YouTube Creators Get More Monetization Tools, Including In-Site Merchandise Sales and Paid Memberships

YouTube is helping content creators earn profit directly through the video-sharing platform by introducing in-site merchandise sales and subscription-based premium channels.

Gone are the days when YouTube was meant only for uploading random, funny, or interesting videos. Through the years, many content creators have gained such a widespread popularity through the medium that a lot of them are doing it full time.

Obviously, this can be attributed to Google’s program of placing ads on highly watched content, letting these creators make a living out of posting videos supported by their millions of followers. And this week at VidCon, Google announced more ways to help content creators earn more money.

First, Google will be introducing the Channel Memberships scheme to pages with at least 100,000 subscribers. The required recurring monthly fee for this is $4.99.

Paying subscribers will get “unique badges, new emoji, Members-only posts in the Community tab, and access to unique custom perks offered by creators, such as exclusive live streams, extra videos, or shout-outs.”

However, only time will tell how this is going to affect the quality of creators’ content for non-paying customers.

YouTube fans are used to seeing their favorite creators sell various types of merchandise (or more commonly referred to as “merch”), which are being advertised on every YouTube video but are being sold on other platforms.

Soon, Google will be adding a section where creators can post their merch on their YouTube channels. This means fans can also immediately purchase a t-shirt or phone case without leaving the YouTube website.

Unfortunately, the in-site merch services are quite limited and will only be available to channels based in the United States and with at least 10,000 subscribers.

Google is also launching the “Premieres” services. As the name suggests, creators can pre-record videos for any important announcements and stream them live in a specific schedule which their fans can follow. While this is partly accessible for free, Google will be incorporating some services that are exclusive to Channel Memberships subscribers.

“Premieres also unlocks new revenue streams. For the first time, creators can use Super Chat on traditional YouTube uploads and take advantage of Channel Memberships perks that were previously only available on Live videos,” Google said.