Like most professional creators on social media, Alyssa Eckstein was accustomed to earning money with brand sponsorships. In her, case it was integrating products from companies including Beyond Meat and Bloom into the Pink Shirt Couple comedy videos she and her boyfriend, Cayda Christianson, make.
As 2022 came to a close, the couple made a bold choice. They would focus entirely on creating content for their millions of followers rather than chasing sponsorship deals. Part of what drove the decision was YouTube’s pledge to share advertising revenue with creators of short-form videos—Pink Shirt Couple’s favorite format—beginning in February.
“I was really excited to see what would happen and how much the pay would be,” Eckstein says of YouTube Shorts’ new revenue-sharing program.
Two weeks into YouTube’s new Shorts revenue-sharing program, the paychecks are already coming in.
So far, Eckstein says she’s made about $12,000 since YouTube started sharing revenue with Shorts creators on Feb. 1. That would be cause for celebration for many creators, but relative to the size of Pink Shirt Couple’s audience–the high jinks and comedy sketch clips have amassed 979 million views on YouTube in the past 28 days—and going ad rates, Eckstein was expecting even more.
“It is a little bit less than I thought it would be, but I’m happy it’s bigger than the TikTok Creator Fund,” she tells Fortune.
The comparison with TikTok is crucial not just for creators like Eckstein, but for the platforms themselves. YouTube, TikTok, Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, as well as Snapchat are all angling to become the platform of choice for social media creators. And many in the industry believe that platform payments could become a decisive factor in the short-form video wars.
TikTok turned short video clips—usually videos that are one minute or less—into a global phenomenon, luring users from established social media platforms. But TikTok’s efforts to pay creators have been lackluster.
YouTube, by contrast, has been fostering goodwill with creators since the inception of its Partner Program in 2007 when it began sharing advertising revenue with creators. In the three years prior to June 2022, YouTube paid out $50 billion to creators and media companies, according to YouTube.
Reza Izad, who cofounded Underscore Talent, which represents 200-plus influencers, believes that if YouTube is able to give creators of Shorts the same level of payouts it has doled out for other content, the company will “transform an entire generation of creator economics.”
If the first couple of weeks are any indication, YouTube’s deep cash coffers and stockpile of goodwill are giving it a leg up with creators. Still, early feedback from creators about everything from uncertainty on audio rules to decreasing viewership underscores how open the race still is. And with the news on Thursday that YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is stepping down, with YouTube veteran Neal Mohan taking the reins, creators will be paying close attention for any signs of change in the platform’s commitment to short-form video.
Several creators with whom Fortune spoke were confused about basic elements of YouTube’s new program, including how exactly revenue-generating ads were integrated into their videos and how to gauge whether their videos are being monetized.
Short-form videos are trickier to monetize
Because of their brief length, short-form videos are more challenging to monetize than the longer videos in which YouTube runs ads before the video starts, or midway through. For Shorts, YouTube is running full-screen ads between creator-made videos that often include links for users to click to the advertiser’s website. Generally, a full-screen ad between five and 60 seconds long will appear after a user has scrolled through between three and 13 creator-made videos, based on Fortune’s own experience browsing the service.
The risk of overloading users with ads and driving them away is a key concern when it comes to monetizing short-form videos. James Seo, who attracted 602,000 YouTube followers to his street interviews and prank content, told Fortune his views have decreased by about 50% since YouTube introduced ads, crimping his income projections. “Everyone was doing crazy views,” he says about Shorts prior to ad revenue sharing. “I’m not complaining—it’s still money—but it’s more underwhelming than I thought.”
Though most Shorts creators Fortune interviewed had a baseline understanding of how YouTube splits ad revenue because of their experience making longer videos on the platform, many are finding themselves rethinking their Shorts strategy as YouTube does not share revenue with creators on copyrighted music or trending sounds. (While this is the long-standing YouTube policy for all content, it’s been less of an issue for long-form videos where creators rely on plot-driven ideas rather than snackable shtick.) In order to generate income directly from YouTube’s Shorts program, creators need to use copyright-free music or voice-overs.
“It is going to shift the way that I move forward,” says Andrea Ballo, the creator behind Coco Michele Illustrations who has made less than $15 from YouTube Shorts ad revenue sharing because most of her Shorts use trending sounds and copyrighted music. Creators including Ballo also note they have zero visibility into the ads shown next to their content and targeting to which their audiences are subject. “I don’t have clarity on what the experience is like for the user,” she says.
“It’s still early, and we’re focused on bringing together creators, viewers, and advertisers to grow the Shorts ecosystem,” a YouTube spokesperson told Fortune. “As we all invest in Shorts we expect creator earnings to continue to grow. With Shorts ad revenue sharing, we’re committed to building a long-term partnership where creators can directly share in the platform’s success.”
To be included in YouTube’s Shorts revenue sharing, a creator must be a member of the YouTube Partner Program (creators need at least 1,000 subscribers and 10 million public Shorts views on original content in the past 90 days to be eligible).
Despite some of the ambiguity surrounding the program, YouTube’s 45% revenue share is welcomed by creators who have been even more mystified by some of the rival platform payment systems. Instagram’s Reels for instance pays creators “bonuses” from views, which many found unpredictable. Meanwhile TikTok’s Pulse program says it pays top creators 50% of revenue from advertising, but many creators with whom Fortune spoke reported earning mere pennies.
YouTube’s track record of sharing ad revenue with creators in the past means that some short-form video creators are willing to prioritize the platform, even though the audience for YouTube Shorts still lags competitors like TikTok and Meta. (Google recently said that YouTube Shorts videos now garner 50 billion daily views, up from 30 billion a year earlier, but still well below the 140 billion daily Reels views on Facebook and Instagram.)
“YouTube has been [paying creators] for so long it seems they’re a more trustworthy platform,” says Jeena Wilder, who makes content about her multicultural and adopted children under the username Hey There Wilders, and has garnered 386,000 YouTube subscribers. She optimizes her content for YouTube, posting videos to the Google-owned platform first and following its rules around monetizable audio.
For other creators, the preference from YouTube stems from the relationships with the platform’s team. “YouTube does love their creators, and they’d like very long-term relationships with their creators—so I wouldn’t be surprised if they work through compensation a little bit more for videos,” says 19-year-old Brooke Monk, who skipped college to become a professional influencer with nearly 2 million YouTube subscribers. At present, she reports making a similar amount of money from TikTok Pulse and YouTube Shorts, but strongly prefers YouTube because of the close-knit bond she shares with her platform representative. She notes, “I wouldn’t say [Shorts pay] is life-changing money, but I do see it potentially growing a lot.”
What’s clear is that creators are ready to be wooed as the platform giants compete for their favor. “I’m happy for these platforms to be fighting because it’s more money for me and more opportunity for all creators,” says Seo. So far, he’s made the “underwhelming” (his words) amount of $445 from YouTube Shorts since the inception of ad revenue sharing on the product. That said, he relies on brand deals to support himself so it’s not crippling. “In a perfect world, the money comes from platforms,” he says.
