YouTube has said that it will pay creators up to $10,000 per month for making popular videos on YouTube Shorts. YouTube Shorts is the short video sharing platform created by YouTube to rival apps like TikTok, Snapchat, and Reel.
YouTube added that it has raised US$100m Shorts fund, and plans to pay same amount throughout the next year, with the first payments going out this month.
To be eligible for this payout, the number of views the creators get on each Shorts each month would be a determinant. Also, payout will depend on where each creator’s audience is located.
YouTube also requires that the videos should be original videos. Re-uploaded videos and videos tagged with watermarks from other platforms — aka TikTok, Snapchat, or Reels — will disqualify a channel from being eligible for the fund.
YouTube creators have been getting paid based on the ads that run on their videos. The amount paid to YouTube channels depend on the number of views on each video.
However, YouTube does not want to run ads on Shorts, so it is building out this alternate form of payment to reward creators.
Speaking on the Shorts Fund, Neal Mohan, YouTube’s chief product officer, explained that:
“The Shorts Fund will eventually be replaced with a long-term, scalable monetization program. The fund is a way to get going and to actually really start to figure out how monetization should work for creators making these videos.”
Payment schemes like the Shorts Funds have become increasingly common. Rival video sharing platforms like TikTok and Snapchat both pay out to creators based on the popularity of their videos, rather than based on ads.
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Mohan indicated that the video sharing platform will not require creators to use Shorts in order to boost their overall engagement on the platform.
“Our goal there is to give every creator a voice. If the creator wants to do that through a two-hour documentary about a particular topic they’re passionate about, then YouTube should be the place for that. If they want to do that through a 15-second Short, that mixes in their favorite hit from their favorite music artists, they should be able to do that,” Mohan said.
The payments are only available in 10 regions for now, including the US, UK, India, and Brazil, among others, and YouTube says it plans on expanding that list “in the future.”