The YouTube Partner Program, Explained (Both Tiers)

If someone tells you that you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours to make money on YouTube, they are working from an old map. That used to be the single gate. It is not anymore. The Partner Program now has two tiers, and the first one opens at 500 subscribers. Knowing which tier you are aiming at changes what you should chase next.

The YouTube Partner Program, or YPP, is the official path to earning money on the platform. The two-tier structure means you can start earning from your own audience well before you qualify for ad revenue. Most guides still skip the first tier entirely, which leaves a lot of small creators thinking they have nothing to monetize when they already do.

#Tier one: fan funding at 500 subscribers

The first tier unlocks fan funding and Shopping, but not ad revenue. To qualify, YouTube requires all of the following:

• 500 subscribers.
• 3 valid public uploads in the last 90 days.
• Either 3,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months, or 3,000,000 valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days.

What you get at this tier is direct support from your audience: channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers, and Super Thanks, plus access to Shopping features. You do not get a share of ad revenue yet. For fan funding, YouTube pays creators 70% and keeps 30%, calculated after local sales tax and, on iOS, after Apple App Store fees, so a tip bought inside the mobile app nets you less than the same tip on desktop. We go deeper on how each of these works in memberships, Super Thanks, and fan funding.

#Tier two: ad revenue at 1,000 subscribers

The second tier is the one most people picture when they think of monetization. It unlocks ad and YouTube Premium revenue sharing. The requirements are higher:

• 1,000 subscribers.
• Either 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months, or 10,000,000 valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days.

Once you are in, the long-form ad split is 55% to you and 45% to YouTube on net watch-page ad revenue. Shorts pay differently: creators receive 45% of the revenue allocated from a monthly Creator Pool, distributed by each creator's share of engaged views. If you are weighing where to put your effort, that split difference is worth understanding before you commit a content calendar to Shorts.

#What "valid public" actually means

The word "valid" in those thresholds is doing real work. Private, unlisted, and deleted videos do not count toward your watch hours or views. For the Shorts route, the views have to come from the Shorts feed specifically. So a channel that hit 4,000 watch hours and then set half its videos to private could quietly fall below the bar. Keep the content that earned your hours public.

This is also why the old shorthand "just get 1,000 subscribers to monetize" is misleading on two fronts. Subscribers alone never unlocked anything; you always needed the watch-time or views component too. And monetization now begins at 500 subscribers for fan funding, not 1,000.

#The requirements that apply to both tiers

Subscribers and watch hours get the attention, but YPP has a set of baseline requirements that apply no matter which tier you are chasing. Miss any of these and you stay locked out even with the numbers:

• A linked AdSense account to receive payments.
• 2-Step Verification enabled on your Google account.
• No active Community Guidelines strikes on the channel.
• Compliance with YouTube's channel monetization policies.
• Living in a country or region where YPP is available.

#Which tier should you aim for first

For most creators the answer is whichever you can reach first, because there is no penalty for entering the fan-funding tier early. If you have an engaged audience that would chip in, hitting 500 subscribers and turning on memberships and Super Thanks can start a real revenue stream months before you reach the ad-revenue bar. If your growth is coming mostly through Shorts, the Shorts-views routes may get you there faster than watch hours.

Either way, qualifying is the start, not the finish. What you earn after you are in depends on your niche, your audience, and your mix of revenue streams, which is a much bigger lever than the day you got accepted. If you want a sense of what the ad portion looks like across niches, we lay out realistic ranges in RPM by niche.

#After you qualify

Getting into YPP unlocks the tools, but the money comes from understanding them. Two ideas are worth your time next. First, learn the difference between CPM and RPM so your earnings reports stop confusing you, which we cover in CPM vs RPM. Second, treat ad revenue as one stream among several rather than the destination, because the creators who earn the most rarely rely on it alone.