Have you ever wondered how much your favourite YouTube creators earn on the platform? To make a long story short, they earn millions. But how can a creator start making money on YouTube and which monetization requirements does the platform have? 4K Download team prepared a full guide on that.

Types of YouTube Monetization

Not many regular YouTube viewers and even aspiring creators know that the platform offers other types of monetization aside from regular AdSense advertising. Yet, we'll start with this.

Advertising

The most obvious way to make money creating YouTube content is to become part of the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) and start earning. After you apply for and are accepted into YPP, you can start getting revenue from ads automatically integrated into your videos. With this type of monetization, YouTube will give you 55% of the profit.

Channel membership

Another way is to create a channel membership. Becoming a channel member, your subscribers will need to buy a monthly paid subscription. For this, they get perks you offer, such as exclusive sticker packs or something else. The amount of the recurring payment depends on your country of residence. In this case, the creator gets 70% of the money.

Merch shelf

The third way to make money on YouTube is to sell your branded merchandise and showcase it under a particular video or on the channel page. You can set it up in YouTube Studio.

Super Chat and Super Stickers

This monetization method entails that your subscribers donate in order to have their messages pinned on top of the chat and get it highlighted with a bright colour so that you, as a YouTuber, could see their messages in a moving stream of other texts.

YouTube Premium

Last but not least is the YouTube Premium revenue as a type of account monetization. The thing is that you get paid if YouTube Premium subscribers watch your videos. Only if these subscribers don’t use 4K Video Downloader which allows getting YouTube Premium features for free.

Additional Ways to Make Money on YouTube

The aforementioned ways of earning money are offered by YouTube, but there are also two other ways of getting paid YouTube doesn’t mention. Let’s consider each of them in detail.

Affiliate programs

This way of making money means that you start partnering with a brand and promoting it in your videos. The brand gives you a unique promo code for your audience, and each time the promo code is used, you get paid. According to the contract, you need to mention the promo code in your videos and sometimes even put them in video descriptions.

Paid sponsorships

Paid sponsorships are different from affiliates in a way that brand gives you its product for a paid review or feature. Or you can integrate the product or brand right into your content telling about it at the beginning or in the middle of your video.

YouTube Monetization Requirements

First, you need to apply for the YouTube Partner Program. To make this possible, you need to have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time gained throughout the year. Once you get it, you can apply for the YPP but to be accepted, your content needs to exclude:

Hatred
Sexual content and nudity
Harmful or dangerous things
Violence
Harassment and cyberbullying
Spam, misleading information, and scam
Threats
Other creators’ content
Other people’s private data
Impersonation

Typically, monetization requirements depend on the monetization type. Moreover, once you become a member of the YouTube Partner Program, you don’t only need to follow all the platform rules and guidelines, but also be ready to have your content regularly reviewed by YouTube.

The platform doesn’t stop reviewing your channel and each video even after you apply for the YPP.

But as we have said earlier, each monetization type has its own requirements.

So, what are the exact YouTube monetization requirements in terms of advertising?

If you want to get revenue from ads, you should be 18 years of age or older to be able to get payments via AdSense, and your content needs to comply with the monetization rules.

It goes without saying, but the monetization rules include YouTube community guidelines, terms of service, and copyright policy.

In order to get revenue from advertisers, your channel and content need to be advertiser-friendly. In other words, it can’t contain:

Hatred and bullying
Much of the strong language
Harmful or dangerous things
Violence
Any drug or tobacco-related content
Firearms-related content
Controversial issues or sensitive events
Adult themes in family content

Though as YouTube itself claims, much depends on the context.

YouTube Monetization requirements for channel membership

To make money on your channel membership, you need to be 18 years of age or older. Besides, your account needs to have more than 30,000 subscribers.

YouTube Monetization requirements for merch shelf

Again, your age needs at least 18 years old but additionally, but your subscribers’ count should be equal to 10,000 or more.

YouTube Monetization requirements for Super Chat and Super Stickers

Apart from 18 years of age, you need to be the resident of a country where this feature is available to use.

YouTube Monetization requirements for YouTube Premium

Make appealing content that YouTube Premium subscribers will watch.

How to Start Monetizing a YouTube Channel?

So, you made sure your content is ready for monetization. How to get started? First, you need to go to Settings, then find Your YouTube channel. After this, head over to Channel status and features, like in the screenshot below.

Press this and then press Enable to let YouTube know you want to make money on the platform. Once you’re done, you will be redirected to your YouTube Studio page.

After you accept the Terms of Agreement, you will be forwarded to create as AdSense account - the system via which you will get your payment. Once you’ve registered and sent your application for monetization, you will need to wait for the approval.

YouTube analyses your content, latest videos, channel topic, the most viewed videos, videos that have long watch time and clips’ metadata (titles, descriptions, tags).

If your channel is approved, you will start getting paid after your AdSense account hits $100.

What Influences YouTube Monetization Rates?

Speaking of the YPP, YouTube monetization rates are influenced by the number of impressions - if people watch an integrated ad until the end or at least 30 seconds. The rates also depend on advertising formats and their prices, location of viewers, reach, views count and audience retention, content quality and the video topic. You can find your precise income on YouTube Analytics.

In other forms of monetizing like paid sponsorships or affiliates, your monetization rates depend on your cooperation conditions agreed between you and an advertiser.

YouTube Monetization: The Bottom Line

The most advantageous way of monetizing your YouTube content is to collaborate with brands directly. Many top bloggers demand thousands of dollars for one product integration. If you cannot ask such amounts of money due to a small followers count, the YouTube Partner Program will be the best option for you to start monetizing your creativity.