YPP Withdrawal (Termination)
Do not assume that once you join the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), you will earn revenue for a lifetime.
They will periodically cancel your channel for various reasons, such as AI-generated content, low-quality material, copyright issues, or duplicate content.
Also, do not assume they are always right. If they label your content as “low quality,” it doesn’t necessarily mean the content itself is bad; you may be able to appeal this decision.
The platform’s real motivation for canceling YPP is often to free-ride on your work. Once terminated, they will still place ads on your videos, but the revenue will belong to them, not you.
Furthermore, if your content is high quality but advertisers refuse to sponsor it, causing Google to not make money, termination can be a reason for this—but they won’t explicitly tell you why in those cases.
Therefore, it is advisable to focus on content categories with abundant advertising, such as AI companies, tech and digital products, finance, etc.
This is also one of the main reasons why many creators specialize in finance or digital technology niches.
Ad Revenue Streams
YouTube offers ads across long-form videos, Shorts (short videos), and live streaming.
Based on my backend analytics (Food & Drink channel): I forget whether it’s CPM (Cost Per Mille) or RPM (Revenue Per Mille).
Long-form video revenue is 10x that of short videos; short video revenue is 10x that of live streams.
Short videos generate approximately $0.08 per 1,000 views (or ad impressions).
Thus, long-form video offers the highest revenue potential. It is highly recommended to aim for videos longer than 8 minutes, as they accumulate more ads and higher earnings.
You can try short videos or live streaming, but I still strongly recommend focusing on long-form content.
Almost all channels that generate thousands of dollars in revenue from a single video viewed one million times are doing long-form content.
Tips
YouTube typically allows withdrawals of $20–$25 (approximately 10%–15%) of your balance monthly for the previous month.
Your total balance must be at least $100 to withdraw; many creators only withdraw once every few months.
This cycle is similar to working as an employee: if you start on the 1st, you don’t get paid until roughly the 25th of the next month—a wait of about 55 days. If your balance falls below $100 before then, you have to wait until the next withdrawal cycle anyway.
This results in an average daily income of less than $3, which can feel quite awkward.
It is suggested to run multiple YPP channels, as a single channel might not generate enough revenue.
Additionally, I use AdSense on my website as well, but compared to YouTube, the earnings are almost negligible, and the user experience is poor.
Therefore, it is best to focus primarily on YouTube, using your website only as an auxiliary tool to host video documentation and serve as a traffic landing page.