How to Make Money from YouTube: Channel Memberships

One key to growing on YouTube is building a loyal and engaged audience who is invested in your content and you as a creator. The other is to connect with that audience and nurture viable revenue streams while doing so.

We’ve touched on other ways to make money from YouTube, and in this post, we’re diving into Channel Memberships, a feature that’s tailor-made for creators to leverage their subscribers and fans.

With Channel Memberships, you can create a space to reward those who sign up with exclusive content and other membership perks.

How YouTube Channel Memberships Work

The feature is a way for fans to support their favorite creator with a small recurring monthly payment for a paid subscription. In return, those fans receive a collection of benefits not available to non-paying subscribers.

Memberships are available at different price points, giving fans an option to sign up at a cost they can afford. The minimum starting price for a channel membership is $4.99USD per month, with a maximum of $49.99 per month. As it does with AdSense, YouTube will deduct a 30% share of your overall revenue.

Once you’ve set your Membership access up, viewers just need to click on the ‘Join’ button on the creator’s YouTube home page to see the wide range of perks on offer.

How to Set Up Channel Memberships

To enable channel memberships, you must:

• Be monetized as part of the YouTube Partner Program.
• Have a minimum of 30,000 subscribers (1,000 if you have a gaming channel).
• Reside in a country or region where channel memberships are available.
• Be over 18 years old.
• Ensure that your content is not set to ‘Made For Kids.’

If you meet all the above criteria, setting up a membership for your channel couldn’t be easier:

• On a desktop, sign in to your Google Account.
• Go to the Memberships page.
• Click Get started and follow the on-screen instructions.

Membership Perks You Can Offer

When you turn on memberships for your channel, you can offer paid subscribers exclusive members-only perks and benefits. These can include:

• Custom emojis
• Badges
• Merch
• Members-only community posts
• Exclusive live streams
• Live chat access
• Bonus live stream and on-demand content

YouTube channel memberships are a fantastic way to create a unique sense of community among your supporters. An engaged community means that more people are likely to view your channel, creating higher revenue for you as a creator.