X has stopped accepting new applications for its Creator Revenue Sharing program and will shut it down entirely after September 7, 2026, replacing it with a new Original Content Rewards Program that ties payouts to what X defines as original content rather than general engagement. The company stopped new enrollments on August 7 (X Help Center). Existing revenue-sharing participants can continue earning through September 7, with three final payouts scheduled for August 14, August 28, and a final settlement for earnings accrued through September 7 expected on or around September 11 (X Help Center).

The new program, announced via X's creators account and detailed in the company's help documentation, rewards creators who bring "original ideas, expertise, reporting, creativity and commentary" to the platform (Engadget). Under the program, creators earn money based on qualified impressions their original content receives. An impression counts when a post appears on someone's screen, and only unique impressions from Premium subscribers count toward a creator's total, meaning each Premium user's view is counted once (Engadget). Payments are processed through X's Payment Processor, and the program lets creators share in revenue from engagement with their content (X Legal).

X defines original content narrowly. It includes users' original writing or reporting, photos or videos they take, and memes or illustrations they create. Users can earn from other people's posts only if they add meaningful commentary or analysis, or perform creative editing on existing videos or photos. Adding captions or text overlays that merely describe other people's content does not qualify as original under the policy (Engadget).

Eligibility requirements for the new program are substantial. Creators must be 18 or older, live in an available country, hold a Premium, Premium+, or Premium Business subscription, have at least 500 verified followers, and have accumulated at least 500,000 Home timeline views from verified users within the preceding 90 days. Once accepted, creators must continue meeting these thresholds to receive payouts. Members can check their eligibility status at any time through Creator Studio by selecting Original Content Rewards (Engadget; X Help Center).

Transition logistics differ by participant status. Creators currently enrolled in revenue sharing must reapply for the new program when they become eligible on September 8. Users not part of the old revenue-sharing program can apply for the Original Content Rewards Program immediately (Engadget). X notes that the existing Creator Revenue Sharing program is available globally to creators who meet eligibility requirements, and the company reserves the right to modify or cancel the program at any time in its sole discretion, including for business, financial, or legal reasons (X Help Center).

The shift arrives against a backdrop of platform integrity concerns. In March, X updated its revenue-sharing program to give more weight to engagement from a user's home region, a change widely interpreted as an attempt to deter creators from misrepresenting their location. The BBC reported earlier in the year that dozens of popular accounts posting pro-Trump sentiments and US political commentary were not based in the United States (Engadget; BBC). It is unclear whether the new Original Content Rewards Program will retain the same home-region engagement weighting (Engadget).

The broader context here is a platform trying to align its creator economy incentives with content it considers valuable. The old revenue-sharing model rewarded broadly any qualifying engagement, which created opportunities for geographic arbitrage, where creators could misrepresent their location to earn more, and engagement farming, the practice of posting low-effort content designed to generate clicks rather than genuine interest. The new program's originality requirement, combined with the restriction that only unique Premium impressions count, narrows the payout surface considerably. Creators who built audiences around aggregation, reposting, or commentary-light engagement strategies will need to shift toward genuinely original output, or add substantive analytical value to others' work, to maintain monetization.

The eligibility floor of 500,000 verified-user timeline views in 90 days is not trivial. Combined with the paid subscription requirement, it effectively restricts monetization to established creators with a verified audience base, which may reduce the program's appeal to newer or mid-tier accounts that the old revenue-sharing system was more accessible to. X's reservation of the right to modify or cancel the program at its discretion, carried over from the previous program's terms, also means creators are building on a foundation the platform can pull at any time.

What the new program does enable is a clearer value proposition for original creators, journalists, and visual artists who produce their own work rather than repackaging others'. Tying payouts to original content and unique Premium impressions creates a cleaner signal for what X is willing to pay for, even if the definition of "meaningful commentary" will likely require ongoing moderation judgment to enforce fairly.