HOW CREATORS MAKE MONEY IS CHANGING

In October 2024, X announced a decision to move away from ad sharing with creators to paying by engagement with premium subscribers. As platforms battle to secure content from the best creators, expect more changes to their payment programs in the coming years.

Join us to discover the creator revenue programs available from the five top platforms and find out how to make additional income away from the platform. We’ll also look at the rules you need to follow to protect your content and account.

Payments from the platforms

First, let’s look at how the platforms pay you directly.

YouTube

YouTube’s Partner Program lets creators earn a share of advertising revenue. 

You need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days to qualify. You keep 55% of the revenue on long-from videos and 45% on Shorts. Creators also keep a cut of YouTube Premium subscriber fees based on watch time.

Other ways to earn via the platform include:

• Channel membership: Monthly subscription service offering perks like emojis and badges to viewers.

• Super Thanks: Payments for viewers expressing gratitude to a creator for their content.

• Super Chat: A payment to highlight a viewer’s message in a live chat stream.

• A payment to feature an animated image in a live chat stream.

 

Instagram

Ad monetisation is also available on Instagram and is currently only open to Creator and Business Accounts. 

The platform doesn’t share its minimum qualification requirements. However, they've indicated that they do favour accounts with engaged audiences. Revenue share is only available for Reels at time of writing.

Other ways to earn on Instagram include:

• Instagram subscriptions: Charge a monthly fee to followers and provide exclusive content. 

• Badges in Live: This is a way to gift money to a creator during a live stream.

• Gifts on Reels: Users can send you money to thank you for your content (minimum 500 followers).

• Branded Content Bonuses: Currently only available in the U.S. and South Korea. This bonus program rewards Reels and posts (single image and carousel).

 

X (formerly Twitter)

X used to share ad revenue but from October 2024, they stopped. Now, they reward creators based on engagement from Premium subscribers.

You can also monetise your content with:

• X Subscriptions: Set a monthly price for your most loyal users and provide previews and bonus content. Different from the Premium service mentioned above.

• X Tips: One-off money or Bitcoin payments from your followers.

• Super Follows: Three subscription tiers ($2.99, $4.99, and $9.99) where you offer extra content, Q&As, and more.

Please be aware that, since the takeover and rebranding of Twitter to X, much has changed and continues to change. It’s best to keep an eye on their website for new monetisation options as they launch.

 

Facebook

Facebook, owned by the same company as Instagram, currently has a content monetisation program in beta. Creators can earn money with text posts, stories, photos, reels, and videos. At time of writing, this is still invitation only.

You can also launch Facebook Fan Subscriptions where users can make monthly payments to you. To get followers to sign up, tempt them with exclusive content, access to you, a special name badge, and exclusive merch discounts.

As Facebook and Instagram use the same ad platform, Instagram options like Stars and live streaming are available on Facebook. 

 

TikTok

To make money as a content creator on TikTok, sign up to their ad sharing program, Pulse. Maximise your revenues with Pulse by uploading top-performing videos. 

Advertisers can now choose to place their ads after the top 4% of TikTok videos. That guarantees a lot of ad placements you’ll benefit from. TikTok shares 50% of its revenues with Pulse.

TikTok’s Creator Reward program tops up payouts as long as your videos continue to perform well.

Other monetization opportunities include:

• TikTok Series: Collections of up to 80 videos from 30 second to 20 minutes long that users purchase access to.

• Live/Video Gifts: Viewers send you virtual gifts you receive in the form of Diamonds. Accrue enough Diamonds to receive a payout. Available for live stream and uploaded videos.

• Live Subscriptions: Offer subscriber-only chat and badges to followers and get rewards from TikTok.

 

Other ways to earn as a creator

Although the income they receive from the platforms is welcome, it’s often nowhere near enough to support a full-time career.

Creators top up their revenue a number of ways include:

• Sponsorship deals: This can be sponsored videos, posts, tweets, podcast segments, or live streams. They normally take the form of embedded adverts like sponsor shout-outs. Payment is either an agreed sum upfront or by the number of views. Some brands may offer a revenue share in addition.

• Behind the scenes content: To offer loyal customers extra access, some brands offer extra content. That could be exclusive videos or podcast segments. Influencers (popular creators) will often front these videos or podcasts for a fee.

• Affiliate marketing: This involves promoting a product or service in a post, podcast or video. Creators receive pay for every site visit, email newsletter subscription, sale or a combination thereof.

• Membership platforms: Some creators receive regular income via sites like Patreon and Ko-fi. Other sites like Buy Me A Coffee offer the chance for followers to make a one-time payment to you.

• Website and email income: You could sell advertising and sponsorship deals on a blog linked to your creator account. If you build up an email subscriber base, this can be particularly lucrative depending on your niche.

• Merchandise: Promote your own products and services via your videos, podcasts, and posts. Recently, popular tech YouTube channel, Linus Tech Tips, announced 55% of its income came from merchandise sales. 

 

Platform content guidelines

Each platform has its own rules that you should learn. Keep an eye out for compliance updates and make sure your content doesn’t attract strikes or demonetisation.

That said, they all share mostly the same rules:

• Respect copyright and ownership: Only use content, images, music and footage you own or have licensed. Slightly different rules apply to fair use and public domain materials. TikTok and Instagram have agreements with some record labels to use certain tracks but check out the terms before you do so.

• Nothing harmful or illegal: Refrain from hate speech and explicit content. You shouldn’t feature violence, self-harm or dangerous activities that could harm viewers.

• Don’t spam: Don’t try to manipulate follower numbers with bots or enter into “sub-for-sub” type arrangements. Always target genuine follower and view growth for your channel, account, or podcast.

• Disclose commercial arrangements: Be upfront with your viewers if you have paid or sponsored segments. This may also apply to products you received for free for review purposes.

• Be age appropriate: Make it clear that your content is intended for older audiences by clearly labelling it.
  Treat these as your baseline and you should satisfy each platform’s core rules at all times.

 

Creating the best content you can to maximise creator monetization

It can unsettle creators when the platforms they post content on and receive income from change the rules. The good news is that there are so many different ways to monetize a channel now that you can build in levels of protection for yourself.

One proven way to enhance your content is with the right music and sound effects. Creators around the world trust Universal Music for Creators. 

For a very competitive price, you get access to 50,000 better than royalty-free tracks and 200,000 sound effects. 

Enrich your sports podcast with big game music. Add excitement and pace to your YouTube video game review channel with main character energy music. Feature the latest sounds by adding trending music to your video shorts.

Sign up today for a free seven-day trial with Universal Music for Creators.