YouTube, often criticized for not compensating creators well enough, will allow them to set up paid channel memberships, the company said today.
"Now, the vast majority of Google's revenue comes from advertising and will continue to be the focus" said Neal Mohan, (YouTube's chief product executive).
"But we also want to think beyond ads. Creators should have as many ways and opportunities to make money as possible," he said.
Viewers will pay $4.99 a month for channel memberships giving them access to exclusive content including livestreams, extra videos or shout-outs on channels with more than 100,000 subscribers.
Company also said "Creators will also be able to sell merchandise like shirts or phone cases directly on their channels". This is a good thing who advertise their own products on YouTube.
YouTube returns a small part of its advertising revenue to content creators who regularly accuse the platform of giving them only crumbs.
The site is facing increasing competition from other platforms using more and more video.
YouTube says it has more than 1.9 billion users but the figure only counts those who log in via their accounts.