YouTube to Pay Content Creators $10,000 to Record TikTok-like ‘Shorts’

YouTubers can now earn $10,000 a month by creating videos for YouTube Shorts.

The massive payouts are a part of YouTube’s Shorts Fund, which was created to take on its largest competitor, TikTok. The $100 million fund will issue payouts through next year before being replaced by a “long-term, scalable monetization program.”

While the money sounds sweet, it is not guaranteed to all content creators. The payouts will be based on the creators’ popularity, locations, and how many people engage with Shorts monthly. Shorts must also be original. Reuploads and videos that have watermarks from other platforms will disqualify a channel from being compensated.

YouTube creators are usually paid based on advertising running throughout their videos. Since Shorts are much quicker than standard YouTube videos, the platform says it will not put ads in front of each of these clips, which is why the fund will help creators continue to get paid.

TikTok is already ahead of the game with paying popular creators, so YouTube will need to make the program as lucrative as possible to attract creators willing to participate in Shorts.

The Shorts payments are only available to users in the United States, United Kingdom, India, Brazil, and several other places. YouTube is planning on expanding its reach in the future.