According to the company, members of a participating channel can buy up to 20 additional memberships in a single purchase by clicking the $ button next to the live chat. However, they can’t choose whom to gift those subscriptions to. Instead, YouTube will select viewers based on their interaction with the channel. Those regularly active on the channel are more likely to receive gift memberships. To be eligible for receiving gifts, non-member viewers will have to click on “Allow Gifts” on an announcement in the live chat. If you are selected for a membership gift, you will be notified with a personal live chat message and over email. You will then get access to all the perks of a channel membership for one month for free. You won’t have to pay anything. But gifted memberships are non-recurring, so your benefits will expire after a month if you don’t purchase a membership on your own. Of course, existing members won’t receive membership gifts. YouTube’s plan with this feature is to try and get more people to buy memberships.
YouTube copies another Twitch feature
Memberships are the YouTube equivalent of Twitch’s subscriptions. At $4.99 per month, channel members get access to exclusive perks like loyalty badges, custom emojis, and other content from their favorite creators. While Twitch has allowed users to gift subscriptions to other users for some time now, YouTube didn’t have that ability all this while. It’s changing today. In the early beta testing, YouTube isn’t allowing members to purchase gift memberships on mobile. It’s only available on the desktop client. The stable rollout will bring it to mobile apps too. As for creators interested in the feature, the company has a Google Form where they can register their interest. If selected, they will be notified over email. The existing 70/30 (Creator/YouTube) revenue split will apply to gifted memberships as well. Since membership gifting on YouTube is just rolling out in beta, things could change by the time it’s ready for a wider public rollout. Based on the feedback from early users, the company could revise some aspects of the feature or/and add new abilities. We will let you know as and when we have more information.
