Youtube’s revenue share for Shorts creators is scheduled to kick off on February 1, 2023, as the company updated its monetisation policy for Shorts, which replaces the $100 million Youtube Shorts fund.

Youtube will now start sharing revenue from ads between the videos on the Shorts feed. This is going to stay separate from long-form video monetisation.

In September 2022, the streaming giant announced that creators with more than 1000 subscribers and 10 million views on Shorts within the past 90 days would be eligible to apply and receive a 45% revenue share.

Youtube is overhauling its monetisation program into three new modules, and existing channels in their Youtube partner program will also need to accept the new terms by July 10, 2023. The modules include the Page Monetisation Module (for long-form creators), Shorts Monetisation Module and Commerce Product Addendum (for fan funding features). The long-form and short-form content will be supported by their respective in-feed ads and Youtube Premium subscription pool.

Any Shorts creator will first have to accept the Shorts Monetisation Module terms to start earning from ads and Youtube Premium subscriptions. Ad revenue sharing will apply to Shorts views starting from the date the creators accept the terms. Any views on Shorts before accepting this module won’t be monetised.

How does Shorts revenue sharing work?

Last year, Youtube started testing a way for creators to use music from popular artists in their videos by licensing or sharing the revenue with the artist. 

Each month, the company will pool all the revenue from ads running between Shorts. This fund will then be used to reward creators as well as help cover the music licensing costs.

All the money earned by monetised Shorts will be added to a Creator Pool. If a creator uses a track in their Shorts, revenue from that video will be divided between the artists and the creator pool; if not, all the money goes to the creator pool. The more tracks, the lower the revenue accrued by Shorts as the money is divided among more artists.

Monetised creators will then be paid from this creator pool, depending on their share of the total monetised views. Creators keep 45% of their allocated Shorts revenue.

Any views of Shorts by creators who haven’t accepted the Shorts Monetisation module won’t be added to the creator pool. Any revenue associated with views of Shorts uploaded by music partners, ineligible Shorts, or ads shown when the Shorts feed is launched — before short videos start playing — and ads shown on navigational pages within the Shorts player won’t be added to the creator revenue pool either.

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