How to make money on YouTube Shorts in 2026

Most ways to make money on YouTube Shorts run through the YouTube Partner Program, which has two tiers: one for fan funding and Shopping, and one that adds ad revenue. The rest pay you outside YouTube's systems. Here's each one, with what YouTube or the other side asks of you and how the money reaches you:

The 500-subscriber tier is offered in a long list of countries YouTube publishes; elsewhere, fan funding and Shopping need the full program. How much the views themselves are worth is in how much YouTube Shorts pay. This guide is about all the ways to turn them into money.

Ads don't play on a Short itself. They play between Shorts in the feed, and YouTube shares that money with creators in the YouTube Partner Program. To get in through Shorts, you need 1,000 subscribers and 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days; through long videos, 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours in the last 12 months (watch time in the Shorts feed doesn't count toward those). You also need to follow the monetization policies, live where the program is offered, have no active Community Guidelines strikes, turn on 2-Step Verification, have advanced features and link an AdSense for YouTube account. See how far off you are with the YouTube watch hours calculator, and the review itself in how to get monetized on YouTube.

Once you're in, accept the Shorts Monetization Module in YouTube Studio. Only views from the day you accept it count. Each month YouTube pools the ad money from the Shorts feed, sets part of it aside for music, splits the rest by each creator's share of engaged views in each country, and you keep 45% of what's allocated to you. YouTube Premium revenue from Shorts is shared at 45% too. Creators report about $0.03 to $0.20 per 1,000 engaged views, so a million engaged views is roughly $30 to $200. Try your own numbers in the YouTube Shorts money calculator.

What changes on February 1, 2027:

• New channels need more to join: 8,000 watch hours in 365 days or 20 million Shorts views in 90 days, still with 1,000 subscribers. Channels already in keep their place.
• Every channel needs 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days to earn from the Shorts pool that month. Missing it doesn't remove you from the program or touch your long-video earnings.
• Targeted Shorts ads pay directly. When an advertiser aims an ad at five or fewer channels, those channels keep 45% of its net revenue, on top of the pool.
• Accept the updated terms in YouTube Studio by January 31, 2027, or you stop earning from those features until you do.

YouTube also runs a Shorts bonus program, an invite-only pilot for select creators in some regions. If you're invited and accept in YouTube Studio, you can earn a minimum payment for each month you post at least the number of public Shorts your invitation sets, and possibly a bonus based on your engaged Shorts views, as long as you're still monetizing at the end of that month. There's no way to apply; YouTube says there will be more chances to join as it scales the program in 2027. Separately, its 2027 changes add Shorts incentive programs that may offer bonuses for Shopping and production credits for brand deals.

Fan funding is money straight from your viewers, and it opens earlier than ads: with 500 subscribers, 3 public uploads in the last 90 days, and 3,000 watch hours in 12 months or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days, where YouTube offers the expanded Partner Program. You need to be 18 or older, live where the feature is available, and accept the Commerce Product Module in YouTube Studio.

• Super Thanks works on Shorts as well as long videos. A viewer buys an animation (only they see it play) and gets to post a highlighted comment, at one of a few price points. Turn it on in YouTube Studio under Earn, then Supers, and it shows on all your eligible Shorts. It isn't offered on Shorts that are age-restricted, unlisted, private, made for kids, have a copyright claim, a YouTube Giving fundraiser or comments turned off. You get 70% of what Google recognizes, after taxes and fees (including App Store fees on iPhone and iPad).
• Channel memberships are monthly payments for perks like badges, emoji and members-only videos. Members-only Shorts are one of them: members find them in their Shorts and Home feeds, and they suit quick behind-the-scenes clips or Q&As. They must be fully original, with no third-party music, not even from the Shorts music library. You get 70% of membership revenue after taxes and fees.

Neither pays much on a channel people only swipe past. Both pay on a channel people come back to, which is why they work best with a regular face, voice or series that viewers recognize from one Short to the next.

YouTube Shopping lets you tag products in your Shorts, long videos and live streams. Through the YouTube Shopping affiliate program, those can be other brands' products, and you earn a commission when a viewer buys one on the retailer's site. To be invited, YouTube asks that:

• Your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program and meets its subscriber threshold.
• You're based in an eligible country. The US, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan and Korea are among them; YouTube's pages list between 12 and 18 countries depending on where you look, so check Earn in YouTube Studio.
• Your channel isn't a music channel or Official Artist Channel, and isn't set as made for kids.

Join in YouTube Studio under Earn, then Programs. Each brand sets its own commission rate for each product, which you can compare in the affiliate hub, and some offer higher custom rates. Commissions are paid through AdSense for YouTube, 60 to 120 days after the purchase. YouTube doesn't allow sending traffic from outside YouTube to your affiliate links.

The Shorts that sell are the ones where the product is the point: it being used, unboxed, compared or fixing a problem in the first seconds. A product tagged on a Short about something else rarely gets tapped.

A brand deal pays you a fee to feature a product, and it doesn't depend on YouTube's ad rates at all. Any channel can sign one directly with a brand. YouTube also runs its own marketplace, YouTube Creator Partnerships (it was called BrandConnect until March 2026), where brands search for creators and send offers. To be listed, YouTube requires that you:

• Are 18 or older and in the YouTube Partner Program.
• Are based in one of the countries it lists (24 in October 2026, including the US, UK, Canada, Australia, India and Brazil).
• Have no active Community Guidelines strikes, and follow the monetization policies.

Eligible channels get a Creator Partnerships tab under Earn in YouTube Studio, with a media kit and a place to set your desired rates for long videos and for Shorts. Offers there show a suggested amount from the advertiser; it's a starting point for the negotiation, not a final offer.

However you find the deal, tell YouTube about it: select the paid promotion option in the video's details, which adds a disclosure label at the start. Your local advertising rules may ask for more. A Short works for a sponsor when the product fits what your viewers already come for, so the deal looks like one of your Shorts rather than an ad.

Per view, long videos pay far more. YouTube pays partners 55% of the net ad revenue on their long videos, and creators report about $1 to $6 per 1,000 views. AIR Media-Tech, tracking 274 channels (September 2026), found the Shorts rate was 3 to 14% of the long-video rate in most niches, so a long-video view paid about 7 to 33 times as much. That's why many channels treat Shorts as the way in, not the way they earn:

1. Cut Shorts from each long video, each one a moment that works on its own: one tip, the start of a story, a result without the how.
2. Link each Short to its full video. In YouTube Studio, open the Short, select a related video and save; viewers see a link below your channel handle. It needs advanced features. Shorts made with Studio's Clips and Shorts tool get the link automatically.
3. Count what comes through. Watch time in the Shorts feed doesn't count toward the 4,000 watch hours, but the hours people spend on the long video after tapping through do, and those views earn the long-video rate.

The bottleneck is the cutting: finding the moments, reframing each one to vertical and captioning it can take as long as editing the video. That's the part Clyper does from the video's link, so one long video becomes many Shorts, each of which you can link back to it. The steps by hand are in how to turn a YouTube video into Shorts, and the trade-offs in Shorts vs long videos.

More on how it works in YouTube to Shorts. For getting each Short seen, see how the YouTube Shorts algorithm works.

What you sell yourself is paid through your own store, not through YouTube's pool. There are two ways to do it from Shorts:

• On YouTube, with a connected store. Connect your store (merch, or products from your shop) in YouTube Studio and tag its products in your Shorts; they also show in your channel's store and below your videos. YouTube asks that you're in the Partner Program and meet its subscriber threshold (or are an Official Artist Channel), aren't set as made for kids, and have no hate speech strikes. Payments come through your store's platform; YouTube and AdSense aren't involved.
• Off YouTube. A course, coaching, a service, a newsletter, downloads. YouTube doesn't take a share or set a threshold here: the Shorts bring people in, and your long videos and channel links do the selling.

This is where small channels can earn the most per viewer. A Short that teaches one useful thing from your course, with the rest a tap away, does what an ad can't: it shows the buyer what they'd be paying for.

Posting clips of someone else's videos with nothing of your own added won't earn YouTube ad revenue. YouTube lists non-original Shorts (unedited clips from others' shows, re-uploads of other creators' videos and compilations with nothing added) as views that don't count for revenue sharing. Its reused content policy applies even when the creator gave you permission, and to the channel as a whole. The details are in YouTube's reused content policy.

Clippers get paid another way. On a clipping campaign, a creator or brand pays a set amount per 1,000 views on the clips you post of their videos, out of a budget, by their own rules. On October 11, 2026, most listings on Content Rewards paid between $0.50 and $2 per 1,000 views. At $1.00, a million views pays $1,000, against the $30 to $200 creators report for a million engaged views in the Shorts pool. You don't need the Partner Program, followers or your own videos, but you do need to follow each campaign's rules to the letter.

• Start with how to make money clipping for the whole process.
• Find campaigns and read their briefs with how to find clipping campaigns.
• Work out a month's pay with the clipping earnings calculator.

Campaigns pay for views, so clippers post a lot: several clips a day, each a different moment. Clyper works on a campaign's videos the same way as on your own, from the YouTube link: it finds the moments, cuts and frames them and captions every word, so most of the time goes into posting.