Checkmate TikTok: The New Way to Make Money With YouTube Shorts

At 6:50 p.m. on September 20th, 2022, Alston was winding down for the night when an official email from YouTube landed in his inbox. The subject line was not subtle: it was time to celebrate. In that email, YouTube confirmed that revenue sharing was coming to YouTube Shorts in early 2023, meaning creators would finally earn directly from ads running in the Shorts feed. If you had been posting Shorts and watching your view count climb while your payment stayed at zero, that announcement ended that era. More views would now mean more money, plain and simple.

In this video, Alston breaks down exactly what the email said, why he believes it represents a serious check on TikTok’s grip on short-form creators, how to start uploading Shorts today to get ahead of the early 2023 payout window, and how to layer that new Shorts income on top of affiliate marketing, merchandise, and long-form YouTube revenue so the money compounds rather than just trickles in.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The exact language from YouTube’s official revenue-sharing announcement for Shorts
Why Alston believes this moment is a checkmate for TikTok
A step-by-step process for moving your TikTok and Reels content to YouTube Shorts without watermarks
How Super Thanks on Shorts adds a direct fan-support income layer on top of ad revenue
The algorithm change that connects your Shorts viewers to your long-form videos
Real analytics from Alston’s own channel: 688 views in two hours, nearly 2,700 views in a single day
A bold prediction about where YouTube’s ad threshold is heading within the next few years
Not sure which platform or format fits your situation? Find out at finder.platformproof.com.

The Email That Started It All

On the evening of September 20th, 2022, YouTube sent a message to creators in the YouTube Partner Program. The opening was direct: it was time to celebrate. Over the next few months, YouTube said it was expanding the benefits of the Partner Program so creators could express their creativity in the formats that work for them and their community, all while getting rewarded for it.

The key line in the email: in early 2023, you can start to earn from ads that are viewed in the Shorts feed, based on your Shorts views. More views, more money. That formula sounds obvious, but it had never applied to YouTube Shorts before this announcement. The previous model was a bonus fund: a fixed pool of money divided among every creator who qualified. The larger the creator pool grew, the smaller each individual slice became. Revenue sharing removes that ceiling and ties your earnings directly to the size of your actual audience and view count.

Alston had already been advising people to monetize Shorts through other routes: affiliate marketing, brand deals, sponsorships, digital products, physical products, and merchandise. Those methods still work and they still matter. But the addition of direct ad revenue sharing removes one of the biggest objections creators had to investing serious time in Shorts content. Previously, you had to monetize around YouTube’s Shorts program rather than through it. That changed with this announcement.

Why This Is a Checkmate for TikTok

TikTok’s creator fund has a well-documented problem: payouts are low, they are split among an enormous and still-growing creator pool, and the per-view rate trends downward as more creators join. Creators with millions of TikTok views often report earning less than one hundred dollars from the creator fund. The platform’s standard answer has been to direct creators toward brand deals, which require a significant established following to unlock.

YouTube is in a fundamentally different financial position. Google, Alphabet, and YouTube as a combined entity is a multi-billion dollar advertising platform where brands are already spending heavily. Advertisers pay real money to run ads on YouTube because the targeting is precise and the audience is massive. When those ad dollars get shared with Shorts creators, the payout potential is in a different category than TikTok’s creator fund can realistically reach.

Alston put it plainly in the video: unless TikTok opens the floodgates and starts paying people what they are worth, this announcement is a checkmate. Creators who had been splitting their attention between TikTok and YouTube Shorts now have a financial reason to prioritize YouTube. And the timing matters because the Shorts library on YouTube was still relatively small in late 2022 compared to TikTok’s billions of videos. YouTube had millions of Shorts, and many of those were cross-posted from TikTok anyway. Getting established before the platform’s content volume catches up gives early movers a real distribution advantage.

Not sure whether YouTube Shorts, TikTok, long-form video, or something else is the right income path for your specific situation?

Find out at finder.platformproof.com.

How to Move Your TikTok and Reels Content to YouTube Shorts Right Now

If you are already posting on TikTok, Instagram Reels, or Facebook Reels, you do not need to start from zero. The core move is to download your existing videos, strip the platform watermarks, and upload them to YouTube Shorts. Here is the exact process Alston walks through:

Go to TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook and download your existing short-form videos to your camera roll
Run the downloaded files through SnapTik to get a watermark-free version before uploading anywhere
Upload the cleaned videos to your YouTube channel as Shorts, adding descriptions and relevant hashtags
Upload as many as possible as quickly as possible to start building view volume before the monetization window opens

The watermark step matters because YouTube can flag watermarked content as reused or low-quality content from another platform, which limits its distribution and can make it ineligible for monetization. You put in the work to create the video once; the watermark removal is a two-minute step that protects the return on that work.

There is also a pro tip buried in the video: record your short-form videos outside of TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook rather than using their in-app cameras. When you shoot natively on your phone and edit in a separate app, there is no watermark to deal with from the start. You can then publish the same original file across all platforms simultaneously. Watermark removal tools like SnapTik exist today, but their availability is not guaranteed long-term. Building a native recording habit protects you regardless of what any third-party site does.

Alston also notes that Facebook Reels had already implemented a form of revenue sharing before YouTube made this announcement. YouTube was playing catch-up. But catch-up with YouTube’s advertiser base means the payout ceiling on YouTube is likely higher once it is fully running, because the sheer volume of ad dollars flowing through Google’s ad network dwarfs what Facebook is working with for creator payouts.

Two More Ways Shorts Will Pay You: Super Thanks and Music

The revenue-sharing announcement was the headline in the email, but YouTube included two other meaningful changes for Shorts creators that are worth setting up before they fully launch.

The first is Super Thanks on Shorts. Super Thanks is a feature that lets viewers make a direct payment to a creator as a show of appreciation. Those supporters get a highlighted comment in a distinct color, making their support visible to the creator and to the rest of the community. It had already been available on long-form videos when the email arrived, and YouTube confirmed it was in testing on Shorts. The action step is immediate: go to YouTube Studio, find your monetization settings, and turn Super Thanks on. You want it active and earning the moment it fully launches on Shorts rather than missing the first weeks of eligibility.

The second is expanded music access for Shorts content. If your style relies on trending audio or background music, the updated music library gives you more options without triggering copyright claims. This is less of a direct income tool on its own, but it removes a friction point that had pushed some creators away from YouTube Shorts toward TikTok, where the music library had historically been more permissive. Removing that friction makes YouTube Shorts a more complete creative platform for the majority of short-form creators.

Put those three together: ad revenue sharing, Super Thanks, and expanded music access. The income stack for a single YouTube Shorts channel is now direct ad income plus viewer-funded support plus a broader creative toolkit. That combination is a meaningfully stronger offer than what existed before September 2022, and it puts YouTube Shorts in a position to retain creators rather than just attract them.

The Algorithm Change That Makes Shorts Worth Twice as Much

Beyond the direct monetization announcements, YouTube confirmed an algorithm update that matters for anyone trying to build a real business on the platform rather than just collect short-term views. People who watch and interact with your YouTube Shorts can now also be shown your long-form content. The Shorts and long-form audiences are no longer completely separate.

This change is significant because Shorts are genuinely effective at building a fast following. They are short, easy to consume, and pushed to new viewers through the Shorts shelf without requiring the viewer to already be subscribed to your channel. But the larger income opportunity on YouTube has historically been in long-form content, where mid-roll ads run inside the video and CPMs are considerably higher than what runs in a Shorts feed. If a viewer finds you through a Short and then gets served your long-form videos by the algorithm, you are earning from the same person’s attention on two separate income streams.

Alston calls this a double dip. Short-form content drives discovery and generates Shorts ad revenue. Long-form content generates higher-CPM ad income from that same audience. Add affiliate links in descriptions and a merch shelf once you reach 10,000 subscribers, and you have four income streams running from one content operation: Shorts ads, long-form ads, affiliate commissions, and merchandise. The algorithm change is what makes those four streams feed each other instead of competing for the same viewer.

What Alston’s Shorts Analytics Actually Show

Alston recorded this video at 6:11 a.m. on September 21st, 2022. Two hours before he started recording, he had uploaded a Short asking viewers what the worst day of the week was. In those two hours, that Short had already gathered 688 views from the Shorts shelf alone, with no external promotion and no paid distribution. The Short he uploaded the day before had reached nearly 2,700 views. A Short from three days before that had accumulated 556 views.

These are not viral numbers, but they demonstrate the mechanics clearly. Views were accumulating steadily and consistently without any promotion, without any paid advertising, and from a channel that was not yet earning direct Shorts ad revenue. The reason Alston shared his own analytics rather than citing industry averages is to make the opportunity concrete: the Shorts shelf was already distributing his content to new viewers at a meaningful rate, and the monetization on top of that was arriving in a matter of months.

He also noted something visible in his analytics: people who were watching his Shorts were beginning to engage with his long-form content as well. That cross-pollination, where a Shorts viewer becomes a long-form subscriber and watcher, is the practical proof that the algorithm change YouTube announced was already starting to work on his channel before it was even formally confirmed as a policy.

The Stack: How to Layer Shorts Income With Long-Form and Affiliate Revenue

Here is the income stack Alston recommends, built around the Shorts opportunity that opened with this announcement:

Start uploading Shorts immediately. Do not wait for the monetization window to open before you begin posting. Every Short you upload today builds your view history and your audience before the ad revenue starts flowing. The early-mover advantage on any platform feature is real and temporary.
Post one to two long-form videos per week. The algorithm update connects Shorts viewers to long-form content. Long-form videos carry higher CPMs and are eligible for mid-roll ads in videos that are at least eight minutes long. The Shorts audience is now your funnel into the higher-earning long-form side of your channel.
Add affiliate links to descriptions and pinned comments. If your content covers topics where you can honestly recommend products or services, affiliate marketing runs passively in the background and generates commissions without any extra recording or editing time from you.
Turn Super Thanks on in YouTube Studio now. Do not wait for the Shorts Super Thanks launch to be finalized. Get the setting enabled in your channel so it is immediately active the moment it becomes fully available on Shorts.
Set up a merch shelf at 10,000 subscribers. YouTube’s merch shelf integration lets viewers purchase branded products from your channel page. It is a passive income stream that does not require running a separate storefront, and it rewards the audience loyalty you have been building through consistent Shorts and long-form content.

The reason to build all of these layers simultaneously rather than sequentially is that the early-mover advantage on YouTube Shorts was a limited window. When Alston recorded this video, YouTube Shorts had millions of videos while TikTok had billions. Getting steady distribution on Shorts at that moment was easier than it would be once the platform fully caught up on content volume. The same principle applies at any point where a platform announces a major new monetization feature: the people who move before general awareness drives a rush of new creators benefit the most from the initial period of relatively lower competition.

Honest Drawbacks

This opportunity is real, but a few things are worth naming clearly before investing heavily in Shorts content.

Shorts ad revenue is not the same as long-form ad revenue. Even with the revenue sharing model, the CPM on a Short is lower than on a long-form video with mid-roll ads. You need significantly more Shorts views to match the income from a well-performing long-form video. This is not a reason to avoid Shorts, but it is a reason to treat Shorts as a traffic and audience-building engine rather than your primary income source on its own. The income model that actually works is the combined stack described above, not Shorts revenue in isolation.

The watermark removal process through SnapTik or a similar tool adds friction to the repurposing workflow. It is not complicated, but it is an extra step. Creators who skip it risk getting their videos flagged for reused content, which reduces distribution and can affect eligibility for monetization. Do the step properly every time or adopt the native recording habit from the start.

YouTube’s algorithm changes frequently. The connection between Shorts viewers and long-form content that Alston describes in the video was the state of things in late 2022. How the platform distributes content continues to shift, so staying current on YouTube’s official creator communications matters. The email Alston received is a good example of why: knowing what YouTube is planning before it becomes common knowledge gives you a preparation window that most creators miss entirely because they are not reading the platform’s updates carefully.

A Bold Prediction: Ads on Four-Minute Videos Within a Few Years

A few years before this video, YouTube required videos to be at least ten minutes long to qualify for mid-roll ad placement. By September 2022, that threshold had dropped to eight minutes. Alston’s prediction, stated explicitly as a prediction with no official confirmation behind it: within two to three years, that minimum will drop again, this time to four minutes.

The logic is straightforward. Advertisers have demonstrated they are willing to pay for placement in short-form content, as evidenced by the Shorts revenue sharing model itself. If advertisers accept shorter and shorter content formats for ad placement, YouTube has a financial incentive to lower the mid-roll threshold on regular videos as well. A creator who currently makes six-minute videos and earns nothing from mid-rolls could earn from mid-rolls under a four-minute threshold without changing their content format at all.

Again, this is a prediction, not an announcement. No official indication from YouTube supported this timeline when the video was recorded. But it is the kind of directional thinking that helps you build a content strategy that stays positioned ahead of platform changes rather than just reacting after they are announced. If you are already making content in the five-to-eight-minute range, a shift in the mid-roll threshold would benefit you immediately without requiring any changes to what you are already producing.

Find Your X

YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, long-form YouTube, affiliate marketing, digital products: there is no shortage of ways to build an online income. The harder question is which of those paths actually fits your situation, given what you already know, the time you have available each week, and the kind of audience you can realistically attract and hold.

Take the Platform Proof Finder at finder.platformproof.com to get a clear answer based on your specific skills and circumstances. It maps what you already have to the income path most likely to produce real results, so you stop guessing about which platform deserves your attention and start building in the direction that is most likely to pay off for you specifically.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did YouTube Shorts revenue sharing actually begin?

YouTube announced in September 2022 that revenue sharing for Shorts would launch in early 2023. At that point, creators enrolled in the YouTube Partner Program would start earning from ads shown in the Shorts feed, with payouts scaling based on their total Shorts view count rather than from a fixed bonus pool.

How is Shorts revenue sharing different from the old Shorts bonus fund?

The old Shorts bonus fund was a fixed pool of money split among all qualifying creators. That meant your payout was diluted by the total number of creators in the program, and per-view rates trended downward as the creator pool grew. Revenue sharing ties your earnings directly to the ads shown against your specific content, so your income scales with your audience rather than getting shared across the entire Shorts creator community.

Do I need to remove the TikTok watermark before uploading to YouTube Shorts?

Yes. YouTube can treat watermarked content as reused or low-quality material from another platform, which limits how widely the video gets distributed and can affect its eligibility for monetization. Alston recommends running downloaded TikTok videos through SnapTik to get a clean, watermark-free file before uploading to YouTube. The longer-term habit is to record outside of platform apps so no watermark gets embedded in the first place.

What is Super Thanks and how does it work on Shorts?

Super Thanks is a YouTube feature that lets viewers make a direct payment to a creator to show appreciation for their content. Supporters receive a highlighted comment in a distinct color so they are visible to the creator and the rest of the community. It was available on long-form videos before YouTube announced it was in testing on Shorts in late 2022. To enable it, log into YouTube Studio and check your monetization settings to turn Super Thanks on for your channel.

How many subscribers do I need to earn from YouTube Shorts ad revenue?

Shorts ad revenue sharing is tied to YouTube Partner Program eligibility. The specific subscriber and watch-hour thresholds have changed over time since this video was recorded, so check YouTube’s current Partner Program requirements directly at support.google.com to see the exact numbers that apply now. The underlying principle has not changed: build a consistent Shorts upload habit first, and the subscriber growth that qualifies you for monetization follows from steady view accumulation.

Will YouTube Shorts viewers watch my long-form videos too?

YouTube announced in 2022 that it was updating its algorithm specifically so people who watch and interact with your Shorts could also be recommended your long-form content. Alston was already seeing this in his own channel analytics at the time: viewers who came in through the Shorts shelf were engaging with his longer videos as well. That cross-audience behavior is the foundation of the double-dip income model he outlines in the video.

Is it worth posting on YouTube Shorts if I am already active on TikTok?

Yes, based on what Alston covers. The repurposing process is one extra step per video: download, remove watermark via SnapTik, upload to YouTube. You are not creating new content from scratch; you are distributing existing content to a second platform that now pays directly from ad revenue. Running both simultaneously costs you a few extra minutes per video in exchange for a second income stream and access to a platform with a larger established advertiser base.

What other income streams can I build alongside Shorts ad revenue?

Alston mentions several: affiliate marketing through links in video descriptions and pinned comments, brand deals and sponsorships once you have an established audience, digital and physical product sales, merchandise through YouTube’s built-in merch shelf at 10,000 subscribers, and Super Thanks payments directly from viewers. Shorts ad revenue is the newest addition to that list, not the only option. The goal of the stack is to have multiple income streams running from the same content operation so that no single platform change can take your entire income offline.

Sources

YouTube official email to creators announcing Shorts revenue sharing and Super Thanks expansion (September 2022)
SnapTik watermark removal tool referenced by Alston Godbolt in the video
YouTube Studio monetization settings (Super Thanks toggle)
YouTube Partner Program requirements at support.google.com/youtube

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.