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Supers and Gifted Memberships

4 min read

Supers and Gifted Memberships

Supers are one-time payments viewers make to stand out and support a creator: Super Thanks on regular watch pages, and Super Chat and Super Stickers during live streams and Premieres. Gifted memberships let a viewer or creator buy Channel Memberships for others. Together they are the spontaneous, moment-driven side of fan funding, complementing the recurring income of memberships within Revenue Streams. All of them require the YouTube Partner Program and pay the creator 70% of net revenue.

Super Thanks

Super Thanks is a one-time purchase on a watch page that triggers a celebratory animation visible to the buyer over the video, plus a distinct, highlighted comment. It works on both long-form videos and Shorts once enabled, across eligible past and future uploads. Viewers pick from several price points via a slider, where a higher amount unlocks a more elaborate animation. It is not available on active live streams or Premieres, age-restricted, made-for-kids, private, unlisted, Content ID-claimed, or comments-disabled videos.

Super Chat and Super Stickers

Super Chat and Super Stickers are purchases made during live streams and Premieres, which makes them the core live monetization tool alongside Live Streaming and Premieres. Super Chat colors and highlights a message and can pin it to the top of live chat, with the color, character length, and pin duration scaling with the amount spent. Super Stickers post an animated image in chat. Purchases under 5 USD (or local equivalent) do not appear in the ticker. They are unavailable on age-restricted, made-for-kids, private, or unlisted content, or when live chat is off.

Gifted memberships

On channels with gifting enabled, a viewer or the creator can buy memberships for others during a live stream or Premiere, with a countdown ticker highlighting the purchase in chat. Each gift grants up to one month of perks and then expires; gifts are non-recurring and non-refundable. Recipients must opt in, cannot be Brand Accounts, and cannot already be members. Gifting is a powerful community moment that converts viewers into members and deepens Community and Engagement.

Eligibility and country availability

All Supers require the Partner Program and the Commerce Products module, and each feature is enabled individually in Studio. Channel memberships and Super Chat/Stickers are available to eligible creators in 140-plus countries and territories, and Super Thanks in 150-plus. Like memberships, Supers can unlock at the expanded-program tier before full ad-revenue sharing.

Revenue split, fees, and spend limits

Creators receive 70% of Supers revenue confirmed by Google, calculated after local sales tax and, on iOS, App Store fees; YouTube currently covers credit-card and transaction costs. This matches the membership split and contrasts with ad revenue in RPM and CPM. Viewers are capped at 500 USD per day and 2,000 USD per week (or local equivalent), counted across Super Chat, Super Stickers, Super Thanks, and gifts combined.

How to apply

  • Use Super Chat and Super Stickers as the live-stream monetization layer, and acknowledge purchases on air to reinforce the behavior.
  • Enable Super Thanks on the whole catalog so evergreen videos keep earning one-time tips long after upload.
  • Run gifting moments during milestones and Premieres to convert engaged viewers into recurring Channel Memberships.
  • Keep moderation active: pin and read genuine messages, and rely on chat moderators during high-volume streams.

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