As of February 2023, the YouTube Shorts fund is officially gone, and short-form creators are able to earn advertising revenue through the YouTube Partner Program. That means almost anyone in the YPP can make money from the ads that play between various Shorts!
Now that you can monetize Shorts easier, keep reading to learn how the system works.
Monetization Rules for YouTube Shorts
If you want to monetize Shorts specifically, here's how to do that through the YPP:
Gain 1,000 subscribers and 10 million public Shorts views in the last 90 days.
OR
Gain 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours on your long-form videos.
Image credit: Official YouTube Blog
Once you're in the program, only eligible Shorts will earn advertising revenue. So remember to do these four things to ensure your content gets monetized every time:
- Follow YouTube's Advertiser-Friendly Content Guidelines.
- Avoid using unedited clips from movies and TV shows that you don't have rights to.
- Avoid uploading another creator's content without adding a new perspective or transforming the content.
- Don't pay for automated/fake views.
How YouTube Shorts Monetization Works
Earning Shorts revenue is a bit different from monetizing a regular YouTube video. Notably, all Shorts revenue is split between two parties: the creators who make them and the music publishers who provide songs for those videos.
Image credit: YouTube Help center
Here's how it works in detail:
- A portion of all Shorts revenue goes to the creator pool, which is calculated based on views and music usage across all Shorts.
- Next, YouTube pays music publishers based on how often their intellectual property is used within Shorts.
- For example, if a creator uses two music tracks in a Short, 66% of revenue goes to music publishers while 33% goes to the creator.
- If a creator uses one music track in a Short, revenue is split 50/50 between them and music publishers.
- If a creator uses no music tracks, they keep all revenue from their share of the creator pool.
- Overall, monetizing creators keep 45% of their revenue share from the creator pool (after deductions are made for music usage).
So, if you're a creator looking to monetize your Shorts, know that your earnings are based on the number of views you get, your geographical location, and how many music tracks you use.
How Much Money Will You Earn from Shorts?
Spoiler alert: Making (a lot of) money from Shorts is still incredibly hard.
But don't just take our word for it. Take a look at the revenue we earned from Shorts on the vidIQ channel. For 468,500 views, we only got $16.61!
So while it's easier than ever to become a monetized Shorts creator, keep in mind that you still need to make extremely popular Shorts to consider it a side hustle.
Brand Deals and Sponsorships
OK, so getting into the YouTube Partner Program to make money with Shorts is a real challenge. You either have to go viral a lot or face the difficult task of earning 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours.
But guess what? You don’t have to join that race if you don't want to. There are other ways to monetize YouTube Shorts, and one of those golden opportunities is through brand sponsorships.
When a brand sponsors you, they’re paying you to advertise a product or service in one of your videos. That could be a new line of laptops, the latest leggings from Lululemon, or even a squeegee that removes pet hair from dirty carpet.
Here’s an example of a sponsored YouTube Short. In this video, actress Eliana Ghen advertises Vita, a mobile video editing app.
If you’re looking at this video and thinking, Hey, I could do that, you’re 100% correct.
Here’s why:
- You don’t need millions of views and subscribers to get a brand deal —just the right audience and a strong YouTube resume.
- 51% of marketers said they plan to invest in short-form content more than they did in 2021.
- Brands are excited to partner with short-form creators.
As for that last detail, don’t just take our word for it. Sponsorship coach Justin Moore echoes the same sentiment.
“At the end of the day, most brands don’t want to partner with you and feel like the only thing you’re good at is long-form video,” Moore says. “They want to feel that you may have some flexibility to create different types of content.”
Ready to get your first brand deal? Read this post to avoid the common mistakes YouTubers make while pitching brands.
Final Thoughts
Overall, there are two ways to monetize YouTube Shorts:
- Collect ad revenue (based on your total YouTube Shorts views within the creator pool).
- Get a brand deal or sponsorship.
But to achieve either one, you need to make popular Shorts that spread across the platform like wildfire.
To help you out, here's a guide for boosting the Shorts views on your channel!
