The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) is changing once again. Specifically, the video site is lowering the requirement, allowing more creators to join sooner — but there’s a bit of a catch.
Let’s start with the basics. Now, those with at least 500 subscribers and who have made at least 3 valid public uploads within the past 90s days will become eligible once they reach one of two other milestones: 1) accumulating at least 3,000 valid public watching hours in the past year or 2) reaching at least 3 million valid public Shorts views in the past 90 days. When these milestones are reached, creators can submit to join the YouTube Partner Program. Upon approval, they can monetize via features such as Super Chat, Super Stickers, and Super Thanks. Additionally, they’ll be able to promote their own product with YouTube Shopping. At this time, this update is rolling out in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Taiwan, and South Korea, but YouTube plans to add other countries.
However, you may have noticed that I left out an important component of the YouTube Partner Program as many creators think about it: revenue sharing from ads. Indeed, while the YPP threshold for joining is being lowered, the requirements for this feature are not. As a refresher, to be eligible for ad revenue sharing, creators must have at least 1,000 subscribers and either 4,000 valid public watch hours in the past 12 months or 10 million valid public Shorts views in the past 90 days. According to YouTube, once creators who have already been accepted into the Partner Program reach these figures, they’ll be able to unlock revenue sharing without needing to reapply.
One other thing I want to mention that’s not directly related is an expansion of the YouTube Shopping affiliate program. Now, U.S.-based creators with at least 20,000 subscribers can participate in the program, tag products in their videos, and earn a commission when viewers purchase items using their links. Currently, more than 50 brands are participating in this program, with more expected to join over time. Personally, while I’m not sure how many products I’ve reviewed are featured on the platform, I do hope I’ll be able to take advantage of this feature in the future.
Overall, I think it’s a good thing that YouTube is making some of its monetization features available to more creators. That said, I’m a bit surprised that the important distinction between the YouTube Partner Program and ad revenue sharing is being lost in a lot of the conversations I’m seeing about this change. Heck, I even saw a podcast segment from some major YouTubers that completely ignored this aspect of the announcement. Thus, I’m happy to highlight it for those who may be confused.
On that note, though, I’d also be fine if they lowered the ad revenue-sharing threshold to meet the new YPP ones. Just because I needed to wait for the higher requirement doesn’t mean that I think everyone else should need to as well. In fact, as subscribers apparently become a less and less important metric, I also hope YouTube makes the YouTube Shopping affiliate program open to all YPP creators like myself. Until that happens, though, I’ll just continue doing what I’m doing.
P.S.: for more about YouTube, I just posted an article chronicling a 30-Day YouTube Shorts Challenge I participated in, including what I did (and did not) learn about the format as part of my experience.