X Ditches Revenue Sharing for Original Content Rewards

X is shutting down Creator Revenue Sharing, the ad-split program that has paid its top posters since 2023, and replacing it with a new system called Original Content Rewards. The company stopped accepting new Revenue Sharing applicants immediately, existing members keep earning through September 7, 2026, and the new program opens for applications on September 8. For creators who treat X as a secondary income stream alongside YouTube, the mechanics of who gets paid are changing in a way worth understanding before the switch happens.

What's changing

• Creator Revenue Sharing closes to new applicants immediately and pays its last cycle through September 7, 2026.
• Original Content Rewards opens for applications on September 8, 2026, and current Revenue Sharing members are not carried over automatically. They have to reapply and requalify.
• To qualify, creators need to be 18 or older, subscribed to X Premium, Premium+, or Premium Business, have at least 500 verified followers, and have generated at least 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users in the trailing 90 days.
• Payouts are calculated from qualified impressions, meaning views that come specifically from verified Premium subscribers seeing at least half the post on their Home Timeline. Promoted, paid, duplicated, or fraudulent impressions do not count.
• Eligibility has to be maintained on an ongoing basis. Falling below the thresholds after being accepted can cut off future payouts.

Why X is making the switch

X executive Allegra Jacchia said the old program's incentives had become misaligned, and according to TechCrunch's reporting, she framed the shift as wanting creators focused on bringing genuinely new content to the platform rather than optimizing for payouts. That framing matters because Revenue Sharing paid out largely based on raw engagement, which rewarded reply bait, recycled memes, and reposted viral clips about as effectively as it rewarded original work. X had already tried narrower fixes, including reduced payouts to content aggregators in April 2026, and walked some of those changes back after creator pushback. Original Content Rewards is a broader attempt at the same goal: tie money directly to material a creator actually made.

What counts as original, and what doesn't

Qualifies for payouts:

• Original reporting, analysis, or commentary written by the creator
• Photos or videos the creator shot themselves
• Memes, graphics, or illustrations the creator designed
• Posts that substantively transform someone else's material through real commentary, analysis, or creative editing

Does not qualify:

• Reuploads of another creator's content without meaningful changes
• Material downloaded from another platform and reposted as-is
• Simple captions or text overlays added to someone else's post
• Explicit, misleading, or policy-violating content

“A platform that pays for impressions rewards whoever moves the most content. A platform that pays for originality rewards whoever made something worth moving.”

— YouTubeSkool Creator Economy Desk

What this means for creators who cross-post from YouTube

A common repurposing move is clipping a YouTube video, a stream highlight, or a Short and posting it to X for extra reach and a cut of ad revenue. Under Original Content Rewards, a straight reupload of that clip will not earn anything. The clip has to be reframed with real commentary, analysis, or context that X's system can recognize as more than a repost, the same bar Instagram already applies to reused video.

What creators should do now

• Check whether your account already meets the 500 verified followers and 500,000 verified-impression thresholds, since Original Content Rewards requires reapplying even if you were already in Revenue Sharing.
• Confirm your X Premium subscription tier is active, since it is a hard eligibility requirement, not a recommendation.
• Rebuild any clip-and-repost workflow so each post includes original commentary, analysis, or editing, not just the source clip.
• Treat X earnings as one piece of a diversified income mix rather than a primary channel, the same logic that applies to any single platform's ad or payout program.

The bottom line

X is trading a program that paid for reach for one that pays for authorship. For creators already investing in original commentary and analysis on the platform, the shift is a tailwind. For anyone using X mainly as a repost destination for YouTube content, the free ride on revenue share is ending on September 7, and the workflow needs to change before the new program opens.