YouTube Shorts takes on TikTok with 45% ad-revenue share for creators

YouTube Shorts is about to give creators a major reason to ignore TikTok. According to the New York Times, YouTube will soon announce an ad revenue-sharing model that could revolutionize short-form video and special trouble for TikTok as well as Instagram and Facebook Reels

YouTube will pay creators 45% of the ad dollars from Shorts, the report says. YouTube generally pays 55% of revenue from ads. While TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook all have Creator Funds, none share ad revenue on an ongoing basis.

TikTok’s $200 million U.S. Creators Fund is set to rise to $1 billion over the next three years and $2 billion internationally. That sounds like a lot of money, but YouTube paid creators over $30 billion in ad revenue over the last three years.

THE TAKEAWAY

Making money on YouTube vs TikTok is only part of the equation. For musicians, discovery matters, and by some measures, YouTube Shorts has already become as popular as TikTok.

75% of YouTube’s 2 billion users already watch Shorts, and musicians with long-form videos report a bump in engagement for all their YouTube content after adding Shorts.

Rather than building a short-form video audience from scratch on TikTok, it would seem a smarter move to expand your audience for short and long-form videos on YouTube.

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.