X begins rolling out applications for its Original Content Rewards Program today, retiring the ad-revenue sharing system that has governed creator payouts on the platform since 2023. Existing Revenue Sharing participants can apply through Creator Studio; the outgoing program earns through September 7, with a final payout landing on or around September 11 and the first payouts under the new regime scheduled for September 25.
The mechanical shift is the story. Payouts under the new program are tied to “qualified impressions,” which X defines narrowly: unique views from Premium subscribers on the Home Timeline, with at least 50% of the post visible. Paid, promoted, artificially generated, and duplicated impressions don’t count. Replies are excluded from the eligibility math altogether.
That math is steeper than what came before. To apply, an account needs 500 verified followers, 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users over a 90-day window, an active Premium subscription, and standing in good order. Applications get reviewed within three business days. Rejected creators get one appeal, then a 90-day cooldown before they can try again.
The definitional turn matters more than the thresholds. X’s guidelines describe eligible content as work that carries “your own voice, perspective, expertise, or creativity,” and explicitly disqualify posts copied from other accounts, reuploaded downloads, aggregated compilations, and reposts with only minor edits such as cropping, filters, or descriptive text overlays. Original reporting, analysis, photos, videos, memes, and commentary that materially transforms existing material remain in.
Allegra Jacchia, writing in an X company post cited by TechCrunch, said the previous program “had reached a point where its incentives were misaligned” and that “creators should be focused on bringing net new content to the platform instead of maximizing payouts.” That’s a striking admission from a platform whose 2023 creator economy was built precisely on maximizing engagement-weighted payouts, and it acknowledges the aggregator ecosystem that the old rules produced.
Tubefilter frames the shift as a continuation of the originality boost X rolled out in March 2026 alongside its deepfake crackdown, and reads the program as X’s answer to Instagram’s originality-weighted algorithm. The deepfake rule sits inside the same policy stack: since March 3, 2026, undisclosed AI-generated videos of armed conflict trigger a 90-day program suspension on first offense, and permanent payment suspension after.
Read structurally, this is X narrowing the aperture of its paid content market to the audience that actually pays it. Qualified impressions come only from Premium subscribers, so the platform is now paying creators to hold the attention of its own paying customers. The reposters and clip-aggregators who built followings under the 2023 rules aren’t being warned. They’re being priced out.
Sources
- https://help.x.com/en/using-x/original-content-rewards
- https://x.com/XCreators/article/2085835082166653393
- https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/08/x-replaces-misaligned-revenue-sharing-program-with-original-content-rewards/
- https://www.theverge.com/2026/8/8/x-original-content-rewards-program-replaces-revenue-sharing
- https://www.tubefilter.com/2026/08/11/x-monetization-original-content-rewards-program-creators/