Twitter has introduced a new program to pay creators a share of the ad revenue generated from ads displayed in the replies to their posts.
To be eligible, users must subscribe to Twitter Blue and have earned over 5 million tweet impressions per month for the past three months. The first round of creator payouts, totaling $5 million, will be cumulative from February onwards and will be delivered through Stripe, according to owner Elon Musk.
Prominent creators have shared their substantial earnings from Twitter. Writer Brian Krassenstein, with approximately 750,000 followers, reported receiving $24,305, while creator SK, with around 230,000 followers, claimed earnings of $2,236. Political commentator Benny Johnson, boasting 1.7 million followers, stated he earned $9,546.
Twitter’s payouts are determined by tweet impressions, with Babylon Bee writer Ashley St. Clair (710,000 followers) indicating earnings of $7,153 from approximately 840 million impressions between February and July. This implies a rate of around $0.0085 CPM (cost per mille), or $8.52 per million impressions. It remains unclear whether individual CPMs vary between users.
To monetize ads served in tweet replies, Twitter has found a solution as determining which creators to compensate for ads displayed in the feed proved challenging, mirroring the revenue sharing issue faced by short-form video platforms like TikTok. Encouraging users to reply to their tweets becomes advantageous for creators, potentially fostering conversation, although extreme emotions tend to drive higher engagement, as observed on platforms like Facebook.
Farzad Mesbahi noted, “The more haters you have in your replies, the more money you’ll make on Twitter,” to which Musk responded, “Poetic justice.”
Certain limitations apply to the types of creators eligible for monetization through this program. Twitter’s content monetization standards prohibit the monetization of sexual content, impacting Twitter’s community of sex workers, as the platform permits adult content. Monetization is also not allowed for content related to pyramid schemes, violence, criminal behaviors, gambling, drugs, and alcohol. Attempting to monetize copyrighted content not owned by the creator is also prohibited.
While Twitter allocates $5 million to creator payouts, the company is concurrently facing a lawsuit over $500 million in unpaid severance checks owed to laid-off employees following Musk’s takeover. Twitter has also faced challenges in meeting rent obligations for its office spaces.
