Twitter is now paying creators for a share of the ad revenue earned from ads served in the replies to their posts. Users who subscribe to Twitter Blue and have earned more than 5 million tweet impressions each month for the last 3 months are eligible to join, TechCrunch reported.
According to owner Elon Musk, the first round of creator payouts will total $5 million, and will be cumulative from the month of February onward. These payouts will be delivered via Stripe.
According to TechCrunch, from what some large creators are sharing on Twitter, these payouts are substantial. Writer Brian Krassenstein, who has about 750,000 followers, claims that Twitter paid him $25,305.
SK, a creator with about 230,000 followers, claims to have earned $2,236 from Twitter; political commentator Benny Johnson with 1.7 million followers, says he earned $9,546.
TechCrunch also noted that while Twitter pays out $5 million to creators, the company was recently sued over $500 million of unpaid severance checks to employees who were laid off amid Musk’s takeover. Twitter has also failed to pay rent on its office spaces.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Twitter said it started paying its creators on the platform of ad revenue from ads placed in replies to their feeds.
The social-media company said the program is part of its efforts to help people earn a living directly on Twitter. The program is rolling out to an initial group of creators now and will expand later this month, the Wall Street Journal reported.
To be eligible, creators must be subscribed to Twitter Blue or be Verified Organizations, have at least five million impressions a month over the previous three months and pass a human standards review.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Twitter owner Elon Musk said in a tweet that the payouts accounted for a period starting in February of this year, when he first announced the program. Several creators posted screenshots Thursday of amounts they said were from the program, one for roughly $37,000 from a crypto software engineer with over two million followers. The screenshots couldn’t immediately be verified.
The Verge reported that it’s not immediately clear how payouts are determined or how much revenue Twitter keeps itself, but accounts need to have at least 5 million impressions on tweets over the last three months.
According to The Verge, conservative YouTuber Benny Johnson posted that he was eligible to make nearly $10,000; @Elon-alerts, an account that shares Musk’s activity on Twitter, said that its payout amounted to around $2,200. Musk said in a tweet that the payouts are cumulative going back to February, when the program was first announced.
This situation reminds me of a website that I used to write for. It welcomed creators to join for free, and offered the chance to earn some money for their work. Not long after, the website excluded some writers from getting paid, and then lowered the payments. The site disappeared in the blink of an eye before many creators were able to access their money.
Twitter requires users to pay for Twitter Blue in order to be considered eligible for creator ads revenue. To me, it feels wrong to have to pay some money to Twitter each month for the chance of earning money there.