube is implementing stricter criteria for creators to start earning revenue on the platform, according to recent changes announced on February 1. Starting this date, new creators must accumulate 8,000 qualified watch hours within the past year, or 20 million qualified Shorts views over the previous 90 days, to begin monetization from ads and subscriptions.

The previous thresholds were considerably lower, requiring 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over a year, or 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views over a 90-day period. YouTube maintains that these adjustments will not impact creators already part of the YouTube Partner Program. In addition, a new requirement has been introduced for creators earning revenue through the Shorts Creators Pool, mandating a minimum of 10 million Shorts views within a 90-day period to continue earning from this program.

Channels that fall below this threshold will remain in the YouTube Partner Program and can still earn through long-form content. However, Shorts revenue will resume once these channels reach 10 million views again. These higher requirements could pose challenges for both newcomers to YouTube's monetization system and existing Shorts creators looking to sustain their earnings.

With the increased thresholds in place, creators will need to continuously attract substantial audiences to earn money from the platform. YouTube cites the platform's rapid growth, with over 200 billion daily Shorts views and one billion hours of watch time on TVs daily, as the reason for these adjustments. Furthermore, YouTube has announced the expansion of its Premium Lite subscription service to all countries where YouTube Premium is available.

Creators will receive a portion of subscription revenue based on member watch time and views, with 55% going to long-form video creators and 45% to Shorts creators. YouTube estimates that creators can anticipate higher earnings as more users subscribe to Premium, as partners typically earn more when users watch through a Premium subscription compared to advertisements.

Premium Lite offers an ad-free viewing experience, allows users to download videos for offline consumption, and enables background viewing.