YouTube Partner Program Changes - Explained!

Overview

YouTube announced updates to the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), focusing mainly on higher performance thresholds for ad-based revenue sharing—especially for long-form and Shorts.

What’s changing: Ad revenue share thresholds

• Long-form ads rev share: qualification increases from 4,000 watch hours to 8,000 watch hours.
• Long-form views in 90 days: increases from 10 million views to 20 million views.
• Shorts ads rev share (starting next month): creators must have earned 10 million views within the last 90 days to qualify.

What’s not changing

• Current YPP members stay in YPP—the update applies going forward and does not remove creators who already qualify.
• The Fan funding tier (first YPP level) remains the same, requiring either:
  • 500 subscribers and 3,000 watch hours, or
  • 3 million views in the last 90 days.

Why YouTube is raising thresholds

YouTube says the changes reflect growth and shifts in the creator ecosystem formats, and are intended to ensure YPP earnings are meaningful enough to reinvest in channels.

They also argue that lowering thresholds would bring in creators who earn only small amounts, which would undermine YPP’s purpose as a serious business-building program.

Support for creators who don’t meet Shorts thresholds

To encourage Shorts creation, YouTube introduced incentive funds (quietly tested over the past year). These incentives are designed to support earlier-stage creators with targeted bonuses, such as:

• bonuses for continuing to upload over the next 90 days
• bonuses for tagging items in shopping (and doing more of it)
• bonuses for securing brand deals

YouTube’s expectation is that it will pay more out to creators next year than this year, despite raising eligibility requirements.

Presenters / contributors

• Rene Ritchie
• Amjad Hanif
• Todd