YouTube content creators, besides sharing their passion with followers and enjoying what they love, can earn money with their videos.
To join the YouTube Partner Program, you need 1,000 channel subscribers and at least 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months.
While most users think of advertising, you should know that on YouTube there are other ways to make money with videos, as long as they don’t cover topics prohibited by the platform, such as inciting violence or promoting terrorism. Videos related to COVID-19, for example, also can’t be monetized to prevent the spread of false information, as well as anti-vaccine content.
Creators can use YouTube Analytics to analyze channel performance and make decisions to keep creating content and generating more income. As mentioned, it’s not just about advertising—there are other options too, such as:
-YouTube Partner: This is the most well-known way to monetize a YouTube channel: showing ads. To enable ads, you must meet certain requirements, like having 1,000 subscribers, at least 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months, complying with YouTube’s quality standards, and having a Google Adsense account. Ad revenue increases as watch hours, subscribers, and video count grow.
-SuperChats: YouTube offers a tool called SuperChats, allowing creators to interact live with their audience. In SuperChats, users can pay between $1 and $500 to have their comments highlighted—the more they pay, the longer the message stays visible. These special chats can be enabled during live streams and are a good way to earn extra income.
-YouTube Premium: YouTube Premium is the platform’s subscription service, which for €11.99 per month, offers ad-free content, video and music downloads, YouTube Music Premium, and background playback on mobile. How does YouTube Premium benefit creators? When a Premium user watches a video, the platform shares a percentage of revenue with the creator, depending on total watch time.
-Memberships: The “Memberships” option on YouTube is a monthly payment system similar to crowdfunding platforms like Patreon. When enabling “Memberships,” the creator must offer a series of benefits for different membership tiers.
