To make money on YouTube, the key threshold is joining the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which requires meeting specific criteria:

• You need at least 1,000 subscribers.
• You must have either 4,000 valid public watch hours in the past 12 months for long-form videos or 10 million valid public Shorts views in the past 90 days.
• You must have uploaded at least three public videos in the last 90 days.
• You need to live in a country where YPP is available, have an active AdSense account linked, enable two-step verification, and comply with YouTube’s monetization policies and community guidelines

There is also a lower tier introduced in 2023 that allows creators with 500 subscribers to access some fan funding features (like Super Thanks and channel memberships) and other monetization tools, but this tier does not include ad revenue sharing. To qualify for this, creators must have:

• 500 subscribers,
• three public videos in the last 90 days,
• and either 3,000 watch hours in the past 12 months or 3 million Shorts views in the last 90 days

In summary:

Monetization Level| Subscribers Required| Watch Time or Shorts Views Requirement| Monetization Features Available
---|---|---|---
Full Ad Revenue & YPP Membership| 1,000| 4,000 watch hours (12 months) or 10M Shorts views (90 days)| Ad revenue, memberships, Super Chats, Shopping
Fan Funding & Partial Monetization Tier| 500| 3,000 watch hours (12 months) or 3M Shorts views (90 days)| Fan funding features, memberships (no ad revenue)

YouTube monetization is not immediate after hitting these numbers; earnings depend on views and engagement, and many creators start earning meaningful income only after sustained growth beyond these minimums

. Therefore, to start making money on YouTube, you generally need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours (or equivalent Shorts views) for full monetization, but you can access some monetization features earlier with 500 subscribers under the new lower tier