How YouTube, TikTok and Facebook pay creators

The programme that pays, how you get in, where it runs and what it asks of a video:

• 138countries and regions where YouTube's Partner Program runs
• 8countries where TikTok's Creator Rewards Program runs
• ~70countries where Facebook's content monetization runs, by invitation only
• 55%of ad revenue on long videos goes to the creator on YouTube

Each platform decides what a view earns and none publishes a rate, so this guide compares the rules, not the money. Also left out: brand deals, sponsorships, affiliate links and selling your own products, which work on all three and do not need a monetization programme.

To join the Partner Program a channel needs 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 qualified watch hours in the last 12 months, or 10 million valid public Shorts views in the last 90 days, and then a review of the whole channel. From February 1, 2027, new channels need 8,000 hours or 20 million Shorts views, and earning from Shorts in a month takes 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days.

YouTube lists 138 countries and regions where the programme runs, among them Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Brazil, Portugal and the United States. Creators keep 55% of ad revenue on long videos and 45% of the Shorts revenue allocated to them. What gets channels turned down is repetitive or mass-produced content, which YouTube calls inauthentic.

The Creator Rewards Program is open only in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Korea, France, Mexico and Brazil. You need a personal account, to be 18 or older, and 10,000 followers and 100,000 video views in the last 30 days.

A video earns only if it is original, over a minute long and gets at least 1,000 views on the For You feed. TikTok's account reviews count copied content as unoriginal and slide videos, split screens and low-quality images as low quality. Elsewhere, LIVE Gifts is a separate feature for people 18 and over, where TikTok offers it.

Meta ended in-stream ads, Ads on Reels and the Performance bonus on 31 August 2025. Facebook now pays through content monetization, which rewards how public reels, photos, stories and text posts perform. It is invitation-only; the interest form in the Professional dashboard is not an application.

It runs in about 70 countries, among them Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Brazil, Portugal and the United States, and in languages that include Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese and English. Reels must be at least 10 seconds long, and Meta demonetizes accounts that post mostly unoriginal content.

Put the three maps together and your country decides most of the plan:

• In the United States, Mexico or Brazil, all three programmes are open to you.
• In Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Morocco, YouTube's Partner Program and Facebook's content monetization are open, and TikTok's Creator Rewards is not.
• In Spain, Argentina, Colombia or Portugal, the same: YouTube and Facebook, not TikTok's Creator Rewards.

Everywhere, being open is only the start: YouTube reviews your channel, Facebook has to invite you, and TikTok checks every video. What each one rewards is the same thing, your own work. The rules follow where you live, not where your viewers are. Instagram pays another way, through gifts and subscriptions in 49 countries with no Arab country among them; our Instagram guide has the details.

The rules overlap more than they look. A vertical video of one to three minutes is a Short on YouTube, long enough for TikTok's Creator Rewards and well past Facebook's 10-second minimum for reels. Make it original, with your own idea, script and voice, and it meets the one rule all three share.

Two things differ. TikTok counts only videos over a minute, so short clips earn there only through other features, and Facebook pays for photos and text posts too, not only video. Our guide to video sizes has the shapes and lengths each platform takes.