---
title: 'Video 0ANwzKcNm8Y'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=0ANwzKcNm8Y'
video_id: '0ANwzKcNm8Y'
date: 2026-06-14
duration_sec: 0
---

# Video 0ANwzKcNm8Y

> Source: [Video 0ANwzKcNm8Y](https://youtube.com/watch?v=0ANwzKcNm8Y)

## Summary

This video provides a comprehensive, up-to-date guide on the various ways YouTube creators can monetize their content, covering ad revenue, channel memberships, super chats, affiliate marketing, and more. The host explains the requirements for each method and offers practical tips for maximizing earnings.

### Key Points

- **Ad Revenue Basics** [0:20] — YouTube pays creators 55% of ad revenue from ads on long-form videos. Requires 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours or 10 million shorts views in 90 days.
- **Ad Revenue Varies by Niche** [1:05] — CPM can range from $0.20 to $20 per 1,000 views depending on audience location and demographics. Longer videos don't guarantee more money if viewers don't watch the ads.
- **Shorts Monetization** [2:08] — Same requirements as long-form. Revenue is pooled and split among creators; pay is lower than long-form, requiring millions of views for significant income.
- **YouTube Premium Revenue** [3:14] — Creators get a cut of Premium subscription fees when Premium members watch their content. Typically accounts for 5-15% of total revenue.
- **Lower Tier Partnership Program** [4:10] — Introduced in 2023, requires 500 subscribers, 3 videos in 90 days, and 3,000 watch hours or 3 million shorts views. Unlocks fan funding but not ad revenue.
- **Channel Memberships** [4:42] — Fans pay monthly for perks like badges, emotes, and exclusive content. YouTube takes 30% cut. Tip: offer perks that don't scale with member count.
- **Super Chats and Super Stickers** [5:41] — Available during live streams. Viewers pay to highlight messages or send animated stickers. YouTube takes 30%. Small channels should acknowledge all super chats.
- **Super Thanks** [7:00] — Viewers can leave tips ($2-$500) on published videos. Available at lower partnership tier. Don't overpromote; focus on content quality.
- **YouTube Shopping** [7:46] — Tag products in videos, shorts, and live streams. Requires top-tier partnership. Can use own merch or affiliate products from brands. Commissions 5-20%.
- **YouTube Brand Connect** [8:58] — Built-in sponsorship marketplace. Brands find creators; YouTube handles contracts and payments. Provides media kit. Only accept relevant deals.
- **Affiliate Marketing** [10:52] — Promote products with unique links; earn commission on sales. No subscriber requirement. Commissions typically 5-20%. Tailor links per video for best results.
- **YouTube Gifts (formerly Jewels)** [12:42] — Virtual gifts for vertical live streams in the shorts shelf. Similar to super chats but for mobile live streams.
- **Player for Education** [13:15] — Educational partners embed content without ads; YouTube pays creators based on watch time. Still rolling out, ideal for educational creators.
- **Licensing Content** [14:04] — License unique footage to media outlets or other creators. Can be profitable for viral or niche content. Use broker services or negotiate directly.

### Conclusion

YouTube offers over a dozen monetization methods, but creators don't need to use all of them. Focus on the ones that fit your content and audience, and remember that building a successful channel takes time and effort.

## Transcript

So, you would like to make money on
YouTube? Well, so would I. And luckily
for us, YouTube is adding new ways to do
that every single year. So, I thought it
was about time for an up-to-date
monetization guide going over all the
ways YouTube currently pays creators and
how you can best use them. I will have
timestamps down below so you can skip to
the ones that you would like to learn
more about. So, let's start with the
first one, and that is ad revenue. The
most popular way people make money on
this platform, the first thing you think
about when you think making money on
YouTube is probably this method. The way
it works is that YouTube will pay you
for ads that run before, during, and
even after your videos. By the way, I'm
specifically talking about long- form
YouTube videos. We're going to get to
shorts in a little bit, but YouTube
takes 45%, you get the other 55%. And
that is like very basically how it
works. As long as you are in the partner
program, your videos will just be
monetized, and you can start to make
money simply by posting videos.
Unfortunately though, you can't turn
this one on right away. To qualify, you
need 1,000 subscribers and either 4,000
hours of watch time in the last 12
months or 10 million valid shorts views
in the last 90 days. Once you hit that
though, that is it. You are fully in the
YouTube partnership program. Now,
unfortunately, not all views in the
partnership program pay the same.
Depending on your niche and your
audience, some videos might pay $20 for
every,000 views, while other videos
might pay 20 cents for every,000 views.
So, for some creators, ad revenue, even
early on, can absolutely start paying
some bills. For others, not so much.
Like I said, it depends on audience and
it depends on your niche. If your
viewers live in a country where ad rates
are generally higher, then advertisers
will be paying more in those countries
and therefore you will get a larger
piece of the pie. But for example, if
your audience is younger and advertisers
aren't spending as much to reach that
particular audience, there's just not as
much to go around. And I want to clear
up a common myth here, too. Just because
your videos are longer doesn't mean
they're necessarily going to make more
money. Sure, you can spam ads yourself
in the video all throughout, but if you
if users aren't watching the video long
enough to even reach those points where
you've placed an ad, they're not going
to end up paying out anything. So, when
it comes to ad revenue and even getting
yourself to the level where you can earn
money from ad revenue, it's just about
making the very best videos you possibly
can and making them no shorter or no
longer than they need to be. But that is
just one piece of the puzzle. We have a
lot more methods to get to. Let's go
into shorts real quick. The requirements
for unlocking ad revenue for YouTube
shorts are exactly the same as ad
revenue for long form videos. 1,000
subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch
time or 10 million shorts views within
the last 90 days. Once you're in the
partnership program, you can earn
revenue on your shorts and you can earn
revenue from posting long form videos as
well. The way ads run on shorts is a
little bit different though. Instead of
ads being placed in the middle of a
YouTube short, ads play a lot of times
in the feed between YouTube shorts. This
means the revenue is getting split
between you and other creators in that
particular pool. And after music
licensing deals are done, you usually
end up taking away like a 45% chunk of
the money that is spent on those ads.
And I'll be honest, the pay, at least
right now, for shorts views is way lower
than it is for long form views. If
you're regularly getting 500,000 or a
million views from shorts, you're
probably not going to be quitting your
day job anytime soon. Ad rates have
gotten better, but if you're just
relying on shorts, you're going to need
millions and millions of views pretty
consistently. So, to answer the question
we get all the time, can shorts critters
really make any real money? The answer
is yes, but the bar is really high. You
need really highquality shorts that get
a lot of views. The third method on the
list is YouTube premium revenue. The
nice thing about this is that there are
no extra requirements. You just need to
be in the full YouTube partnership
program. So again, 1,000 subscribers,
4,000 hours of watch time, or 10 million
shorts views in 90 days. Boom. Partner
program. And now you're also getting
revenue from the YouTube Premium
program. Basically, when someone with
YouTube Premium watches your videos,
they're not seeing an ad, which means
there's no ad revenue to share. Instead,
you get a cut of the money that they pay
for their subscription to YouTube
Premium. But the good news about this is
that YouTube Premium viewers are
typically paying more than you would
normally get from an ad viewer. I just
want to stress that just because people
watch you with premium, it's not going
to double your YouTube ad revenue or
your YouTube income overnight. But from
what we've seen in terms of your monthly
total revenue, YouTube Premium can
represent anywhere between like 5 and
15%. Now, before we dive into the next
methods for making money, I need to
clarify a new thing that happened a
couple years ago when it comes to the
YouTube partnership program that makes
talking about this a little bit
confusing. So, in 2023, YouTube launched
a brand new type of partnership program
that is basically one step lower than
the one we've been talking about up till
now, where you need 1,000 subscribers
and 4,000 hours of watch time.
Essentially, once you hit 500
subscribers and three videos in the last
90 days and either 3,000 hours of watch
time or 3 million shorts views in the
last 90 days, you unlock fan funding.
This technically means you are in the
YouTube partnership program, but you
have not yet unlocked ad revenue methods
of making money. So, the next few
monetization methods we're going through
are going to be available to those in
that lower tier of the partnership
program. First up is channel
memberships. How they work is once you
set this up, fans of your channel can
contribute to you on a monthly basis.
And you get to set up all the different
pricing tiers for how much they pay
versus what they get in return. What
they get in return is completely up to
you. Custom badges, emotes, exclusive
videos, even exclusive live streams. All
this stuff is available for you to
decide what to give in return for this
monthly revenue. With YouTube, the cut
here is about a 7030 split. You get 70%,
YouTube gets 30%. My biggest tip if
you're setting up a membership program
is to make sure that whatever you offer
does not require any more work for you,
whether you have one member or a
thousand members. For example, I
strongly advise against a perk that
basically requires you to write a
handwritten letter to every new member
you get. Instead, doing a regular
membersonly live stream can be a great
way to give value to any amount of
members that you happen to have at that
time. To determine what perks work the
best, I would just look at other
creators in your niche to see what
they're offering, to see what the
audience of this particular niche has
come to expect from different membership
programs. Next up, I'm going to combine
these two, super chats and super
stickers. These unlock at that 500 sub
tier of the partnership program. And the
way it works is that super chats
basically exist while you're live.
People can give you a certain amount of
money. They can write a message and that
message will appear big and colorful in
the chat. It'll also pin itself to the
top depending on how much they donated.
That will determine how long it kind of
stays pinned to your chat. I've seen
people spend a couple bucks just to say
hello or ask a question real quick all
the way to $100 just because people
really enjoy supporting their favorite
creators while they're live. YouTube
takes its 30% cut of these as well, but
they can be really great if you have an
engaged audience who wants to support
you financially. Super stickers are
basically the same thing, but they're a
great alternative for someone who wants
to support you, but they don't really
want to write a message. And what'll
happen is they send one and it's this
little animated gift that's just kind of
hanging out in chat for a little while.
Can small channels benefit from this?
Absolutely. Even if you cater to 10 or
20 viewers, you might have people who
are willing and able to super chat to
you. My tip to you is to make sure you
thank people who send you super chats.
If they ask a question, absolutely
answer that question. If you've ever
been in a really large live stream with
like thousands of people chatting, you
might notice those creators don't really
get to all their super chats, that is
simply because some of them just make a
lot of money and get a lot of super
chats all at once and it becomes very
difficult to keep up. That does not mean
you should follow that example. If you
are a small channel and you have the
ability to keep up with your super
chats, you should absolutely do so.
Number seven is also in the super
category, but this time it's called
super thanks. They're unlocked at that
lower level tier of the partnership
program. And basically the way they work
is if you have a video you've posted,
somebody can leave a super thanks
comment on the video. They're allowed to
give anywhere between $2 all the way up
to $500. And before you ask, no, I've
not personally seen anybody give a $500
super thanks. But let me know in the
comments if you have. If this is a
feature you have, but you're finding
people aren't using it. I would say not
to push too hard, but maybe once in a
while let people know that if they
appreciate the content you're making,
they can maybe leave a super thanks down
below just to, you know, show their
appreciation. Personally though, if I
were to ask someone to do anything, it
would probably be to get them to watch
another video. I think that's them being
more likely to support me in the future
rather than using my one ask per video
if I have that on Super. Thanks. Number
eight is YouTube shopping. Think of it
as YouTube's version of Tik Tok shop.
This one's pretty new, but right now you
can attach products to videos, shorts,
live streams, and people can actually
find and buy those products from
YouTube's page, and they don't have to
Google anything. If someone does that,
you get a cut of that sale. To have
access to this feature though, you need
to be in the top tier partnership
program, that 1,000 subscriber, 4,000
hour threshold. From there, you can set
up a shop through Shopify, Spreadshirt,
FourthWall, or a service like that. From
there, you can tag products directly
within your content, and you can even
set up a store tab on your YouTube
channel. Do you have to have your own
merch to use the shopping feature? No,
actually, you do not. You can actually
tag approved products from different
brands, and you can earn commissions off
those sales. In fact, YouTube even has
an affiliate program that offers
creators with 15,000 subs or more to get
paid 5 to 20% commissions every time
their audience buys something. The tip
here that I have for you is to make sure
if you're using this that the product
you're pitching is relevant to your
audience. Fitness creators who tag a
resistance band, yeah, that seems to
make sense. A gaming channel all of a
sudden pitching you to buy a blender,
not so much. This is a relatively new
feature, and I would argue it's kind of
underused at the moment, so it could be
a huge opportunity to make some money.
But I would also caution that it's not
the beall endall. Number nine is YouTube
Brand Connect. And this is where we get
into sponsored content. This though is a
built-in service that YouTube actually
runs where brands can come to you and
offer you different deals for pitching
their products or services in your
videos. Instead of you reaching out to
brands yourself, YouTube can set up the
connection for you. Basically, what you
get from turning this on are more
opportunities because there are already
brands who are looking for creators in
your niche to promote their products or
services. and YouTube is letting them
use this tool to find you for you. You
get all these different tools that allow
you to accept offers, manage the
campaigns. You can even get your creator
brief inside of YouTube Studio. Another
thing you get is the custom media kit.
And this could be something that you can
basically print out from YouTube. And it
has all of your channel metrics on there
that a brand would be interested in. And
from there, you can bring that to brands
yourself to prove where you're at on
YouTube right now in terms of how many
views you get, your demographics, things
like that. In short, Brand Connect is
here to take the headache away from
finding brand deals and sponsorships.
The contracts are standardized, the
payments all go through YouTube, and you
get to find sponsors without actually
having to go and hunt for them. If this
is something you decide to use though
and you qualify for it, I'm going to
caution you not to just take any brand
deal just because you have the
opportunity to. If you're a cooking
channel, maybe promoting board games is
not the right fit. A good example,
though, is that if you were a channel
that perhaps educated people on how to
grow on YouTube and you happen to have a
product that also helped people grow
their channels and it happened to be
called Vid IQ, then maybe that would be
like a good fit. And then what you could
do is like on every video you could like
leave a link to that thing at the bottom
and tell people it's like free. You can
just try it and yeah there are paid
tools too that kind of unlock a lot for
you and it can it could really offer a
lot of insights and value and you know
you could say the link is down below and
it offers an exclusive deal to people
who watch your videos. You'd say things
like that, right? And it would provide
value to the the audience because it'd
be a good fit because you would be a
YouTube education channel providing an
education product. Anyway, it's a great
way to land sponsorship deals, but just
like every good way to make money, it
can be used incorrectly. So, make sure
you're taking deals that make sense.
Number 10 is affiliate marketing. And I
have talked about this already in this
video, but this is specifically
affiliate marketing outside of YouTube.
What's nice about this is that you can
turn this on tomorrow. If you have zero
subscribers, you can start affiliate
marketing today. The way it works is you
recommend a product, you provide a
unique link, people click that link, you
get a commission if they happen to buy
something. It really depends on which
affiliate programs you join, but
commissions can range from like 5% to
20%. A common question here is, "Okay,
should I just join the Amazon affiliate
program?" And you can, but it's not
necessarily for everybody. A lot of
different brands have affiliate
programs. One you've probably seen a
lot, for example, are the different VPN
companies. If tech channels happen to
talk about a VPN, they'll usually be
affiliated with one of the many that
there are. If you happen to be a YouTube
education channel that educates people
on how to grow on YouTube, maybe maybe
you would join the Vid IQ affiliate
program, which is actually a thing. And
you know, find out more information
about that link down below. My tip for
you is of course not to just say link
down below, but to actually show the
thing that you are affiliated with. Show
yourself using it and show your audience
how this thing can provide value to
them. This is especially powerful for
channels who do any kind of product
reviews or things like that. Very often,
if they are in the Amazon affiliate
program, they'll have affiliate links
and you've probably clicked on some
yourself. I've done so for sure. It's a
great way to kind of support the creator
who just showed you this cool thing
while not actually giving them any extra
money, right? You're going to buy it
anyway. Why not give them a cut? I would
say if this is something you're going to
do, I would tailor your links on a per
video basis. If in this video you're
using a specific piece of gear or a
product or a service, then maybe that's
the time to put that affiliate link in.
And you can join a lot of different
affiliate programs and use the different
links throughout different pieces of
content. The best part about affiliate
programs though is that if you convert a
lot of sales, this can be huge if you're
going out and looking for potential
sponsors later on because it shows that
your audience is willing to spend money
and you are good at promoting different
products. These next two are really new,
but number 11, let's start here with
YouTube gifts, formerly known as jewels.
You won't really see these around
YouTube unless you're watching a lot of
vertical live streams in the short
shelf. They're pretty simple, though.
The way it works is that you could be
watching a creator on the short shelf
while they're live and you can hit the
little gift icon and then you can choose
what kind of gift you want to give them.
Essentially, it shows a little
animation, but you're just kind of
choosing how much money to give them.
What's kind of cool about them is that
they appear as an overlay for the entire
live stream. So, if you give a gift,
everybody can see it. Essentially
though, these are basically super chats,
but just for the vertical live streams
rather than the horizontal ones. And
then perhaps the newest monetization
method that I'm still trying to learn
about myself is the YouTube player for
education. According to YouTube's help
page, if you create educational videos
or shorts, our educational partners like
schools and teachers may choose to embed
your content in their learning
materials. When educational partners
choose to embed your content or watch
your already embedded content, they may
be using Player for Education. This
gives teachers a way to show your
content to their students without having
ads on it. It literally says, even
though there aren't any ads, you can
still earn money from the amount of time
people watch your videos in the player.
As far as I can tell, this is YouTube
basically paying you out of their own
pockets so that they can become a
stronger force in education across the
board. Let me know if this is something
you've thought about doing. I think this
feature might even still be rolling out,
but it's very interesting and I think
depending on the kind of content you
make, you might be a perfect fit for
this program. Perhaps the strangest
monetization method though that you're
going to hear me talk about today is
licensing out your content. This
particular money-making method flies
under the radar, but it can be very
profitable depending on again the kind
of content you make. Here's how it
works. Basically, media outlets like TV
stations or hey, even other creators
might see your content and they might
want to use it themselves instead of
letting them just rip your content and
then you sit there and hope for a little
bit of credit, you can license that
content to them. And there's actually
companies that exist that will help you
broker these types of deals so that if
your content ends up in the evening
news, you get something for that. You
don't have to go through those programs,
though. Let's say you capture a storm
that happened that rolled through your
community and you got this really
awesome footage of it. If the news
reaches out to you, you can absolutely
set the terms yourself as to how much
you want them to give you to license
that for their evening story.
Oftentimes, if a certain type of clip
goes viral, this is something that can
absolutely happen to you. Is this kind
of thing only for viral creators,
though? Absolutely not. Even niche stuff
like really rare events or drone footage
or very in-depth tutorials can be things
that get licensed out. It's kind of like
when people use stock footage, only this
is like way more specific. Essentially,
if you feel like the content you're
capturing is really unique, then I would
absolutely look into licensing it. So,
there you go. over a dozen different
ways to make money on YouTube. The big
takeaway here is that you don't need all
of them. Try to figure out which ones
work better for you. Maybe you hit
monetization through the partnership
program. Maybe you start up a
membership. Maybe you have a couple
affiliate links. And that's all you
really have to do. You don't have to use
all of these if you're overwhelmed. It
is hard. Monetizing on YouTube is hard.
Even getting there is difficult. And
that's why this video is here for you.
Because if you're finding YouTube to be
a struggle, hopefully this will make it
a little bit easier.