YouTube Monetization
Checker
Paste a channel and see a readiness estimate against YouTube Partner Program public minimums, plus a revenue estimate, all from public data, in seconds.
Why it exists
Monetization status is invisible from the outside
The Problem
YouTube never shows whether a channel is monetized. No badge. No public label. Brands vetting a sponsorship, creators sizing up a competitor, and agencies auditing a roster are all left guessing.
The Solution
This tool checks every publicly available signal — subscribers, upload activity, channel age — against YouTube Partner Program's own published minimums, and turns it into one clear readiness score in seconds.
Who uses it
Four people who need this answer
Revenue intelligence
The same views pay very differently
Typical CPM bands by niche for a tier-1 audience — what advertisers pay per 1,000 views, before YouTube's split. Advertiser demand, not view count, is what sets the ceiling.
$8–$35
Finance & Investing
$6–$28
Business & Marketing
$4–$18
Technology
$3–$14
Education
$2.5–$12
How-To & DIY
$2–$10
Beauty & Fashion
$1.5–$7
Gaming
$1–$5
Entertainment & Vlogs
Transparency
Readiness, not approval
Every figure here comes from YouTube's public Data API: subscriber count, view count, video count, upload dates, and channel metadata. That's genuinely all it is.
It does not, and cannot, detect Content ID matches, copyright claims, active Community Guidelines strikes, watch-hour totals, or ad-format configuration — none of that is exposed by any public API, to this tool or to anyone else's. Some monetization checkers imply they can see this; if a tool shows you a strike count or an "authenticity score," ask where that data could possibly be coming from.
Where this tool is confident, it says so plainly. Where it's estimating, every number is labeled as an estimate, and the assumptions behind it are shown, not hidden.
Format comparison
Shorts vs. long-form: monetization economics
Program structure
What unlocks at each milestone
YouTube's monetization eligibility isn't one single bar — it's staged. Beyond the two monetization gates below, YouTube has publicly discussed further milestones tied to subscriber count, though those are recognition tiers, not monetization gates.
500
subscribers
Fan-funding features: channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Thanks, YouTube Shopping
1,000
subscribers
Full ad monetization, alongside the watch-hour or Shorts-views requirement
10,000
subscribers
Access to creator support resources
100,000
subscribers
Silver Play Button recognition
1,000,000
subscribers
Gold Play Button recognition
Avoid rejection
Common reasons a YPP application gets rejected
None of these are things this tool can detect directly — they require YouTube's own internal review — but they're the most frequently cited reasons applications don't clear on the first attempt, worth checking before applying.
How to use it
Three steps
No sign-in, no API key, no daily limit. Works on any public channel, including ones you don't own.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions
Does this tell me if a channel is actually monetized?
No. Whether a channel has been approved into the YouTube Partner Program is private information only the channel owner can see in YouTube Studio. This tool checks public data against YPP's publicly stated minimum requirements, which is a readiness estimate, not a verified status.
What are YouTube Partner Program's actual minimum requirements?
Publicly, YouTube requires 1,000+ subscribers and either 4,000 valid public watch hours in the past 12 months or 10 million Shorts views in the past 90 days, along with no active Community Guidelines strikes. Watch hours and strikes are not public data, so this tool substitutes public proxies instead: video count, upload recency, and channel age.
Why is watch time not part of the readiness check?
YouTube's API does not expose a channel's total watch hours publicly. Only the channel owner can see that figure in YouTube Studio. This checklist covers everything that is publicly verifiable.
How does the earnings estimate pick a niche?
It reads YouTube's own topic classification for the channel (the same public data behind the category shown next to its name) and matches it to one of this tool's pricing bands where it can — for example, a channel YouTube tags as Technology gets the Technology CPM band. When YouTube hasn't assigned the channel a topic this tool recognizes, it falls back to a general-audience band rather than guessing.
What are the channel keywords shown in the result?
They are keywords the channel owner set in their own YouTube Studio channel settings to describe their content to YouTube's discovery system — the same public field this tool's Channel Keywords section reads directly.
What's the difference between the 500-subscriber and 1,000-subscriber tiers?
At 500 subscribers, YouTube's publicly announced fan-funding tier unlocks channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Thanks, and Shopping — but not ad revenue. Full ad monetization requires 1,000 subscribers plus either 4,000 public watch hours in the past year or 10 million Shorts views in the past 90 days.
Does this tool check strikes, watch hours, or Content ID matches?
No — none of that is available through any public API, to this tool or any other. This tool is explicit about that limitation rather than implying it can see private data it can't.
Do Shorts and long-form videos monetize the same way?
No. Long-form ad revenue is tied to ads on that specific video; Shorts revenue comes from a pooled fund split across all Shorts views platform-wide, and pays meaningfully less per view. A channel can be well-monetized on one format and barely monetized on the other.
Can a channel lose monetization after being approved?
Yes — repeated policy violations, a drop below the ongoing activity requirements, or a shift toward content that violates advertiser-friendly guidelines can all lead to suspension from the Partner Program, independent of this tool's readiness check, which only reflects the moment it's run.
Why does the "Recommended Next Steps" section change for every channel?
It's generated from the specific checklist items that channel passed or failed, not a generic template — a channel missing the subscriber threshold gets different advice than one that's inactive or brand new.
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Check another channel
Free, no account, and the result is shareable.