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YouTube is going to make it more difficult for new creators to earn money from ads and subscriptions by doubling its monetization thresholds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to an announcement<\/a> earlier this week, creators who want to make money on YouTube will soon need to amass at least 8,000 watch hours over the past year or 20 million Shorts views over the past 90 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, creators currently need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over the past year or 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views over the past 90 days to make the cut.\u00a0<\/p>\n The change will go into effect on February 1, 2027. YouTube said the move will not affect creators who already monetize their platforms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tech journalist and consultant Emil Protalinski wrote in a post on LinkedIn<\/a> earlier this week that the change is \u201cbad news for all YouTube creators who were close to getting into the program.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFor the record, I\u2019m at 150 subscribers and definitely nowhere near even 1 million Shorts views, so I was unlikely to hit the thresholds anytime soon,\u201d he wrote. \u201cNow, however, it seems a fool\u2019s errand to try.\u201d<\/p>\n Protalinski said that he isn\u2019t the target audience for the change. In his view, YouTube wants to make it more difficult for spam accounts to gain a following and monetize their videos. He said that this is a direct response to the proliferation of \u201cAI slop<\/a>\u201d accounts gaining traction on YouTube, including channels whose videos use AI-generated text for scripts or AI-generated images for backgrounds. Some videos are entirely AI-created.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIn short, doubling the thresholds will be tough over the short term, but hopefully it will improve YouTube\u2019s quality over the long term,\u201d Protalinski wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Content creator Erika Kullberg is an attorney and personal finance expert who used to work in corporate law. She has more than 21 million followers on social media, including 2.26 million subscribers<\/a> on YouTube. One of Kullberg\u2019s videos addresses<\/a> how she paid off more than $225,000 in student loans in less than two years. Another<\/a> popular video is about her decision to quit a $250,000 job in corporate law.<\/p>\n Kullberg told Entrepreneur<\/em> in 2024 that YouTube is \u201cby far\u201d her highest-paying social media platform. From 2019 to 2024, her total earnings from YouTube amounted to more than $353,000, not including brand sponsorships and before taxes.\u00a0<\/p>\n She shared that it took her about three months of posting one YouTube video per week to be able to monetize her channel. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen I first started YouTube, I committed to putting out one video per week for one year no matter what,\u201d she said. \u201cI was practicing as a lawyer full-time, and doing YouTube as my side hobby for 20 hours a week on top of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Her advice to someone thinking about content creation full-time is to \u201cmake sure\u201d they have enough money to do it. \u201cStart saving up,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve never once regretted leaving the corporate world behind.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n YouTube is going to make it more difficult for new creators to earn money from ads and subscriptions by doubling its monetization thresholds.\u00a0<\/p>\nBad news and good news<\/h2>\n
YouTube offers creators more money than other platforms<\/h2>\n
Key Takeaways<\/h2>\n
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