🎁 Channel Memberships Gifting expanding to all eligible monetizing creators
Announcement
8/3/23: We've made it even easier for viewers to opt-in for gift memberships with a new one-time opt-in setting to receive gift memberships across all eligible YouTube channels. 🎁 Read more.
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Hi creators,
We know you’ve been eagerly awaiting news about Memberships Gifting since we shared our future plans last year.
Starting tomorrow, we're excited to bring a beta version of Channel Memberships Gifting to a small group of creators, and over the next several months, we'll be actively expanding the feature to even more creators -- subscribe to this post & we'll keep you updated on our Memberships Gifting expansion plans!
What is Memberships Gifting?
With Memberships Gifting, your channel members can buy a set number of channel memberships [5, 10, 20] in a single purchase, that YouTube will “gift” out to other viewers in your live stream. Viewers who receive a gift membership, get 1 month of access to your channel membership perks like loyalty badges, custom emoji and more. Viewers who receive gift memberships do not pay any charges and as the creator, you receive your usual revenue share from each transaction.
How does Memberships Gifting work?
- Existing channel members click the $ button next to the live chat to purchase gift memberships on live streams. Memberships Gifting is only available for viewers to purchase on desktop live streams. We’re working on bringing this to mobile soon!
- Viewers opt-in to be eligible to receive gifts on a channel. During the Beta, the only way to opt-in is either to click ‘Allow Gifts’ on a gift membership announcement that shows in the live chat when someone has purchased gift memberships OR by clicking the gift icon that is pinned at the top of the live chat.
- YouTube distributes gift memberships to viewers based on how much they interact with your channel. Example, loyal viewers who are always watching and interacting with your content are more likely to receive gift memberships.
- Viewers get notified with a personal live chat message and email if they receive a gift membership! Gift memberships are non-recurring and viewers who receive gift memberships don’t have to pay anything to get access to the benefits.
A few more important details:
- Gift memberships use the same 70/30 (Creator/YouTube) revenue split where revenue share is calculated after App Store fees on iOS (if applicable) and other charges like sales tax.
- Existing channel members can't receive a gifted membership, we want to share the love with potential new channel members!
We hope you’re as excited about Memberships Gifting as we are, stay tuned for even more updates about this feature soon!
Hope you “Gift” it a try tomorrow!
Jensen (TeamYouTube)
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Last edited Aug 3, 2023
Free of charge gift memberships to share with your viewers every month 🎊
Starting today, if you’re an eligible creator with channel memberships enabled on your channel, you now get memberships at the start of every month that you can gift to your viewers totally free of charge! This makes it easier for you to drive awareness of your channel memberships perks and give your top fans 1-month of access to things like custom emojis, members-only content, & much more.
What do I need to share these gift memberships with my viewers?
Before you start:
- You’ll need to have channel memberships enabled on your channel
- offer a membership tier below $5
Free of charge gift memberships are currently not available for Brand Accounts. Check to see if you’re using a Brand Account by following the steps here.
To gift these free of charge memberships to viewers during a live stream or Premiere:
- Click the "$” icon within the live chat
- Select “Membership gifting”
- Click “Gift 5 Now”
You can distribute gift memberships in bundles of 5, twice a month. This can either be on the same stream or on streams throughout the month. Undistributed gift memberships don’t roll over to the following month and reset on the 1st of every month, so be sure to share the love!
More info in our Help Center article "Manage channel memberships".
Last edited Dec 12, 2023
New one-time opt-in to receive gift memberships across all YouTube channels 🥳
Starting today, eligible viewers can opt-in to be eligible to receive gift memberships on all channels on YouTube with a single toggle!
To enable this setting and ensure you’re eligible to receive gift memberships across YouTube:
- Find a channel offering channel memberships
- Click JOIN on the video or channel page.
- Click the 3 dots on the upper right corner and select ‘Gift Settings’. Toggle to Allow Gifts
- You also can toggle this setting on by clicking ‘Allow Gifts’ on any gift membership purchase announcement during a live stream or Premiere.
Once you've opted-in, you'll be eligible to receive gift memberships on any channel with gifting enabled that you've interacted with recently (for example, by watching a video on that channel). When you receive a gift membership, it'll be automatically applied to your account, giving you access to special perks like badges and custom emojis.
We hope this helps make it even easier to receive gift memberships for all of your favorite channels on YouTube!
Jensen (TeamYouTube)
Channel Memberships Gifting expanding to all eligible monetizing creators
Hi creators,
Great news! Starting today all eligible monetizing creators have access to Membership Gifting. 🎁
To be eligible for Memberships Gifting your channel must:
- Turn on channel memberships. Here's how if you haven't already!
- Add names for each of your channel membership levels
- Have at least one pricing level $5 or below
Based on your feedback, we also recently added the ability for you to purchase gift memberships on your own channel without having to be an existing channel member. Try this out on your next stream by gifting a couple memberships to your community!
We’re still continuing to work on other features and functionalities to improve the Memberships Gifting experience, so stay tuned for more updates.
Answers to FAQs about Memberships Gifting we saw throughout the beta:
Q: What happens to unredeemed gifts on a livestream or Premiere?
A: In some cases, there may be more gifts purchased than there are eligible viewers to receive them. When that happens, if at least 1 gift is redeemed (either by a viewer on the livestream or off the livestream), you'll earn your full share of revenue from the transaction. We’re working on increasing the number of ways viewers can opt in to be eligible for gift memberships, ex: an opt-in link you can share with your community where users can easily allow gifts for your channel. We’ll share more about these features soon!
Q: My viewers are telling me they don’t see an option to allow gift memberships?
A: There are two ways for viewers to allow gift memberships on your channel – from the live chat, or from the “Join” button on your channel.
- To opt-in from the live chat:
- When a gift membership announcement shows in the live chat, they can click “Allow Gifts” and enable gifts for your channel.
- OR, they can click the gift icon that’s pinned at the top of the chat after someone purchases gift memberships.
- To opt-in from the “Join” button (desktop only, mobile coming soon):
- Viewers can click the “Join” button > three dot menu > “Gift Settings”, where they’ll see the option to enable gifts on your channel
If viewers have tried those options and still aren’t seeing an ‘Allow Gifts’ option, they may be using a Brand account. Brand accounts aren’t eligible for receiving gift memberships (viewers can check if they're using a Brand Account through the steps here).
Q: My viewer got a refund, what happened?
A: If at least 1 gift membership is claimed, then you receive the full revenue recognized after the 70/30 (Creator/YouTube) split. If no gift memberships are claimed then the viewer gets a full refund.
We can’t wait to see you use Memberships Gifting on your channel! Let us know if you have any additional questions/comments below and I’ll circle back with answers.
Jensen (TeamYouTube)
All Replies (51)
Dec 16, 2022
🎉 Making Memberships Gifting even easier: opt-in URL for viewers, gifting on Android, & testing non-member gifting!
Hi creators,
We’re excited to share a few updates to Channel Memberships Gifting experience that will make it easier for your viewers to gift channel memberships and also opt-in for gift memberships!
1. Now, it’s easier for your viewers to opt-in for gift memberships through a unique opt-in URL. Create a unique URL using the following layout with “/allow_gifts” attached at the end of your channel URL: www.youtube.com/@yourhandlehere/allow_gifts.
- If you don’t know your channel’s handle, head to youtube.com/handle where you can confirm the right @ and change it if needed!
- You can share this static link with your viewers to make sure they’re opted-in to receive gifts the next time someone in your chat drops some gift memberships!
Coming soon: We know you have been waiting for this and in the upcoming weeks, the ability to purchase gift memberships is coming to mobile devices!
We’re still not done making improvements to the Memberships Gifting experience! Stay tuned for more info and we’ll keep you posted.
-Meaghan, TeamYouTube
Last edited Feb 23, 2023
New one-time opt-in to receive gift memberships across all YouTube channels 🥳
Starting today, eligible viewers can opt-in to be eligible to receive gift memberships on all channels on YouTube with a single toggle!
To enable this setting and ensure you’re eligible to receive gift memberships across YouTube:
- Find a channel offering channel memberships
- Click JOIN on the video or channel page.
- Click the 3 dots on the upper right corner and select ‘Gift Settings’. Toggle to Allow Gifts
- You also can toggle this setting on by clicking ‘Allow Gifts’ on any gift membership purchase announcement during a live stream or Premiere.
Once you've opted-in, you'll be eligible to receive gift memberships on any channel with gifting enabled that you've interacted with recently (for example, by watching a video on that channel). When you receive a gift membership, it'll be automatically applied to your account, giving you access to special perks like badges and custom emojis.
We hope this helps make it even easier to receive gift memberships for all of your favorite channels on YouTube!
Jensen (TeamYouTube)
Free of charge gift memberships to share with your viewers every month 🎊
Starting today, if you’re an eligible creator with channel memberships enabled on your channel, you now get memberships at the start of every month that you can gift to your viewers totally free of charge! This makes it easier for you to drive awareness of your channel memberships perks and give your top fans 1-month of access to things like custom emojis, members-only content, & much more.
What do I need to share these gift memberships with my viewers?
Before you start:
- You’ll need to have channel memberships enabled on your channel
- offer a membership tier below $5
Free of charge gift memberships are currently not available for Brand Accounts. Check to see if you’re using a Brand Account by following the steps here.
To gift these free of charge memberships to viewers during a live stream or Premiere:
- Click the "$” icon within the live chat
- Select “Membership gifting”
- Click “Gift 5 Now”
You can distribute gift memberships in bundles of 5, twice a month. This can either be on the same stream or on streams throughout the month. Undistributed gift memberships don’t roll over to the following month and reset on the 1st of every month, so be sure to share the love!
More info in our Help Center article "Manage channel memberships".
Last edited Dec 12, 2023