YouTube Partner Program (YPP): requirements, how to join and what it pays
Updated 06.10.2026 · Kostas Obuchow
The YouTube Partner Program needs 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours in 12 months, or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days. Requirements, how to apply, review times, what membership gives you and what gets you removed.
Short answer
The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) is the mechanism through which a creator receives a share of the advertising revenue from their videos. There are two routes in, and both require 1,000 subscribers:
1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of public watch time in the last 12 months;
1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days.
There is also a lower tier — from 500 subscribers — but it carries no ad revenue.
You apply in YouTube Studio, the review is manual, and it usually takes up to a month. The threshold only opens the queue: a person decides, and what they look at is whether the content is yours.
What the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) is
YPP is an agreement between you and YouTube under which the platform places ads on your videos and shares the revenue. Before you join, videos can collect millions of views and pay nothing — no ads are served on them at all.
Three things worth understanding about how it works:
it is about money, not status. Membership brings no badge and no priority in recommendations;
the split is fixed: 55% of net ad revenue on long-form, 45% of your allocated share on Shorts;
membership is not permanent. It is reviewed, and violations get you removed — more on that below.
YouTube Partner Program requirements
Route
Subscribers
Second condition
What it unlocks
Main
1,000
4,000 hours of public watch time in 12 months
ad revenue
Shorts
1,000
10M Shorts views in 90 days
ad revenue
Lower tier
500
3 uploads in 90 days plus hours or Shorts views
viewer funding, shopping
On top of the numbers: you must be 18 or have an authorised representative, live in a covered country, have no active strikes, have two-step verification switched on, and have a payment account linked.
One detail that matters: the 4,000 hours sit in a rolling 365-day window. It is not a lifetime total — whatever you earned 366 days ago no longer counts today. How that affects timelines is in how to get 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours.
How to get into the YouTube Partner Program, step by step
Turn on two-step verification for the Google account — the application will not submit without it;
check your country: the programme is not available everywhere, and the requirement covers your financial accounts, not only you;
clear any active strikes. An outstanding community guidelines or copyright strike blocks the application;
reach the threshold — 1,000 subscribers plus hours or Shorts views;
apply in YouTube Studio, in the monetization section: the button appears on its own once the threshold is met;
accept the terms and create or link an AdSense account — how that works is in AdSense for YouTube;
wait for the manual review.
There is no step called “contact support to speed it up”, because it does not exist.
What YPP membership gives you
ads on your videos — the main source, 55% of net revenue;
a share of the Shorts pool — 45% of the amount allocated to you;
a share of Premium subscription revenue — proportional to watch time on your videos;
viewer funding, Super Chat and the shopping shelf — features that unlock with the programme or at the lower tier.
What membership does not give you: more reach, protection from strikes, priority in recommendations, or any guarantee of income. How much it actually pays depends on the audience’s market, and that arithmetic is in views needed for $1,000 a month.
The 500-subscriber tier
A separate step that often gets mistaken for monetization: 500 subscribers, three uploads in the last 90 days, and either 3,000 watch hours in a year or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days.
What it unlocks: viewer funding, Super Chat, Super Thanks, the shopping shelf. What it does not unlock: ad revenue. Ads begin only at the full threshold, so income from advertising cannot be planned from this tier.
How long the application review takes
The usual window is up to a month, and the review is manual rather than automated. A reviewer opens the channel and checks it against the monetization policies: whether the content is yours, whether it is substantially original, and what the traffic sources look like.
If the answer is no, you can reapply after 30 days. The reasons for refusal and what to do about each are in YouTube monetization rejected.
What gets you removed from the partner programme
inactivity — a channel that uploads nothing for six months running can have membership ended;
mass-produced and reused content — the most common cause both on the way in and on the way out;
artificial traffic — handled on the payments side, and it can cost you not just the programme but the payment account;
three active strikes for copyright or community guidelines terminate the channel entirely;
serious off-platform behaviour is taken into account too.
The difference between a claim and a strike — and which of them affects the programme at all — is in a claim and a strike.
What changes in 2027
From 1 February 2027 the threshold rises for new channels: 8,000 watch hours in 365 days or 20 million Shorts views in 90 days, with 1,000 subscribers unchanged. Channels already in the programme are not affected. To draw from the Shorts pool in a given month, a channel will need 10 million Shorts views in the previous 90 days.
The key difference is the entrance itself. YPP admits by threshold: collect the hours, submit the application. Content Monetization has no threshold at all — and no application either, because it works by invitation.
YouTube Partner Program
Content Monetization
Entry
threshold and application
invitation, no application exists
What counts
watch hours, Shorts views
qualified views
Split
55% long-form, 45% Shorts
agreed separately
What sets the rate
the audience’s market
the audience’s market
The last row is identical, and it matters more than the rest: our own network measurements put the rate between $0.08 and $0.33 per thousand qualified views depending on language, averaging $0.185, with a 53-fold spread between the cheapest and most expensive audience language.
Qualified views per month
At the network low
At the average
At the network high
1 000 000
≈ $80
≈ $185
≈ $220
10 000 000
≈ $800
≈ $1 850
≈ $2 200
90 000 000
≈ $7 200
≈ $16 650
≈ $19 800
The network runs about 250 pages in 25 languages. Across the monetized pages the average is $0.024 per thousand views, and $0.08 to $0.33 per thousand qualified views — the ones Meta counts, averaging $0.185. The best single page-month was $21,216 and the best day $4,163. These are measurements, not a promise: the rate follows language, market and format. Full breakdown in RPM by country.
How we help
If the threshold is still a year away but the videos already exist, the library can start paying sooner: on a page that already holds the invitation there is no threshold to reach.
Your videos and photos go out on the network's pages and we split the revenue. The invitation, the eligible country and the payout account stop being your problem — the pages and the payouts are on us. We pick the language and the market that fit your content, and we check every file for originality risk before it is published. The rights to your material stay with you.
You monetize on your own page and we set it up. If you would rather own the asset and keep all of the revenue, we prepare the page, help with the payout details and hand over a plan of what to publish and when.
Write to us with a link to your channel or page: we will say which languages your material makes sense in and roughly what it would return.
I hit 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours. Does monetization switch on automatically?
September 2026
No — the threshold only unlocks the apply button. From there you submit the application, accept the terms, link a payment account and wait for a manual review, usually up to a month. The reviewer is not looking at the numbers, which are already met; they are looking at the content, at whether it is yours and substantially original. That is why a channel with the threshold and somebody else’s library gets refused just as surely as a channel without the threshold gets nothing.
Which route is better to start with — 4,000 hours or 10 million Shorts views?
August 2026
Whichever matches the format you already make. Ten million Shorts views in 90 days is roughly 110,000 views a day without a break, and switching to short form purely to get in usually trades one slow path for another. If you already make short video, take the Shorts route — but note that the format’s own rate is pennies per thousand, so after admission the money still comes from long-form or from a different market.
Sources: Partner programme thresholds (1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 hours of public watch time in 12 months, or 10 million Shorts views in 90 days), the 500-subscriber tier with three uploads in 90 days, the 55% and 45% revenue shares, requirements on age, country, two-step verification and absence of strikes, the manual application review and reapplication after 30 days, removal after six months of inactivity, and the changes from 1 February 2027 — YouTube Help, checked 3 October 2026. That Content Monetization is invitation-only — Meta Business Help Centre. The $0.08–0.33 range, the $0.185 average and the 53-fold spread between audience languages — our own measurements across about 250 pages.