Eligible YouTube creators have two new opportunities to monetize their work: channel memberships and merchandise sales. YouTube announced the news on its blog last Friday. With new channel memberships, viewers pay $4.99 a month to get special badges, new emojis, members-only posts in the Community tab and access to unique perks offered by creators which could include exclusive livestreams, extra videos, news, early access to ticket sales or even shout-outs. YouTube will get 30 percent of revenue, and creators will get 70 percent.

According to TechCrunch, YouTube will vet channel perks manually to make sure they meet YouTube guidelines and are something the creator is in a position to offer. Not all creators can access channel memberships, however. YouTube will only make this option available to ‘eligible channels’ that have more than 100,000 subscribers and be part of the YouTube Partner Program. YouTube has already been testing the concept in January with sponsorships.

‘Creators who have already been experimenting with this feature on YouTube have seen encouraging results. Since launching in January, comedy creator Mike Falzone more than tripled his YouTube revenue. And traveling duo Simon and Martina have built a closer-knit community and revamped a miniseries exclusively for their members, in more than 30 countries from Finland to the Philippines,’ said YouTube.

In addition to the channel memberships, creators can now sell merchandise like phone cases, T-shirts, mugs and posters directly from their channel. Through a partnership with custom merchandise company Teespring, YouTube creators can choose from more than 20 merchandise items that they can customize and sell on their channel via a ‘merch shelf.’ Eligible creators will be U.S.-based channels with more than 10,000 subscribers. YouTube said it will bring on additional merchandising partners soon. TechCrunch reports that Teespring will get a cut of the revenue.

In an article on the new monetization options, Polygon points out that YouTube’s new channel memberships are very similar to those offered by Twitch and Patreon. Twitch has a 50/50 split with creators, and Patreon only takes 5 percent of processed fees from subscriptions. Polygon also says that these new tools are a direct response to the complaints YouTube has received by creators for the demonetization of the site over the last two years.

Insider Take:

It has taken two years, but YouTube has finally listened to its creators who have been disenchanted with changes that dramatically reduced their revenue. The addition of channel memberships and a direct merchandise tie may help creators to generate more revenue, but it is not known if they will recover the amount they lost from changes in YouTube’s advertising policies.