Say goodbye to the times when long-format videos dominated the monetization world. The main reason for saying this is YouTube Shorts, which consists of scrape-stopping, fast, short, and addictive content. YouTube Shorts monetization is an amazing way to show your creativity.
Now, the question is how to earn money with YouTube Shorts. Or how can you turn these 15 to 60 seconds of content into a stable stream of income? More than YouTube’s Shorts fund, there are so many more possibilities, including sponsored snippets, affiliate marketing, collaborations with brands, and even selling your own products and driving traffic. A report says that vertical short-form videos have a maximum ROI and more engagement than long-form content, making it more engaging and useful for both content creators and brands.
If you’re a creator too, you can have the opportunity to reach an immense audience, monetize your content, and generate revenue. Come join us on this journey to find out the answer to the question: do YouTube Shorts make money along with proven strategies that will help you maximize your Shorts earnings?
What is YouTube Shorts Monetization?
YouTube Shorts monetization means earning money through short-form videos (15 seconds to 60 seconds) on YouTube. While regular YouTube monetization relies solely on ads in long-form videos, YT Shorts monetization offers a mix of unique earning approaches designed for this shorter-form content.
Shorts Monetization, however, works somewhat differently from regular, long-form YouTube content. All revenue received from creators is pooled together, and YouTube Shorts earnings depend on the number of views on your content and the music tracks you add to your content.
Can I Earn Money From YouTube Shorts?
The answer is yes, and there are numerous ways to monetize your YT shorts. You can divide this shorts monetization options into two major categories:
First, Get Paid by YouTube via the YT Partner Program
You get paid in the form of premium subscription revenue sharing, as well as ads. Subscriber support also plays a crucial role in earning via YouTube shorts. This includes features like revenue from shopping integrations, YT Fan Funding, and earnings from premium membership, a subscription service that pays a portion of its revenue to content creators. The program has further divided into two creator categories- first the original YouTube Partner Program and the Extended PP.
Second, Paid through External Revenue
Monetize YouTube shorts via external income sources, such as affiliate marketing programs, brand partnerships, and other collaborations outside the platform. These ways enable content creators and brands to leverage their short-form content for marketing while generating revenue directly from outside sources.
However, youtube shorts revenue depends on several aspects. Here are a few instances of the amounts you can generate:
- Nano Influencers with 1,000 to 10,000 followers can earn between $20 and $200/per YT video.
- Micro-influencers with 10,000 to 50,000 followers can typically earn $200 to $1,000/per YT video.
- Macro Influencers with 500,000 to 1,000,000 followers can earn $10,000 to $20,000/per YT video.
Note that there is no minimum limit for affiliate linking and brand deals, having a lot of linked customers can increase your earning potential. Sponsors and brands are often interested in connecting with an immense audience to exploit their impact. Having said that, the more views and subscribers you have, the more you’ll get paid.
How Many Views on YouTube to Earn Money with Shorts?
Apart from fan funding, content creators also receive advertising revenue, including YouTube Shorts monetization and earnings from YouTube Premium subscribers. To apply for the YT Partner Program, you must have one of the following: 1k subscribers, also 10 million public shorts views in the last 90 days. And if we talk about the youtube shorts 1000 views money, it can be from $0.01 to $0.06/per 1000 views. Sadly, this amount is much less than long-form videos, where you can generate revenue anywhere between $1.61 and $29.30/per 1000 views, with the average being $1.25 to $2.5.
How Does Monetization Work on YouTube Shorts?
Well, YouTube shorts monetization is a little difficult to understand. Remember earning shorts ad revenue is slightly different from monetizing a traditional YouTube Video. YouTube pays Shorts creators through a revenue-sharing system, earned from Shorts ads shown between videos on the YT feed.
The social media site aggregates all Shorts ad revenue and then distributes a percentage to music partners and a percentage to YT Shorts creators. Content creators earn revenue based on the performance of their individual videos.
Here is the step-by-step process to follow:
- Ad Sales
In the first step, YouTube distributes space to brands and reflects ads between content on the Shorts Feed.
- Revenue Pooling
In this step, the platform pools all the revenue coming from ads displayed in the shorts feed. The revenue collected is then allocated among the shorts creators, which is different from regular YouTube videos.
- Initial Fund Allocation
YouTube then distributes a part of its shorts revenue to its shorts creator pool and another portion to music licensing costs. For videos without music, the entire revenue generated from eligible views is directed to the creators’ pool, boosting the earnings potential for those videos.
- Music Fund Allocation
When a creator’s shorts video includes one music track, half of the revenue generated from eligible views is distributed to cover music listening, while the other 50% goes to the creator pool. For videos featuring two music tracks, the earning is divided accordingly: 2/3rd for music licensing and 1/3rd for the creator pool. This ensures a fair allocation of revenue based on content composition.
- Creator Fund Allocation
The YouTube Creator Pool distributes earnings based on the percentage of views a creator generates from their short videos during a set time period. If a short content creator has generated 4% of all short views, for instance, 4% of the creator pool funds will be credited to them.
- Fund Payment
Each content creator earns 45% of the YouTube shorts money, and the remaining 55% of the creator pool funds are retained by the platform.
Keep in mind that content that violates intellectual property policies, such as unedited clips from movies or TV shows and reposted videos owned by other content creators, do not fall under the monetizable criteria.
Simply put, you won’t generate revenue from videos that breach the platform’s ad-friendly content guidelines, which include content that is incendiary, offensive, or insulting, or that uses inappropriate language.
YouTube Shorts Monetization Eligibility Criteria
Can YouTube shorts be monetized? Definitely yes, but you need to fulfill a certain set of criteria. The most important and common requirement is that you must have a YT account and be enrolled in the YouTube Partner Program. Once that’s taken care of, you’ll see two tiers of monetization as a creator, each with different revenue opportunities and limits. Here we have discussed the YouTube Shorts monetization eligibility requirements:
1. Accessing Fan Funding
This method enables content creators to sell items on the YT channel. Fan funding also provides accessibility to several features such as Super Chat, Paid Channel Memberships, Super Thanks, and Super Stickers. In order to apply, read the following criteria:
- Earn 500 subscribers, at least three public posts in the last 90 days, and 3 million valid public shorts views within the past 90 days.
- Earn 500 subscribers, at least three public posts in the last 90 days, and 3,000 valid public watch hours on long-form videos in the last 12 months (excluding views from live streams, shorts, ad campaigns, unlisted, private, or deleted videos).
2. Accessing Ad Revenue and Fan Funding
To apply to this program, you should meet the given criteria:
- Have 1,000 subscribers, and at least 10 million public shorts views in the last 90 days.
- Have 1,000 subscribers along with 4k public watch hours on long-form videos in the past 365 days.
After meeting any of these thresholds, you are eligible for YouTube’s Partner Program. The platform will check your channel and confirm your eligibility which usually takes about a month.
There is an additional eligible criterion for both programs, which includes the following:
- The shorts creator must understand and follow all the YouTube Channel Monetization Policies. If you’re scrolling the web to know the YouTube Shorts Monetization Policy, it is as same as for policy for monetizing on YouTube.
- The shorts creator must reside in a location or country where the program is available. (For now, the expanded program is only active in selected countries).
- Make sure there are no active Community Guidelines on your YouTube channel.
- As a shorts creator, you must have two-step verification for your Google Account.
- Based on channel history or verifying your identity, the creator should have access to YouTube’s advanced features. Remember that this does not apply to the expanded program.
- The content creator must have an AdSense account.
How to Make Money from YouTube Shorts: Step-by-Step Guide!
Are YouTube shorts monetized? We have discussed it already in the above sections. Now, we are going to mention the complete steps to make money from YouTube shorts.
Step 1 To get started, create your YouTube channel, in case you don’t have any.
Step 2 Next, fulfill the criteria for enrolling into the YouTube Partnership Program as stated above.
Step 3 Start uploading shorts to your YouTube channel. Make sure your content complies with the platform’s community guidelines, ad-friendly guidelines, and copyright rules. Additionally, you need to make sure that the content doesn’t contain logos or watermarks from any third-party social media sites like TikTok.
Step 4 Once you complete the criteria aforementioned, you’ll need to apply for the YPP using the YouTube Studio App.
Whether you are an iPhone or Android user, the following steps will help understand how to enroll for the YouTube Partnership Program and how you can monetize YouTube Shorts.
- Open the YouTube Studio app on your device. Remember this app varies from the normal YouTube app.
- Click on “Earn”, from the below menu.
- Next, choose “Apply” to begin.
- Tap on the “Start” option to assess and “Accept” base terms.
- Tap on the “Start” option to create an AdSense account, or attach an active account you already have.
To do it on a desktop, you’ll need to follow below steps:
- Open and Login in YouTube on your desktop.
- Tap on your “Profile Picture” located in the top right corner.
- Next, pick “YouTube Studio”.
- Tap on “Earn” given in the left menu, and select “Apply”.
- Tap on “Start” to assess and accept base terms.
- Tap on “Start” to create an AdSense Account, or attach an active account you already have.
Once you’ve applied, your application enters a review queue where YouTube evaluates whether you fulfill its guidelines and policies. You can even track the progress of your request by visiting the “Earn” section in YouTube Studio.
- Once your application is accepted and you’ve entered the YouTube Partnership Program after all these steps. That’s it. Hopefully, you may have got an answer to your question about how to make money on YouTube shorts.
Note: It’s crucial to keep making Shorts because sometimes YouTube stops monetizing content if you’ve been posting for six months or more.
Some other Ways to Earn Money from YouTube Shorts
While taking part in the YouTube Partner Program (YTT) is an effective way to generate ad revenue from short content, it isn’t the sole method to make money as a creator. Below are some pathways to generate revenue:
- Selling Subscription Memberships
Enabling YouTube’s channel memberships allows you to charge a monthly fee in return for benefits like badges, exclusive content, live chat, and emojis. To activate channel membership, log in to YouTube Studion on your device and go to the Memberships tab, tap Earn.
- Selling merchandise and items
If you’re searching the web to know How to make money with YouTube shorts, here comes yet another effective method. Brands and shorts creators can generate revenue by selling merchandise through online platforms. It’s a good idea to sell branded merchandise such as apparel with your logo, image, or catchphrase, or offer a product line tied to your certain content niche.
YouTube is an excellent way for brands to create product content and market new offerings. For creators, selling products through the e-commerce marketplace and staying consistently engaged in creating and publishing content on YT works really well. How? You can build brand loyalty, market your products, and capture the attention of a new audience.
- Joining an affiliate program
In affiliate programs, the creator gets paid for the earnings related to the clicks on the links made on the creator’s YT channel or any other social media. You can also consider using Shorts to market affiliate programs that you connect to directly.
Notably, there is no set number of followers or required viewing time. All you need to do is find an affiliate program that relates to the products you showcase in your shorts and then earn a commission for successful sales you refer to that retailer. In such a case, you get paid by the retailer that operates the affiliate program or their affiliate network, not by YT.
- Monetizing live streams
Shorts creators are allowed to generate revenue from livestreams using Super Sticker and Super Chat. These enable viewers to pay for sending animated stickers or highlighted messages in live stream chats. It works like this, during the live stream, fans make a donation in return for an animated image or highlighted message that appears on the screen during the live chat. In Super Thanks, fans purchase an animation on your YouTube Shorts and a customizable comment below to show their appreciation.
- Partnering with brands
A partnership with businesses or brands is another effective approach to video monetization. You communicate directly with brands to discuss sponsorship deals, rather than having YT sell ad space on your behalf. In this method, you can create sponsored videos for brands and, in return, earn a good amount of money.
Brands pay creators for recording and publishing reviews on products, as well as for advertising. Well, choosing the niche will be up to you, whether it is beauty products, gadgets, fashion, fitness items, cooking-related products, and many more.
The best part is, that you don’t need millions of subscribers to secure a sponsorship, but the brand you want to collaborate with does need to have a good-sized following in a lucrative niche. If you’re really interested in securing partnerships, you’ll need to build a creator site, reach out to businesses or brands directly, and join an influencer marketplace to help businesses consider and contact you.
- Using YouTube Shopping
Promote your spring, Spreadshop, or Shopify stores and leverage Short’s immense audience through YouTube Shopping. Short-form content allows you to boost exposure for your brand or business while selling products directly through your videos.
YouTube provides a product overlay on Shorts, allowing viewers to click and make a purchase seamlessly. In addition, you can mention products in your videos or share affiliate links, guiding interested viewers to purchase items you recommend. To be eligible for this, you must meet the eligibility criteria for YouTube’s Partnership Program.
- Using Patreon
It is a membership-based site that allows fans to pay creators to support them and in return view exclusive content and receive other benefits. There are many big YouTube channels with countless views using Patreon as it is the best way to boost the income earned through ads.
On Patreon, video is the dominant content format, so it’s an ideal platform to monetize your shorts. You can use your content to share an extract from an in-depth video and let your audience know that the full story is available through one of your Patreon membership levels. Or you could consider using the community tab on this to connect with your patrons and build an audience.
The biggest advantage of using this crowdfunding platform over YT channel membership is that you can create a Patreon without any minimum following or watchtime limits. But, you will need to look at each program to evaluate which one is best suited for your certain situation and the benefits you would like to provide.
Maximize your YouTube Earning Potential Using Captions
No matter you want to generate revenue from an external source or from YouTube itself, it’s important to stay consistent, although posting regular content can be difficult when you’re interested in posting both short and long-form videos. In this case, captions will help you.
The AI Shorts feature carries your long videos and alters them into short-form videos for you, ultimately saving you editing time. To use this feature, simply upload the link and select the Shorts you want to export. Once done, you can share more content, supplement your channel’s visibility, and increase your potential YouTube earnings.
How much can Revenue be Generated on Average from YouTube Shorts?
YouTube shorts money per view can significantly vary based on aspects like engagement, region, and viewer location. On average, creators can earn between $0.01 and $0.06 per 1,000 views on Short-form content. Yes, we know this earning is far lower than longer videos where you can generate between $1.61 and $29.30 per 1000 views with an average amount of $1.25 to $2.5. So, it’s hard to generate revenue on Shorts unless you’re earning millions of views on a monthly basis.
However, interestingly, the YouTube shorts pay per view can be boosted with income generated from the Shorts Fund Payouts, YouTube Partner Program, YouTube Premium, and other monetization approaches, such as affiliate marketing or sponsorships.
Best Tips for generating revenue with YT shorts
How to earn from youtube shorts? The best advice for generating revenue on YouTube shorts is to create one that’s hooked, entertaining, and distinctive. Alongside, there are other methods to make out of the best on YouTube and make money. Let’s have a look:
- Consistency is Key
To make a decent amount of money from YouTube shorts, you must earn millions of views on your content. And to do so, you’re suggested to upload your content regularly. Posting shorts often is good because the more you post, the more likely one of your videos will go viral and your channel will be exposed to a wider audience.
- Appealing thumbnails and titles
Using catchy titles and attractive thumbnails can hold your audience’s attention for a longer period of time. To master this skill, you are advised to check out channels whose short videos have millions of views and follow them.
- Keep an eye on analytics
Monitoring analytics helps to understand what is working and what is not. Key metrics to monitor for your YouTube Shorts include likes, comments, view count, and average view duration. Additionally, pay close attention to the “viewed vs. swiped” ratio, which showcases the percentage of viewers who watch your Shorts compared to those who swipe away before finishing. Getting swiped by a huge number of viewers means your shorts are not attractive and engaging enough. And it is possible that your Shorts may not be visible to further viewers.
- Diversifying Income Sources
Consider exploring other income sources. These may involve merchandise sales, sponsorships, and affiliate marketing. Generating revenue through these sources can help you avoid relying on the meager income that YouTube offers.
- Asking for Support
Diversify your income source via YouTube Super Thanks – an effective way that enables viewers to support your short content directly through a monetary tip. This feature not only offers further income but also builds a meaningful connection with your subscribers. Creators using YPP are allowed to access Super Thanks. It’s indeed an excellent way to increase fan engagement while making money from shorts.
- Exploring different types of videos
Instead of relying on one video – start experiment and be creative with your videos. Understand them and as mentioned above, take inspiration from other popular YT channels who are mastering the skill of Shorts.
Closing Words!
YouTube Shorts brings the opportunity to grow your online presence, interact with your audience on new platforms, and monetize your content. Since short-form content has been witnessing explosive growth in terms of popularity, it allows you to reach a larger audience and make money while appealing to your target audience. Therefore, as a Shorts creator, you need to be aware of YouTube Shorts monetization methods as soon as possible. I hope the information provided above will help you navigate this journey smoothly.
FAQs
1. What does the YouTube Shorts policy mean?
A shorts policy or shorts claim is not similar to the monetization policy on longer videos. This means that YouTube has removed a track from the Epidemic Sound catalog in your Shorts. This claim links the song’s information to the video, which may increase its visibility. Make sure your short-form videos must follow ad-friendly guidelines.
2. How much YouTube shorts pay?
Creators get paid for shorts, depending on the location, music licensing, and share. Speaking of the average amount, the creator earns anywhere between $0.01 and $0.07 per 1,000 views.
3. Does YouTube shorts watch time count for monetization?
And the answer is no, watch time from shorts doesn’t count towards the overall channel watch time. For creators who want to generate a livelihood off the platform, 3,000 hours of watch time is an important sign. This is the most important step to be eligible for YPP and enable creators to monetize their YT channel.
4. How many subscribers do I need to monetize my YouTube shorts?
YT’s shorts fund pays shorts creators for their content regardless of their number of subscribers. To monetize your shorts, you must earn 1000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours to access the whole Partner Program benefits.
5. Is it possible to monetize the YouTube channel only with shorts?
Yes, you can do that, but unless you earn millions of views, you won’t be able to generate enough revenue. However, there are other ways to make money, including sponsorships, affiliate marketing, Patreon, product sales, and merchandise.