What it takes to get paid by YouTube, TikTok and other social platforms

By Krystal Scanlon • February 28, 2025 •

Ivy Liu

For creators, YouTube is still the top platform for making money.

No surprise there. It’s had a head start, fine-tuning its monetization model while others scramble to keep up. And with U.S. creators expected to rake in over $15 billion from social media alone this year, according to eMarketer, the stakes have never been higher. For platforms, courting creators isn’t just a strategy, its table stakes. And more often than not, the winning move comes down to cold, hard cash.

“If you asked 10 creators what platform they prefer for monetizing outside of brand partnerships, you’d probably get at least nine (if not all) saying YouTube,” said Keith Bendes, chief strategy officer at Linqia. “Interestingly though, if you asked 10 brands which platform they prefer for creator partnerships, you’d probably get nine (or all of them) saying Instagram or TikTok.”

Call it a disconnect, or just a difference in priorities. Either way, creators know one thing for certain: their best bet is diversifying revenue streams. After all, they’re building businesses on borrowed land.

Digiday took a closer look at which platforms are cutting the biggest checks, which still come with questions and which are just getting started in the creator monetization game.

YouTube: the gold standard for creator monetization

YouTube has long been known as the king of creator monetization, with its well established YouTube Partner Program (YPP) that launched back in May 2007. Far more superior than a creator fund, YouTube’s revenue share program offers a 50/50 split for creators who produce long-term content. For those producing Shorts, 45% of the revenue goes to creators, while YouTube takes a 55% cut.

To be eligible, creators must have at least 1,000 subscribers on their channel, plus 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months (on long form content), or 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days.

Snapchat: the underdog slowly winning creators’ attention

One of the newer platforms to the revenue share model, having previously been criticized for the dwindling pots of creator fund cash, Snapchat is definitely trying to up its game. And it must be working, since creators, for the most part, seem to be far more open to jumping on the app. While it didn’t provide exact figures, Snapchat shared that the number of creators posting content grew around 50% year-over-year in Q3 2024, when it launched its Find Your Favorites campaign last month.

“Snap offers creators a relatively lower lift way to earn money and it seems to be effective,” said Billion Dollar Boy’s founder and group CEO Ed East. “It’s a good option if creators already have a strong audience and want to connect with them more directly and earn money from it.”

The platform recently spruced up its creator monetization programs by unifying the offerings. Now, under the updated Snapchat Monetization Program, creators can earn their dollars for eligible content within Stories as well as Spotlights that are longer than one minute. Though the platform hasn’t disclosed its revenue share split figures.

Sounds easy right? Well, Snapchat does expect some commitment from creators if it’s going to hand out cash. Eligible creators must be 18 years old or older, have at least 50,000 followers on their public profile and have achieved one of the following within the last 28 days:

10 million Snap views
1 million Spotlight views
12,000 hours of viewing time

And as for the content, creators are expected to post at least 25 times per month to Saved Stories or Spotlight, post to either Spotlight or Public Stories on at least 10 of the last 28 days, as well as ensure the content they publish is original and advertiser-friendly.

TikTok: the platform with options

TikTok has numerous ways in which creators can earn some cash, including getting involved in its revenue share program, and its updated creator rewards program.

Top creators (those who produce content within the top 4% of all videos on TikTok) can take part in TikTok Pulse — TikTok’s revenue share model, which splits the cash 50/50 between creators and the platform.

When it comes to creator funds, TikTok’s first attempt didn’t go down too well. For a small percentage of creators, it was fantastic. They had enough cash to pay their bills and become a full-time creator. But for the majority, definitely nowhere near enough to give up any day job.

Fast forward to February 2023 and the short-form video platform revamped its offering to become the Creativity Program Beta (though it has since been renamed the TikTok Creator Rewards Program). Call it a hybrid model between a creator fund and revenue share model; the program pays creators based on “dynamic revenue per mille (RPM)”. To participate, creators need to have 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in the last 30 days.

Where the jury is still out:

Meta
Previously, Instagram allowed creators to earn money through in-stream video ads, taking a 55% share of the revenue. However, this venture was cut back in February 2022 when Meta shifted focus to Reels. When Digiday last reported on this back in October 2022, Facebook was providing a 55% share of revenue to creators via in-stream ads and ads on Facebook Reels. However, even this particular model seems to have been revamped.

Right now, Meta is working on a Facebook Content Monetization program, which merges its three existing Facebook-funded monetization offerings: the in-stream ads and ads on Reels mentioned above, as well as Performance Bonus.

So far, little is known about how this will pan out or the intricate details of how it works as the program is still an invitation-only offering until sometime next year.

X
Back in July 2023, nine months after billionaire Elon Musk had bought then-Twitter, the controversial entrepreneur introduced a revenue share program for creators. Periodically, there’d be tidbits of information from creators themselves saying online what huge cash sums they were making from X — though 19 months later, still not much is known about the program, such as the revenue share split creators receive.

What we do know is that payouts are calculated based on “engagement from Premium users with your content on X” and those payouts are processed every two weeks, cashing out a minimum of $10 each time.

And as for creator eligibility, X states that those who can become part of the program must:

Have an active Premium or Verified Organization subscription
Have at least 5 million organic impressions within the last 3 months
Have at least 500 verified followers

Newer entrants to the creator monetization space

Reddit
In September 2024, Reddit introduced its Earnings Programs for contributors, developers and creators. The programs enable those individuals to earn cash for “eligible activities” on Reddit. The creator program specifically enables creators to sell collectible avatars to other users, or redditors.

While there are no details of how much a creator can earn, Reddit has shared eligibility requirements for those taking part in their programs:

A Reddit account that has been active for a minimum of 30 days and registered with a verified email address, and isn’t associated with an ad account.
Verified identity and a Stripe account.

Substack
Substack is a much newer entrant to the creator monetization game, having only recently announced its first creator fund. The newsletter subscription platform wants to encourage creators to move their paid-subscription audience over to Substack, so this pot of cash is reserved to help those creators so they don’t lose any earnings in the process. The $20 million fund is still very much a pilot program, given applications only opened on Jan. 23, and will be reviewed on a rolling basis throughout the year until all spots are filled.

While Substack hasn’t revealed the total number of spots available, or any other details about the pilot, the fund is currently only open to U.S. based creators (both individual or small groups) who earn a monthly recurring revenue of at least $2,000.

Spotify
A very new player to revenue sharing, Spotify, launched its Partner Program last month. While it’s still such a new product, the platform is very open about stating that creators that are part of it will earn a 50% cut of the revenue each time an ad plays in their episodes, both on and off Spotify.

So to be eligible to earn cash from podcasts, creators must (at the very minimum):