The article tells the story of:
- YouTube’s new gifting feature: viewers can purchase Jewels and send animated gifts during vertical livestreams, while creators receive Rubies worth one cent each.
- A short-term creator incentive: eligible creators can receive a 50% bonus on gift earnings for three months, capped at $1,000 per month.
- Important limits: the feature is for vertical livestreams, works through YouTube or third-party streaming software, is limited to YouTube’s mobile app for viewers, and replaces Super Stickers when enabled.
- A direct response to TikTok: YouTube is adopting a familiar live-gifting approach as it prepares to roll the feature out to eligible creators in the U.S. over the next few weeks.
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YouTube Adds Gifting to Vertical Livestreams
YouTube is introducing a new monetization feature for creators who stream vertically, bringing viewer gifting into a part of the platform that has increasingly been shaped by mobile-first viewing habits. The system allows viewers to purchase Jewels, YouTube’s virtual currency, and use them to send animated gifts during vertical livestreams.
The basic idea will be familiar to anyone who has spent time watching live content on TikTok: a viewer does not just watch or type in chat, but can spend money on a visual signal of support. For creators, those signals can become a more immediate revenue source than conventional advertising. For YouTube, the appeal is equally clear. Livestreaming is not only about keeping people watching; it is also about creating reasons for viewers to participate while the stream is happening.
That distinction matters. A prerecorded video can keep earning views long after publication, but a live broadcast depends on urgency. Gifts turn that urgency into a transaction. A creator can acknowledge a supporter in real time, a gift can stand out visually in the stream, and other viewers see that interaction unfold. The feature is therefore designed to create more earning opportunities for creators, but it is also a tool for making vertical livestreams feel more social and active.
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How the gifting system works
When viewers buy Jewels and send gifts, creators receive Rubies as compensation. Each Ruby equals one cent, which means creators earn $1 for every 100 Rubies. That is the clearest part of the arrangement: Rubies give creators a stated earnings value rather than leaving them to infer what an individual animated gift is worth.
What is less straightforward is the relationship between what a viewer spends and what a creator receives. Jewel prices vary depending on the bundle option a viewer chooses, so the revenue share for creators can differ. In practical terms, a creator can understand the value of the Rubies they receive, but the price paid by viewers for the Jewels behind those gifts may not map to a single fixed ratio.
That is common territory for virtual-currency systems. They can make small purchases feel easier and let platforms package spending in different ways, but they also put some distance between the visible gift and the underlying transaction. Creators considering the feature will want to focus on the earnings attached to Rubies rather than treating every animation as equivalent support.
YouTube is also offering eligible creators a 50% bonus on their earnings from gifts for the next three months. The bonus is capped at $1,000 per month and comes in addition to regular Ruby earnings. The offer is plainly meant to encourage early adoption: a temporary bonus gives creators a reason to test the format, promote live sessions, and see whether their audiences are willing to use gifting.
The cap is significant because it keeps the incentive from becoming open-ended while still making the trial period meaningful for creators who already draw active live audiences. It also highlights the difference between a feature launch and a permanent business model. The core question is not just whether creators use gifting while the bonus is available, but whether the system remains attractive after that three-month window ends.
Vertical video is not an incidental restriction
The feature is exclusive to vertical livestreams conducted directly on YouTube or through third-party streaming software. Viewers can send gifts only through YouTube’s mobile app. Those limitations place the product firmly in a mobile, portrait-oriented live experience rather than making it a universal replacement for every kind of YouTube livestream.
That choice reflects the competitive context. TikTok has made vertical video the default for a huge share of social viewing, and live gifting fits naturally inside that phone-based format. A viewer can scroll into a stream, watch for a few moments, react in chat, and send a gift without moving to a separate device or a different viewing mode. YouTube’s feature is built around that same kind of immediacy.
There is a trade-off for creators, especially those who have established habits around conventional livestream setups or audiences that watch outside the mobile app. The feature can create a new revenue path, but only within a specific format. A creator deciding whether to enable it is not simply adding another button to an existing stream. They are choosing a vertical live format and accepting the product’s mobile-app boundary for viewers.
There is another, more direct trade-off: enabling the new gifting feature disables access to Super Stickers. Previously, YouTube allowed monetization through Super Stickers in the chat tab. YouTube says gifts offer a better way for viewers to visually support their favorite creators, but the change means creators cannot treat the new feature as a simple extra layer on top of Super Stickers.
That makes YouTube’s confidence in gifting easier to read. The platform is not merely experimenting with a parallel option; it is asking creators to move from one visual support mechanism to another. For some channels, the animated nature of gifts may create more noticeable moments during a stream than chat-based Super Stickers. For others, the loss of an existing option may make the decision less automatic.
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TikTok is the obvious comparison
TikTok’s gifting system inspired YouTube’s move, and it has been highly lucrative for creators. Some TikTokers have earned thousands of dollars per month through livestreams supported by viewer gifts. The model has worked across very different types of live programming, from streamers debating political topics to creators participating in trending formats such as NPC streams, which have gained massive popularity.
The lesson for YouTube is not that every livestream will suddenly become a major source of gift revenue. Live gifting tends to reward creators who can hold attention in the moment, respond to viewers, and give an audience a reason to stay rather than scroll away. Political debate, reactive content, and NPC streams may look very different on the surface, but each can create the repeated interactions that make a live audience feel involved.
YouTube’s new feature will gradually become available to eligible creators in the U.S. over the next few weeks. The rollout aligns with the platform’s broader effort to give creators competitive tools that can increase earnings and attract more engagement during livestreams. Whether it becomes a meaningful TikTok rival will depend less on the existence of Jewels and Rubies than on whether viewers make gifting part of their regular YouTube live behavior.
