YouTube monetization statistics (2026)
Partner Program numbers from YouTube and Alphabet, plus what we measured ourselves. Every figure links to where it came from.
Updated Our country dataHow to cite
From YouTube and Alphabet
These come from YouTube's help pages and blog and from Alphabet's annual report. We read each one in the original and give the page it is on, so you can quote the source directly.
Who gets into the Partner Program
- 3M+
More than 3 million creators are in the YouTube Partner Program, according to YouTube in August 2026.
Source: YouTube Official Blog, “New opportunities to earn and changes to the YouTube Partner Program”, 10 August 2026. Checked 29 October 2026.
- 1,000
To share in ad revenue, a channel needs 1,000 subscribers plus either 4,000 public watch hours in the last 12 months or 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days.
Source: YouTube Help, “YouTube Partner Program overview & eligibility”. Checked 29 October 2026.
- 500
The lower tier, which opens fan funding and Shopping features but not ad revenue, starts at 500 subscribers, 3 public uploads in 90 days, and either 3,000 watch hours in 12 months or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days.
Source: YouTube Help, “Overview of the expanded YouTube Partner Program”. Checked 29 October 2026.
- 8,000 h
From 1 February 2027, new applicants for ad revenue need 8,000 watch hours in the last 365 days or 20 million Shorts views in the last 90 days, still with 1,000 subscribers; channels already in the program keep their status.
Source: YouTube Help, “Changes to the YouTube Partner Program”; YouTube Official Blog, “New opportunities to earn and changes to the YouTube Partner Program”, 10 August 2026. Checked 29 October 2026.
- 138
YouTube lists 138 countries and regions where creators can join the Partner Program.
Source: YouTube Help, “YouTube Partner Program availability”. Checked 29 October 2026.
- 99
The 500-subscriber tier is open in fewer places: YouTube’s list for it has 99 countries and regions.
Source: YouTube Help, “Overview of the expanded YouTube Partner Program”. Checked 29 October 2026.
To see how far a channel is from either tier, use the requirements self-check. To look up one country, search the Partner Program country list.
How much is paid out
- $100B+
YouTube says it paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies in the four years from 2022 to 2025.
YouTube’s Partner Program page gives the same figure for an earlier window, January 2021 to December 2024.
Source: How YouTube Works, “YouTube’s Impact on the Creator Economy” (YouTube first-party data, 2022–2025); YouTube Official Blog, Neal Mohan, “From the CEO: What’s coming to YouTube in 2026”, 21 January 2026. Checked 29 October 2026.
- $40.37B
YouTube ads brought Alphabet $40.37 billion in 2025, up 11.7% from $36.15 billion in 2024.
This is ad revenue before creators are paid. Alphabet does not report YouTube’s payouts to creators in this table.
Source: Alphabet Inc., Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended 31 December 2025, filed 5 February 2026. Checked 29 October 2026.
- 50%+
Of the Partner Program channels that earned five figures (USD) or more on YouTube in 2024, over half earned money from sources other than ads and YouTube Premium.
Source: How YouTube Works, “Creator economy” (YouTube internal data, January–December 2024). Checked 29 October 2026.
From our own checks
YouTube does not show which channels are monetized, so our checker infers it from what anyone can see on a channel: subscriber count, a Join button, a store, and ads on recent long videos. These figures are from the October 2026 snapshot, recomputed on 19 October 2026.
The snapshot covers 4,514 channels. 3,182 came from trending videos in September 2026 or from about a dozen well-known channels we recheck on a schedule, and 1,332 are channels people looked up with our checker. Countries with at least 30 checked channels are published, which leaves 4,382 channels in 51 countries. Read every share below as “of the channels we checked”, not as a share of all YouTube channels or of a whole country.
- 79.4%
Thailand had the highest share showing the signals (50 of 63 channels, 79.4%) and the United States the lowest (158 of 457, 34.6%).
Source: MonetizationKit, October 2026 snapshot, recomputed 19 October 2026.
- 34 of 51
In 34 of the 51 countries, at least half of the channels we checked showed the signals.
Source: MonetizationKit, October 2026 snapshot, recomputed 19 October 2026.
| Verdict | Channels | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Likely monetized | 2,247 | 51.3% |
| Possibly monetized | 778 | 17.8% |
| Likely not monetized | 306 | 7.0% |
| Unable to determine | 1,051 | 24.0% |
| Country | Checked | Likely | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Highest five | |||
| Thailand | 63 | 50 | 79.4% |
| Saudi Arabia | 66 | 49 | 74.2% |
| Czechia | 68 | 49 | 72.1% |
| Ukraine | 64 | 44 | 68.8% |
| United Kingdom | 96 | 65 | 67.7% |
| Lowest five | |||
| South Korea | 93 | 39 | 41.9% |
| Pakistan | 125 | 50 | 40.0% |
| Malaysia | 62 | 23 | 37.1% |
| India | 367 | 136 | 37.1% |
| United States | 457 | 158 | 34.6% |
All 51 countries, with the method and a CSV, are on share of monetized YouTube channels by country. That table is recomputed every Monday, so its numbers drift away from the October snapshot quoted here.
The scoring rule changed between the September and October snapshots. If you have seen a September figure, such as 25.5% likely monetized, it was measured under the old rule and is not comparable. The country data page lists each rule change and the date it took effect.
Common questions
- How many YouTube channels are monetized?
- YouTube said in August 2026 that more than 3 million creators are in the YouTube Partner Program. We have not found an official count of all channels to set that against, and YouTube does not show which channels are monetized, so there is no official percentage.
- What percentage of YouTube channels are monetized?
- We have no figure for all of YouTube, and our sample cannot provide one. Of the 4,382 channels we checked in 51 countries, mostly large and trending ones, 51.3% showed the signals of a monetized channel and 24.0% could not be called either way. These percentages describe only the channels we checked.
- How much of the ad money do YouTube creators get?
- Partners get 55% of net ad revenue on their long-form videos and keep 45% of what they are allocated from the Shorts Creator Pool. YouTube says it paid more than $100 billion to creators, artists and media companies from 2022 to 2025.
What a channel earns per view depends on its audience and topic; CPM vs RPM explains the two numbers YouTube Studio reports.
How to cite this page
For YouTube's and Alphabet's figures, cite the original page linked under each one. The numbers are theirs; we only collect them in one place.
For the figures from our own checks, cite this page. Each figure has its own link: click the number beside it, or add its anchor to the address, like #share-showing-signals.
MonetizationKit. "YouTube monetization statistics (2026)." Updated 29 October 2026. https://monetizationkit.com/data/youtube-monetization-statistics/
Our country data is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. For papers, the October 2026 snapshot is archived on Zenodo: DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23601867. When a figure on this page changes, so does the date at the top.
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