Contents
- How the old program ended
- What the new program pays for
- The 8 requirements to apply
- 2. You’re 18 or older
- 3. Your account is in good standing with no repeated violations
- 4. Personal or business accounts only; political and government accounts aren’t eligible
- 8. You keep posting original content
- What counts as original
- The minimum payout
- How you get paid, and which apps you need
- The biggest pitfall for Chinese users
- How to apply
- Lines not to cross once you’re in
- A side note on Subscriptions
X’s Creator Revenue Sharing officially ended on September 7, so every “5 million impressions” guide you can find now is out of date. Its replacement is called Original Content Rewards, and the impressions threshold drops from 5 million to 500,000. The requirements, payouts and payment methods below all come from X’s official help center as of early October.
How the old program ended
On August 7, X announced that Creator Revenue Sharing would stop accepting new sign-ups. Existing members earned through September 7, and the last payout went out around September 11. From September 8, everyone has to apply to the new program, and existing members aren’t moved over automatically. Allegra Jacchia, who leads creator products at X, was blunt: the old program’s incentives had drifted, with everyone studying how to max out their share instead of focusing on making new things.
What the new program pays for
The new program counts just one thing: qualified impressions. X defines one as a Premium subscriber seeing your post in their home timeline, with at least half the post on screen, counted once per account per post. Basic, Premium, Premium+ and Premium Business users all count.
Impressions from paid promotion or from manipulation don’t count. However high a post’s view count, the part seen by non-subscribers is worth nothing. X hasn’t said how much each qualified impression is worth; the per-thousand-impression dollar figures online are other people’s own estimates.
The 8 requirements to apply
- You’re in a supported country or region
2. You’re 18 or older
3. Your account is in good standing with no repeated violations
4. Personal or business accounts only; political and government accounts aren’t eligible
-
You subscribe to Premium, Premium+ or Premium Business; Basic isn’t on the list
-
500,000 home-timeline impressions from verified users in the last 90 days; impressions from replies don’t count
-
At least 500 verified followers, meaning followers with a checkmark
8. You keep posting original content
X’s creator monetization standards add a few baseline requirements that trip many people up.
Your account must have been active for 3 months, with a name, bio, profile photo and header image, a verified email, and two-factor authentication turned on.
Meeting the bar only means you can apply. Once you submit, there’s a review.
What counts as original
Anything you wrote, shot, drew or made yourself counts, and so does your own analysis and opinion on news and trends. X specifically stresses that commentary is core to the platform.
Four kinds don’t count: copying someone else’s content wholesale, including downloading and re-uploading it; changing a few words, adding a filter, changing the speed or stamping some text on it; stitching other people’s content together without your own point of view; and bringing over other people’s content from other platforms.
Some posts don’t earn even if you wrote them yourself: posts with a Community Note rated helpful, posts generated or published through automation, and posts that are entirely about how to monetize and max out earnings. So this very post doesn’t earn anything, hahaha.
The minimum payout
Payouts happen every two weeks. This year’s August 14, August 28, September 11 and September 25 payouts were all on Fridays, so by that rhythm the next one should be October 9. The minimum per payout is $30; if your balance is under $30, nothing is paid that cycle and it waits until a cycle where you’ve built up enough.
On the cost side, Premium is $8 a month on the US website. Prices vary by region and app store; go by what checkout shows.
How you get paid, and which apps you need
US users can only use X Money, opened with a Social Security number. Each person can have only one X Money account, and each X Money account can connect to only one X account.
Everyone outside the US uses Stripe. Connect a Stripe payout account in Creator Studio, verify your identity through Stripe, and money goes from Stripe to the bank account you linked.
That’s the whole toolkit: X with its Creator Studio, Stripe, an authenticator app for two-factor, and a bank account in a supported region. Wise’s help pages say its USD, EUR, GBP, SGD and other account details can be connected to Stripe for payouts; which ones work depends on where you are.
The biggest pitfall for Chinese users
The supported list includes Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia, but not mainland China.
The most widely shared approach in the Chinese community is a mainland passport plus a Hong Kong bank card through Hong Kong Stripe; last year, changing the account region to the US to pass verification was also popular.
How to apply
Step 1: Check eligibility. Open Creator Studio and click Original Content Rewards; the page shows whether you meet each requirement.
Step 2: Apply. Once you meet everything, an application button appears. X says results usually come within 3 business days.
Step 3: Set up payouts. Connect Stripe in Creator Studio and complete identity verification. If you already verified and set up payouts in the old program, you don’t need to redo it.
Step 4: If you’re rejected. You can appeal once. If the appeal fails too, the help center says you can reapply after 42 days, as long as you still meet every requirement then. When the announcement came out in August, some media reported 90 days; go with the 42 in the help center now.
Lines not to cross once you’re in
Don’t let Premium lapse. Don’t use bots or tools to inflate engagement. Don’t keep asking people to like, reply, bookmark, follow or repost. Posting AI-generated videos of armed conflict without labeling them gets you suspended for 90 days, and a repeat offense ends payouts permanently.
If you’re removed from the program, you’ll be notified and can appeal. X also says it can change or end the program at any time; the help center is the final word on every rule.
A side note on Subscriptions
X’s other monetization product, Subscriptions, has a much higher bar: 2,000 active followers who subscribe to Premium, 5 million organic impressions in 3 months, and posts in the last 30 days.
The bar really did drop tenfold, but only impressions from verified users in their home timelines count; traffic you pick up in reply threads counts for nothing. For smaller accounts, the first thing to build is those 500 verified followers. Which requirement are you stuck on?
