Manage channel memberships

We’re making a few changes to how we collect and use data on kids content on YouTube. As a result, some of the instructions in this article may have changed. Learn more.

Learn more about what you can offer your members and how your viewers experience memberships.

Each channel participating in memberships, including its offerings, is responsible for complying with our terms and policies. These policies include YouTube's Community Guidelines and all relevant laws and regulations.

Channel Memberships

There are different places in Creator Studio where you manage and track your memberships program:

Memberships Tab

Once you turn on memberships, you can find this tab in Studio under Earn and then Memberships

Here you can track:

Total members: All current members who have access to perks. Includes members who have canceled but have access to perks for the remainder of their billing period.
Active members: All members with active subscriptions only. Active subscriptions are calculated by subtracting canceled members from total members.
Revenue: You can track earnings for the last billing period and compare with the previous billing period
Members by level: Track the number of members (total or active) by level over time
Sign-ups and cancellations: See how many users became members or canceled a membership in the past billing period and compare with the previous billing period.
Cancellation Feedback: Some users give feedback on why they canceled, from our set of predefined multiple choice options. By hovering over ‘Cancellations’ you can see how users responded when cancelling on your channel.

Note: A billing period can be 28, 30, or 31 days depending on the current calendar month. For example, a membership purchased during September would give 30 days of access before the next payment.

Managing your members

You can view a list of all your current members including:

Total duration as a member (includes time from all prior periods as a member).
Last update: Days since last time the member joined, rejoined, upgraded or downgraded their membership.

To export a snapshot of this info to CSV, click Download in the upper right corner. Exporting may take a few minutes to complete. You can close this window while you wait.

Collecting info from your members:

By using this 3rd party IFTTT integration, you can create a customized, secure, member-gated form with your channel members to collect info that will help you deliver perks. You are responsible for any data collected from members. YouTube cannot access this data.

Note:The 3rd party IFTTT integration is only available in English at this time.

Managing your perks, levels, and prices

Click the Memberships Offer card to manage and edit your memberships perks and levels. Here you’ll find suggestions and best practices for the types of perks you might want to offer at each price point.

Other cards and tools in the Memberships tab:

Resources: A dynamic card which will display best practices, links to other resources and memberships-specific experiments to opt-in and out of.
Recent videos that members joined from: Monitor the top performing videos which viewers became members on.
Recent comments by members: Easily find the latest member comments so you can prioritize replying to them.
Intro Video: Upload a video to display on your memberships offer screen. Viewers will see the intro video when they click JOIN to sign up for memberships.

YouTube Analytics

You can also view more data about your members in YTA.

Audience: Click on YTA Analytics Audience, and click on the ‘Total Member’ card to see total and active members over time. Clicking ‘See More’ will show further data about your members. You can adjust the time series to view how the following metrics performed during a custom time period:
- Total and Active members
- Members Gained
- Members Canceled
- Members Lost (canceled members who lost access to perks as a result of the end of their billing period)
Revenue: Click on Analytics Revenue and click on the ‘Transactions Revenue’ card. Here you can see how many transactions occurred during a custom period. Transactions are either new sign-ups or recurrences.

Note: To view a detailed breakdown of revenue data from memberships:

Go to YouTube Studio.
Select Analytics.
Select Revenue.
Find and select the How you make money card.
Select Memberships for a detailed view of your memberships revenue. You can set a custom time period or filter by video format.

See your members

If you get a new member while you're offline, you won't get a notification. You can see all of your active members, how long they've been a member, and their subscriber count on the Memberships tab in YouTube Studio. Members can cancel their membership at any time.

If you’re live streaming when a new viewer joins your channel membership, a bright green "Welcome" message will be sent in live chat. This message will be pinned at the top of chat for 5 minutes.

You can also see the total number of members per day in the Audience tab in YouTube Analytics. The ‘key metrics card’ shows a chart of how many members were gained or lost over time.

Promote memberships

You can add /join to the end of your channel URL to link directly to your membership offer window.

You can add this link:

To your video description.
On cards and end screens in your videos.

Gift Memberships

Memberships Gifting

Gift memberships let you or your channel members buy the opportunity for viewers to access the perks of a channel membership. You or your channel members can buy gift memberships during live streams or Premieres.

Once you or a channel member buys gift memberships, a countdown ticker will highlight the purchase in live chat for a limited amount of time. The amount of time depends on the purchase amount. If the live chat or live stream ends before the gift is announced, it will still be distributed to viewers.

Viewers must opt in to be eligible for gift membership. Once a viewer opts-in to allow gifts on your channel, they’re eligible to get gift memberships on any current or future gifts on your channel.

You can encourage viewers to opt in for gifts by sharing your unique opt-in URL across your channel and content: link to channel page with /allow_gifts at the end.

You can find your unique external channel ID here.

A gift membership purchase is considered fulfilled once YouTube distributes the first gift to a viewer. You can find reporting for gift memberships in YouTube Analytics. Select ‘Memberships Type’ to view how many gift memberships were purchased and redeemed during a selected time period.

Block members from commenting

You cannot remove anyone who has joined as a member, but you can block comments. To block comments from specific viewers, you’ll need to set up comment and live chat filters.

Set and manage your intro video

Set an intro video for potential members

Anyone who clicks the Join button will see your intro video.

Intro Videos

What to know before adding an intro video

Ads will not run on intro videos.
Your intro video must follow YouTube’s Community Guidelines.
Your intro video can’t have 3rd party copyright claims.
Your intro video can’t have music claims against it.
Your intro video can’t be set as made for kids.
If you want to mention specific prices of your levels, be mindful that prices can vary depending on platform and country.

How to add an intro video if you’re new to memberships

Create your intro video and make sure you publish as Unlisted.
Go to studio.youtube.com.
In the left menu, select Earn click Memberships.
In step 3 under “Add videos that encourage fans to join” click Start.
Click Select intro video click Next.
Choose your intro video from the options.

How to add an intro video if you’re already using memberships

Create your intro video and make sure you publish as Unlisted. Go to studio.youtube.com.
In the left menu, select Earn click Memberships.
Click Add intro video in the “Improvements you can make” box.
Follow the on-screen instructions to upload your intro video.

Edit or delete an intro video

Edit your intro video

Go to studio.youtube.com.
In the left menu, select Earn click Memberships.
At the bottom right of the page, click Edit in the “Your intro video” box.
Follow the onscreen instructions to edit your intro video.

Delete your intro video

Go to studio.youtube.com.
In the left menu, select Earn click Memberships.
At the bottom right of the page, click Edit in the “Your intro video” box.
Click the delete icon next to your memberships offer video.
You can then replace your video, using our set an intro video instructions.

Channel membership revenue, pricing, and refunds

Revenue share

Creators get 70% of membership revenue after applicable taxes and fees are deducted. All transaction costs (including credit card fees) are currently covered by YouTube.

Revenue share for creators in MCNs

If you are a part of an MCN, you should consult with your network. Some MCNs may take an additional revenue share, meaning your revenue from memberships may be lower than 70% if you’re part of an MCN.

You and your MCN (as applicable) are responsible for complying with all tax laws applicable to your membership revenue.

Revenue reporting

You can see revenue reports in the YouTube Analytics > Transaction Revenue Report. You'll receive membership revenue in the same way that you receive ad revenue with AdSense.

Cancellations, terminations, and refunds

Members can cancel their membership at any time.

If a member requests a refund, YouTube has sole discretion as to the validity of that claim, and may deduct from the channel the channel’s share of the revenue to be refunded. Learn about YouTube’s refund policy for paid memberships.

If membership is terminated on a channel because of termination by the channel, all active paying members will get a refund of their last payment. Other refundable reasons include removal from the YouTube Partner Program or as a result of abuse, fraud, or breach of our terms or policies. The channel's share of the revenue to be refunded will be deducted from the channel.

FAQs

There could be a number of reasons for this, including:

The feature is not launched on your channel.
The feature is not launched in all countries.
Your video is set as made for kids.
The "Join" button is not yet launched on some platforms. Viewers can, however, become members on desktop. You can still get access to perks on all available platforms if you sign up on desktop.
The "Join" button will only appear on eligible video watch pages of participating channels. For example, watch pages of videos claimed by certain music partners are not eligible.
The "Join" button doesn’t surface for unsubscribed viewers on mobile devices. Viewers on mobile devices must subscribe to your channel first, for the "Join" button to surface.

If your viewers can’t see the join button, you can always remind them of these workarounds:

Remind viewers they can become a member by clicking on the Join button on your channel homepage.
Viewers can add /join to the end of your channel URL to link directly to your membership offer window.
You can also add to your /join link to your video descriptions.

How can I get more data about my members?

We have a Members API that gives you access to the following info about your members. If you use a 3rd-party company to offer perks, you can share this info about your members with them so you can deliver memberships benefits.

The member's channel URL
The name of the member's channel
A link to the member's profile picture
When the member joined your channel

Note: The Members API Service currently does not provide information about a member’s level.

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