To make money on YouTube, you join the YouTube Partner Program in two steps, first at 500 subscribers for memberships, Super Chat, Super Thanks and Shopping, then at 1,000 subscribers for a 55% share of long-form ad revenue. Each step also needs a watch hours or Shorts views target, and the ad revenue target doubles for new applicants on February 1, 2027.
Ads get most of the attention. We think that is backwards for a small channel. The 500 subscriber tier pays 70% of fan money and opens YouTube’s brand deal marketplace, so a channel can earn months before ads switch on.
What order should you add YouTube income streams in?
Add them in the order YouTube opens them, from no threshold to the full Partner Program. Each row is a separate stream with its own rules, as of October 2026.
| Step | When you can start | What you earn | YouTube’s cut |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Sponsorships you sell yourself | Any channel size | A fee you negotiate | Not a YouTube program |
| 2. Fan funding | 500 subscribers, 3 uploads in 90 days, 3,000 watch hours or 3 million Shorts views | Memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers, Super Thanks | 30% of net revenue |
| 3. Shopping | The same 500 subscriber tier | Commissions on tagged products, sales of your own merch | Brands set the commission |
| 4. YouTube Creator Partnerships | The same 500 subscriber tier | Brand deals found inside YouTube Studio | No fee announced |
| 5. Ads and Premium | 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours or 10 million Shorts views | Share of ad and Premium revenue | 45% of long-form ads, 55% of Shorts pool revenue |
Every tier also requires living in a Partner Program country, no active Community Guidelines strikes, 2-Step Verification, access to advanced features and a linked AdSense for YouTube account. YouTube says a review typically takes about a month. Our YouTube Partner Program requirements guide walks through the application.
What can you earn at 500 subscribers?
At 500 subscribers, YouTube opens fan funding and Shopping, and fan funding pays 70% of net revenue. You also need 3 public uploads in the last 90 days and either 3,000 qualified watch hours in 12 months or 3 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days.
The lower tier only runs in the countries YouTube lists for the expanded program, which include the US, UK, Canada, Australia, India, Brazil, Germany, Japan and Nigeria. Fan funding and Shopping both require you to accept YouTube’s Commerce Product Module.
Channel memberships
YouTube channel memberships charge fans a monthly fee for perks you choose, and YouTube pays you 70% of net revenue. You must be 18 or older, and the channel can’t be set as made for kids or carry a significant number of made-for-kids videos or videos with music claims. When a member gets a refund, YouTube takes your share back out of your AdSense balance.
Send fans to youtube.com to join. When YouTube tested gift memberships in May 2022, it said the split on iOS purchases is calculated after Apple’s App Store fee, as TechCrunch reported. As arithmetic on the published split, 100 members paying $10 a month on the web leave you $700.
Super Chat, Super Stickers and Super Thanks
YouTube pays 70% of net revenue when viewers pay to highlight a message in live chat, send an animated sticker or tip on an upload. None of these tools work on age-restricted, unlisted, private or made-for-kids videos, or anywhere you have turned off live chat or comments. Super Thanks is not available to music channels under SRAV contracts.
Supers suit creators who stream or whose comment sections are already busy. A channel that never goes live gets only Super Thanks from this group.
How does YouTube Shopping pay creators?
YouTube Shopping pays affiliate commissions that each brand sets, and it lets Partner Program channels sell their own merch. YouTube opened the affiliate program in March 2026 to every Partner Program creator with at least 500 subscribers who meets its rules.
The affiliate program runs in 14 countries, including the US, Brazil, India, Japan and Mexico. Music channels, Official Artist Channels and made-for-kids channels are excluded. YouTube pays commissions through AdSense 60 to 120 days after the purchase, so returns can be reversed first.
YouTube says it currently passes 100% of merchant commissions to creators in launch markets as a temporary incentive and will give 30 days’ notice before that ends. Since August 2026, eligible US creators can also tag Amazon products. For affiliate links beyond YouTube, see our guide to affiliate marketing for creators.
What does the 1,000 subscriber tier add?
The 1,000 subscriber tier adds ad and YouTube Premium revenue. You need 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 qualified long-form watch hours in 12 months or 10 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days.
YouTube pays 55% of net ad revenue on long-form watch pages and 45% of the revenue allocated to your channel from the Shorts Creator Pool. Premium members don’t see ads, so YouTube pays creators from Premium subscription pools based on watch time instead. Mid-roll ads are only available on monetized videos 8 minutes or longer.
What those splits pay in dollars depends on your RPM. Our guide to how much YouTubers make covers RPM, CPM and sourced ranges by niche, so we won’t repeat the math here.
How do brand deals work through YouTube Creator Partnerships?
YouTube Creator Partnerships is YouTube’s own brand deal marketplace, built into YouTube Studio, and it replaced BrandConnect in March 2026. Brands use it to find creators and send inquiries, and YouTube’s announcement mentions no fee on the deals themselves.
YouTube’s March 23, 2026 announcement said brands can search more than 3 million Partner Program creators. Creators who chose to share channel insights with brands showed up 60% more often in brand searches, so turning that sharing on is the first thing we would do. Brands can also pay to run your videos as ads in Shorts and in-stream slots through the creator partnerships boost, formerly called partnership ads.
Creator Partnerships keeps its 500 subscriber entry point after the 2027 changes. YouTube’s August 2026 announcement also floated production credits for brand deals, with opt-in details to come. To set a price before an inquiry lands, read how brand deals work, how to price sponsored posts and how to make a media kit.
Deals you find on your own don’t need any YouTube tier. Our guide on how to get brand deals covers pitching from a small channel.
What changes on February 1, 2027?
YouTube announced on August 10, 2026 what it called the first major Partner Program changes since 2018. Partners must accept the updated terms in YouTube Studio by January 31, 2027, or they stop earning from the features whose terms they haven’t accepted until they sign.
- New applicants for ad and Premium revenue need 1,000 subscribers plus 8,000 qualified watch hours in 365 days or 20 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days. Channels already in the program keep their status.
- Every channel needs 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days to earn from the Shorts Creator Pool. Channels below that line keep their long-form earnings.
- A channel counts as active with 1,000 watch hours in 365 days, 1 million Shorts views in 90 days, or 2 long-form videos or 5 Shorts uploaded every 90 days. Channels that fall short get a 90-day window to recover.
- Creators who turned on memberships or Super Chat before 2023 must accept the current Commerce Product Module. YouTube says revenue shares for those features stay the same.
- Fan funding, Creator Partnerships and Shopping keep the 500 subscriber entry point.
The practical advice is simple. If your channel can reach 4,000 watch hours before February 1, 2027, apply as soon as you qualify, because the bar for new applicants doubles on that date.
How does YouTube pay you?
YouTube pays once a month through AdSense for YouTube, between the 21st and 26th, once your balance reaches $100 for accounts paid in US dollars. A smaller balance rolls over to the next month.
Ads, Premium, memberships, Supers and Shopping commissions all land in the same AdSense account. Google mails a PIN to verify your address once your balance reaches $10, and YouTube pauses monetization if you don’t enter it within 4 months. US creators should file tax information early, because without it Google may withhold up to 24% of total worldwide earnings.
Which YouTube income should you start with?
Start with whatever you qualify for today, then add the next tier as you cross it. Below 500 subscribers, that means sponsorships you sell yourself and products you sell elsewhere, covered in how creators make money.
Between 500 and 1,000 subscribers, turn on memberships, Super Thanks and Shopping, and share your channel insights in Creator Partnerships. We rate those as better early money than ads. As arithmetic, one $10 web member pays you $7 a month, and at an example RPM of $5 it would take 1,400 long-form views to match. If you are weighing YouTube against another home base, our YouTube vs TikTok and YouTube vs Twitch comparisons set out the trade-offs.