X is shutting down its current program that pays creators for their posts and replacing it with a new one called Original Content Rewards, according to an announcement posted on August 8, 2026 (TechCrunch).

The old program, called Revenue Sharing, stopped accepting new sign-ups on August 7 (X Help Center). People already in that program will keep earning money from it until September 7. Starting September 8, creators can apply for the new program (TechCrunch).

X's Allegra Jacchia wrote that the old program's incentives had become misaligned, and that "the better decision was to start fresh and build a program designed to reward originality" (TechCrunch). In plain terms, X felt the old system was paying people for the wrong reasons.

Getting into the new program is not easy. Creators must pay for one of X's Premium subscription tiers, have at least 500 followers who are verified (meaning X has confirmed they are real people), and their posts need to have been seen 500,000 times by those verified users within a 90-day period (TechCrunch). The program is available worldwide to anyone who meets these requirements (X Help Center), and participants must be 18 or older (X Help Center).

X has specific rules about what counts as "original content." Qualifying posts include original reporting and analysis, photos and videos the creator made themselves, and memes or graphics they designed. Commentary on other people's work can also qualify, but X said that content which "regularly incorporates material created by others must contribute meaningful original value to qualify." Posts that are copied from another account, downloaded and re-uploaded, or simply reposted without adding something new are excluded (TechCrunch). The program rewards original content in any format, including regular posts or longer Articles (X Help Center).

The bigger picture is that X is changing the basic idea behind its payments. The old program paid creators based on how many verified users saw their posts, so the goal was simple: get as many eyes as possible on your content. The new program still requires a certain number of views to qualify, but it adds a new test: the content itself must be original. That means X now has to judge whether each post is genuinely original or just something copied and reposted. That kind of judgment is much harder to do fairly and at a large scale than simply counting views.

The rule allowing commentary that uses other people's material, as long as it adds "meaningful original value," leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Reaction posts, quote-posts, and remixes have been popular on X for years. Where X draws the line between adding something genuinely new and just reposting someone else's work will determine whether the policy works as intended or creates confusion.

The high requirements also mean the program is aimed at people who already have a large following. Needing 500,000 views from verified users in 90 days, plus a paid Premium subscription and 500 verified followers, means creators just starting out likely will not qualify. Whether that helps X find original content or just sends money to accounts that are already popular is something we will learn from the program's early results.

For creators already in the old program, the switch happens fast. Earnings from Revenue Sharing continue through September 7, and applications for the new program open the very next day. There is no guarantee that current participants will be accepted into the new one. They will need to meet the same requirements as everyone else.

The wider trend here is that X is tying payments more closely to provenance, the question of who actually created something. Platforms like X have tried different payment models over the years, and this shift from paying for engagement to paying for originality is part of that ongoing adjustment. Whether X can actually enforce the originality rule across millions of posts, and whether creators will change what they post to fit the new rules, will be the real test.