YouTube has confirmed changes to its Partner Program that allow creators to monetize their channels and has also teased expansions to its Premium Lite subscription.
In both a blog post and a video, the Google-owned platform outlined the first major change to the Partner Program requirements in a while. Now, in order to get paid for your content, YouTube requires:
- 1,000 subscribers
- 8,000 qualified public watch hours in the last 12 months
- OR 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days
This new requirement kicks in on Feb. 1, 2027, and will not impact creators that are already qualified for the Partner Program. Instead, already partnered creators will need to accept the updated terms. As 9to5Google points out, the program previously required only 4,000 watch hours and 10 million Shorts views.
The platform says that these changes will allow it to “invest in new incentive programs that directly support creator growth and the many business models that work across YouTube.”
Alongside this, YouTube is also teasing that its Premium Lite subscription is expanding to “all countries where Premium is available,” with calculated creator pools for revenue.
“Creators earn money from these subscriptions through a dedicated pool of revenue for each subscription type: 30 per cent of the net subscription revenue for Premium and 60 per cent for Premium Lite,” YouTube said in the blog post. “This allocation factors in the costs of operating and promoting the service, including amounts we pay to music partners. This pool is distributed to creators based on member watch time and views, and from that distribution creators receive revenue share: 55 per cent for long-form videos and 45 per cent for Shorts.”
YouTube says that with the additional subscribers, creators can expect higher earnings. Essentially, when a user signs up for Premium, partners on average earn more than when a user was watching ads.
Source: YouTube via 9to5Google
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