YouTube expands monetisation program, allowing content creators with 500 subscribers to earn money

Popular video-sharing and social media platform YouTube has announced that channels with 500 subscribers are now eligible to earn money, reducing the eligibility subscriber count from the previous 1000.

The platform made the change in its eligibility requirements and tweaked its monetization policy to give smaller creators a chance to survive and thrive on the platform, India Today reported. Previously, the minimum number of subscribers required to earn money was 1000.

In addition to tweaking the subscriber count eligibility, the platform has also lowered the watch hour criteria from 4000 hours to 3000 hours.

If your channel primarily indulges in creating shorts, there is more good news, as the eligibility view count has been significantly lowered to 3 million from the previous 10 million. This change dramatically increases the chance for smaller content creators to earn on the platform.

The new eligibility criteria will be implemented first in the United States, the United Kingdom, Taiwan and South Korea, before making its way to other regions.

While the eligibility criteria to earn on the platform have been tweaked, the method for earning via ad revenue remains unchanged. Creators will still have to ensure that their content has a broad reach in order to generate money via ad revenue.

Other social media platforms like TikTok have also provided monetary incentives to users in order to maintain a steady flow of content on their platforms.

TikTok recently announced that its paywalled feature, Series, will be applicable to creators with over 10,000 followers. It also listed additional requirements that would allow the feature to be accessible to those with 1,000 followers as well. The Series feature on TikTok allows content creators to offer premium content locked behind a paywall that fans can pay to access.

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