14 Realistic Ways to Monetize on YouTube (Ranked and Compared) [2026]

Instead of focusing on big or huge YouTubers, let’s talk about what’s more feasible for micro and small-size channels to monetize on YouTube (generally under 10K subscribers). This article is written based on a lot of my experience as a YouTuber and YouTube strategist for other brands since 2019—now updated with everything that’s changed in 2025 and what to expect in 2026.

Based on my experience plus a dozen or so clients who are actively leveraging YouTube as a platform for their product and service businesses, our consensus for YouTube monetization based on difficulties and earnings is as follows, from MOST difficult to the LEAST difficult. I’ll also include earnings potential by using the universal $ signs.

Please note: the exact growth opportunities including monetization on and off of YouTube as a platform will vary depending on the creator and content niche.

Top 14 Ways To Monetize On YouTube (2026)

1. YouTube Partnership Program (YPP)

The YouTube Partner Program (YPP) gives creators greater access to YouTube resources and monetization features, including revenue sharing from ads served on your content.

2026 Eligibility (Two Tiers)

Early-Access Tier (Fan Funding Only):

• 500 subscribers
• 3 public uploads in the last 90 days
• 3,000 watch hours in the past 12 months OR 3 million Shorts views in 90 days

Full Monetization Tier (Ad Revenue Sharing):

• 1,000 subscribers
• 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months OR 10 million Shorts views in 90 days

YPP is no stranger to most creators on YouTube. While the new tiered system makes it easier to start earning through fan funding features, the full ad revenue sharing still requires significant effort. The 1,000 subscriber count and 4,000 watch hours remain a big hurdle for anyone just starting out without a big following.

What’s New in 2025-2026: YouTube has tightened enforcement on what they now call “inauthentic content”—mass-produced or repetitive videos that lack originality. As of July 2025, channels uploading narrative stories with only superficial differences or slideshows with identical narration risk losing monetization eligibility. If you’re creating genuine, original content, you have nothing to worry about.

You should not give up on monetization through YPP, but it takes effort and patience to get there. Take a look at the tubics distribution graphics—creators with over 1K subscribers represent a small fraction of the YouTube creator landscape. To put things in perspective, creators who are monetized on YouTube are a fraction of all YouTube channels.

To put things in perspective, creators who are monetized on YouTube are a fraction of all YouTube channels. If you compare monetized channels on YouTube, the success rate is much less than those who pass LSAT (Law School Admission Test), which is around 50%.

Check out my previous earnings with YPP:

• How Much I Earned on YouTube in 2020 (Small Channel)
• How Much I Made From YouTube in 2021: Revenue Stream Broken Down
• Revealing How Much I Earned From YouTube in 2022

2. Super Chats and Super Stickers

Super Chat and Super Stickers let you tap into a new revenue stream and connect with your fans during live streams and Premieres. These features let your viewers stand out within live chat by letting them purchase highlighted chats and animated images.

Eligibility

• Your channel is monetized
• You’re over 18
• You’re in one of the available locations

Super Chat and Super Stickers not only require an already-monetized YouTube channel but only work if it’s a live stream or premiere video. This limits earning potential on ALL videos.

Will anyone just pay for you to go live on YouTube, or release a new video as a premiere? Of course not. You need Super Fans to pay for Super Chat and award you with income when you produce video content. They have to feel loyal to your channel, your content—not just any content, but live content they are so eager to watch in real time.

Revenue Split: Creators receive 70% of Super Chat and Super Sticker revenue after YouTube’s 30% cut (calculated after local sales tax and App Store fees on iOS are deducted). Transaction costs, including credit card fees, are currently covered by YouTube.

Note: Super Chat and Super Stickers aren’t available on age-restricted, unlisted, or private videos. Super Chat and Super Stickers are also not available if live chat is turned off.

3. Super Thanks

Super Thanks lets you monetize on YouTube and connect with your viewers in a new way. Unlike Super Chat (which is limited to live streams), Super Thanks lets your viewers buy a one-time animation on your regular videos—including Shorts—and send a personalized, colorful comment that stands out in your comment section.

Eligibility

Your channel must meet the following criteria to be eligible for Super Thanks:

• Your channel is monetized
• You’re in one of the available locations
• You’re not a music channel under SRAV

If your channel is eligible you can turn on Super Thanks.

Just because there’s a “Thanks” button underneath your video, it doesn’t mean viewers will automatically click on it and give you money. According to YouTube, you have to talk to viewers, show them gratitude, and build genuine relationships. Specifically, you want to mention the button to let viewers know it exists, and encourage them to contribute to your creative journey.

Specifically, you want to mention and put down to let viewers know that the button exists, and encourage them to contribute to your creative journey. vidIQ wrote a great article about some of the best practices, in which they also mentioned tips such as:

• Replying to all Super Thanks comments
• Pin a comment to acknowledge the buyer
• Do an in-video shoutout
• Tell viewers how you’ll spend the money

Yes, that’s a lot of work. Having Super Thanks built into the YouTube platform and immediately accessible is a plus. But once again, YouTube will take 30% of your Super Thanks earnings.

Alternatives: You can consider platforms such as Patreon or BuyMeCofee. These platforms are free to sign up for, and you can include their links in the video description and encourage your viewers to contribute that way.

4. Gifts, Powered by Jewels (NEW in 2025)

This is a brand new monetization feature launched in late 2024 and expanded throughout 2025. Gifts powered by Jewels bring TikTok-style virtual gifting to YouTube, specifically for vertical live streams.

Here’s how it works: Viewers purchase Jewels (YouTube’s digital currency) in bundles ranging from $0.99 to $49.99. They can then send animated gifts during your vertical live streams. When you receive gifts, they convert to Rubies—and each Ruby is worth $0.01. So if you receive 100 Rubies, that’s $1 in earnings.

Eligibility

• You must be in the YouTube Partner Program
• Currently U.S.-based creators only (as of late 2025)
• Must stream in vertical format
• Accept the Virtual Items Module in YouTube Studio

What’s exciting about this: In September 2025, YouTube introduced interactive gift effects like “Cat ears,” “Flower crown,” and “Royal crown” that display for 8-15 seconds during your stream. They’ve also launched experimental gift goals—similar to donation goals on Twitch—where you can set a target amount and timeframe to gamify the experience.

This is YouTube’s answer to TikTok’s incredibly lucrative gifting system. If you’re already doing vertical live streams (or are willing to start), this could become a meaningful revenue stream as the feature expands globally.

5. YouTube Channel Memberships

Channel Memberships are a way for fans to support their favorite creator with a small recurring monthly payment for a paid subscription, in exchange for exclusive content not available to regular, free subscribers. Memberships are available at different price points from $0.99 to $99.99 per month. YouTube deducts a 30% share of your overall revenue.

Eligibility

Once again, you need a monetized YouTube channel. With the new early-access tier (500 subscribers), you can now access Channel Memberships earlier than before—this is one of the fan funding features available at the lower tier.

Similar to Super Chat, Channel Memberships request ongoing payments from viewers, except that memberships are subscription-based and require recurring payments. This is in some ways a taller order compared to Super Chat, yet it’s more open to all types of content (not just live streams and premieres).

Ideas for member-only perks:

• Custom emojis and badges
• Behind-the-scenes content
• Members-only community posts
• Exclusive live streams
• Early access to new videos
• Merch discounts

6. Online Courses

Most creators and entrepreneurs are familiar with online courses. Whether it’s a basic course for $20 or a signature course for $200 or more, you can begin making an income through online courses without the YouTube Partnership Program.

Along with other offerings we’ll discuss below, online courses can be more difficult to create at first compared to a simple digital product or selling merch. This is because selling online courses requires sufficient and strategic pre-planning. Courses often take significant time and money to create for those less experienced with online learning.

Designing a course without preplanning and validating the needs of ideal customers can fall flat when you first launch. However, we learn best from our own failures. I have seen clients tweaking their existing course content post-launch and successfully relaunching the product a second time.

My advice: Instead of waiting for the perfect moment to launch a course, experiment and test early while keeping the production and launch budget low. Without a big audience, creators often don’t have enough data to make an informed decision on exactly what the course will deliver. The MVP (minimum viable product) approach works well—start with a basic course without too many modules and go from there.

Course platforms to consider: Podia, Teachable, Kajabi, Thinkific, and Mighty Networks.

7. Digital Products

Digital products have many advantages over physical products: no inventory issues, no storage costs, customers receive products immediately upon purchase, and there are no costs related to materials or assembly.

There are various types of digital products you can consider as part of your YouTube channel. An online course is a subset of digital products, but there are many more formats: eBooks, guides, photography presets, music, recipes, software programs, digital printables, and templates.

Many digital products take little time to create. Unlike a course, you can deliver just a PDF, a checklist, or a guide to your viewers for a fraction of the cost. It’s also quite easy to repurpose similar digital products based on different needs—for example, Zoom meeting guides for teachers vs. small business owners vs. dance instructors.

Platforms for selling digital products: Podia, Gumroad (10% fee on sales), Squarespace (if your website is built there), and WooCommerce (for WordPress users).

• Podia – great for both digital products and online courses (they offer pre-launch and pre-sales options too). Another benefit is their all-in-one email marketing features that helps you engage with your leads and current students without having to pay for another email marketing tool.
• Squarespace – if your website is built on Squarespace, their built-in eCommerce feature could get you pretty far in selling digital and physical products
• WooCommerce – if you are using WordPress, WooCommerce is a standard tool to consider selling digital products first.
• Gumroad – it’s free to use but the platform does charge a 10% fee on every sale.

8. Merch

Many YouTubers diversify their incomes by adding merch to their YouTube stores. If you have a monetized channel, this carousel shows up right underneath your videos. You can further customize which products to show per video.

But you don’t want to wait for channel monetization to begin selling merch. Not at all! There are many platforms to design and sell products.

Favorite platforms:

• Printful: Print-on-demand, so you never store anything at home. Stellar product quality, good shipping rates, and they handle all customer service. Integrates easily with WordPress, Squarespace, and Shopify.
• RedBubble: Another print-on-demand company with over 700,000 creatives worldwide making shirts, stickers, phone cases, and more. Great variety of clothing brands and cuts.

While the setup is easy with today’s on-demand merch companies, merch won’t just fly off the shelves without a merch strategy. Just like video content, viewers now have close to infinite choices when it comes to clothing and household items. They need a good reason to buy new things.

Tips for success:

• Create merch your fans will like (not just something you like)
• Create messages and designs that are meaningful and unique, go beyond logos
• Don’t drop all merch at once, launch new designs throughout the year
• Use merch to give people a sense of belonging and community

9. Memberships and Community Programs Outside of YouTube

Membership and community-based business models have many benefits, including strengthening relationships with customers. Through membership offerings, you can provide tiered offerings, exclusive products, early access, communities, and much more.

While the concept of membership is familiar to most people, setting up high-quality and effective membership is another story. Customers who are part of a membership have different expectations—it’s your job as a creator and small business owner to meet these expectations.

A membership program is rarely set in stone. It can take many trials and errors to get it right. Membership programs that include community as an offering often need community managers or moderators. Especially as the community grows rapidly, it can feel overwhelming at first. Hence it’s important to develop guidelines from the start.

Platform recommendation: While Facebook Groups are free, we’ve seen better success with dedicated platforms like Mighty Networks, Circle, or Podia—members are more committed and less distracted from social media. You might like to read: Mighty Networks: How to Start Building an Online Community.

10. Start a blog based on your YouTube niche (SEO Optimized)

Building a personal brand around your content should be a priority. Sure, we’ve seen successful influencers who thrive on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok without ever building their own websites. That might seem like a good idea when you start, but quickly you’ll understand why owning and managing your digital property is key to long-term success.

You don’t have any control over social media platforms. Their algorithms can change overnight. Their CPM/RPM can change so your revenue from programs like YPP can be reduced dramatically from month to month—no notice given!

2026 SEO Best Practices

SEO in 2025-2026 has evolved significantly. Here’s what matters most:

• E-E-A-T is everything: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. Google is rewarding smaller blogs written by people with real lived experience over faceless corporate blogs.
• Original insights matter: In an environment flooded with AI-generated content, creating meaningful and compelling original content is more important than ever.
• YouTube + Blog synergy: Embedding YouTube videos in your blog posts can help both rank better. Think of YouTube videos as a way to beef up your SEO blog posts.
• Content freshness: Regularly update your existing content. One creator reported a 70% organic traffic boost after updating an older article.
• Visual content: Including images, videos, and infographics helps with both readability and rankings. Nearly three-quarters of people prefer watching videos to reading text.

You might also want to check out:

• How to Build a Brand in 2026 (And Get ChatGPT, Gemini, and AI to Mention You)

Platform recommendations: If you’re just starting out, go with Squarespace for its beautiful drag-and-drop templates. If you’re dedicating significant time to long-form and affiliate content, WordPress provides more flexibility (though it requires higher maintenance).

11. YouTube Shopping Affiliate Program (EXPANDED in 2025)

This deserves its own section because it’s been significantly expanded in 2025 and represents a major opportunity for creators.

The YouTube Shopping affiliate program lets you tag products directly in your videos (including Shorts) and earn commissions when viewers purchase them. This is native to YouTube—no more messy description links!

What’s New in 2025

• Expanded globally: Now available in the US, Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, India, Singapore, and Brazil.
• Shopify partnership: Major integration with Shopify makes it easier than ever for creators to tag products from participating merchants.
• Chrome extension: YouTube launched a browser tool that lets you save products while browsing any brand’s site and see the commission you’d earn.
• AI-powered tagging: YouTube is testing automatic product identification and tagging in videos.
• No product limit: Unlike the old cap of 12 products, you can now sell as many as your partner allows.
• Performance bonuses: Eligible US creators can earn monthly bonuses based on total sales tiers.
• Major retailers added: Nike, Etsy, Best Buy, Shark Ninja, Michaels, and Michael Kors are now participating.

Eligibility

• Your channel is in the YouTube Partner Program
• Your channel has more than 10,000 subscribers (for affiliate program)
• You’re in an eligible country
• Not a music channel or Official Artist Channel

One Thailand-based gadget review channel reportedly drove over $100,000 in sales through the program. The integration between content and commerce is getting seamless—viewers can shop while watching your video through a picture-in-picture experience.

12. Paid YouTube Sponsorships and Brand Deals

I have written extensively about YouTube sponsorship and brand deals here on Feisworld. To me and many creators whose content begins to take off, brand deals are one of the most exciting opportunities.

Why brand deals are exciting:

• Build direct relationships with brands you already know and love
• Add social proof to your content and help you mature as a creator
• Learn beyond content creation: how to work with brands, price your work, manage deliverables
• Get paid! Some brands hire influencers on a retainer basis for deeper relationships

2025-2026 Sponsorship Rates

Sponsorship fees vary significantly depending on niche, audience size, and engagement rates. Here are approximate ranges for 2025-2026:

• Under 1K subscribers: $50-$300 per video (or free products)
• 1K-10K subscribers: $100-$500 per video
• 10K-50K subscribers: $500-$2,000 per video
• 50K-100K subscribers: $2,000-$5,000 per video
• CPM rates: Typically $5-$30 per 1,000 views, though specialized niches (finance, tech, B2B) can command much more

New in 2025: YouTube is testing a new sponsored segment feature that lets creators insert, remove, or resell sponsorship slots in their videos. You can choose the perfect moment for the branded segment and see detailed performance insights in YouTube Studio. For Shorts creators, you can now add direct links to a brand’s site specifically for brand deals.

You might also want to check out:

• How to Get Brand Deals in 2026: Your Complete Guide to Landing Paid Partnerships (Even with a Small Following)
• How to Get Brand Deals as a Small Youtuber
• YouTube Brand Deals Types and Media Kit Best Practices

13. Coaching and Consulting (BONUS 1)

By coaching and consulting, I mean you can sell coaching packages such as one-on-one consultations and consulting services to your viewers. At least for me, this was and still is the most intuitive method when it comes to monetizing on YouTube. This is an “old school” option that still works really well for most creators.

How to let viewers know about your services:

• Mention your services in your video, ideally including an on-screen message
• In the video description, list your contact information (contact page, email, or a Calendly/Acuity scheduling link)
• Include your “how to get in touch” details as a pinned comment

Important caveat: Coaching/consulting doesn’t work if you don’t have a product or service. This is why there are influencers known to be “internet famous and real-life poor.” Diversifying your income as a creator and influencer is key from day one.

What if you’re a creator without a service? It’s time to think about what you might want to do and be able to do to serve others. You’ll be surprised by how many transferable skills you gain as a creator: strategy to grow your channel, ability to edit and publish videos, ability to hire and work with freelancers.

13. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing remains one of the best ways for creators to earn additional income by promoting products or services that align with their brand and interests.

Affiliate marketing doesn’t happen overnight. It requires strategic research to determine the brands you want to work with, the niche of your choice, and content creation that supports your affiliate marketing effort.

Have not tried affiliate marketing before, or are not sure about the strategy that’s right for you? Check out How You Get Started in Affiliate Marketing

Getting started with affiliate programs:

• Amazon Associates: The largest affiliate program with over 58% of affiliates using it. Perfect for beginners, with commissions up to 10%.
• ShareASale: Thousands of products and services across many industries.
• Impact: Partnership platform with big-name brands like Levi’s, Adidas, Shopify, and Uber. Now integrated with YouTube Shopping.
• ClickBank: Been around since 1998, mostly digital products.

It’s not just about the quality of your content—frequency matters too. Some successful affiliate bloggers publish content 3x a week to build momentum. Today, with AI writing tools available, it’s easy to assume you can hand off content creation to a robot. But be careful with heavily AI-generated content since it can be detected and penalized by Google.

Affiliate marketing strategies aren’t always bulletproof, and there’s no guarantee of success. However, if you commit to learning more about SEO, be consistent with content creation, good things will happen in a year’s time. There are affiliate marketing bloggers who have experienced enormous success—incomes in the millions, not just six figures.

BONUS: YouTube Hype (NEW in 2025)

While Hype isn’t directly a monetization feature, it’s a game-changer for small creators trying to get discovered—and discovery leads to monetization opportunities.

Launched globally in August 2025, Hype lets viewers actively boost videos from creators with fewer than 500,000 subscribers. Viewers can “hype” up to 3 videos per week within the first 7 days of a video being uploaded. Each hype adds points, and videos with enough points appear on a country-specific leaderboard in the Explore menu.

Why this matters for small creators: YouTube has built in a “small creator bonus”—the fewer subscribers you have, the more each hype is worth. A 500-subscriber channel gets 7,500 points per hype, while a 500,000-subscriber channel only gets 50 points. That’s a massive difference that levels the playing field.

What’s coming: YouTube is testing paid hypes in Brazil and Turkey, which could become a direct monetization stream, fans would pay to boost your videos, and you’d get a cut.

Conclusion: 14 Ways To Monetize on YouTube in 2026

With this article, though it may be quite long, I hope you’ve identified more than one source of revenue potential for your content. The earlier you can diversify your income streams as a creator, the better off you will be.

2025 has been a huge year for YouTube creator tools: the expanded YouTube Shopping affiliate program, Gifts powered by Jewels, the Hype feature, and new sponsorship segment features. If you’ve been waiting for the right time to take monetization seriously, that time is now.

But first, you need to know what the options are and how to prioritize this effort for your content, small business, or both.

Good luck everyday creatives! If you have any questions, reflections, please be sure to let us know in the comments below.

Quick Reference: All Monetization Methods at a Glance

Method	Difficulty	Earnings	YPP Req?
Affiliate Marketing	Medium	$-$$$$	No
Coaching/Consulting	Low-Med	$$$	No
Brand Deals/Sponsorships	Medium	$$-$$$	No
YouTube Shopping Affiliate	Medium	$$-$$$$	Yes
Blog (SEO Optimized)	Low	$$+	No
External Memberships	Low-Med	$$$	No
Merch	Low-Med	$$-$$$	No
Digital Products	Low-Med	$$-$$$	No
Online Courses	Med-High	$$	No
Channel Memberships	Med-High	$$	Yes*
Gifts/Jewels	Med-High	$-$$	Yes
Super Thanks	High	$-$$	Yes
Super Chat/Stickers	High	$	Yes
YPP Ad Revenue	High	$$	Yes

*Available at early-access tier (500 subscribers)

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