YouTube stars are today’s self-made celebrities—people who have earned an audience by creating content geared toward teaching, entertaining, reviewing, and being awesome on the internet.
Most of these small-screen celebs do what they do just to do it, to scratch an itch for creating things and being in front of an audience.
Making money might not be your reason for starting a YouTube channel, but the opportunities to earn are a pleasant surprise once you realize how many of them there are.
The YouTube Partner Program is how regular YouTubers get access to special features on the platform.
You don’t need to be a partner to make money on YouTube (just setting up an AdSense account and getting views is enough to handle that), but being a Partner makes it a lot easier.
YouTube Partners have access to multiple income streams: not just ads, but YouTube Premium subscription fees, and features that tap your fans’ wallets directly like Super Chat, channel memberships and the merchandise shelf (more on these later.)
Don’t worry, we have a handy guide for this. It’s called ‘How to create a YouTube channel.’
To join the program, you need a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months.
This is simple. Just follow YouTube’s official guide to AdSense accounts.
Each monetization channel has different eligibility requirements. For instance:
As a YouTube Partner, your channel will be held to a higher standard, according to YouTube. You have to follow not just the YouTube Partner Program policies, but the Community Guidelines. Not to mention staying on the right side of copyright law.