UPDATE: We are now in mid May 2026 and YouTube is pushing more and more Image Posts into the YouTube Shorts Feed. While we are seeing many more views, impressions, likes and interactions, there is still no sign that the views or impressions of YouTube Image Posts are counting towards the 10m number needed for monetization.
It is hard to argue that 10 million short views in 90 days is a lot. There are very few new or young YouTube Channels that have the ability to reach this type of audience. We firmly believe that in the next 3-6 months YouTube will start counting the impressions of a YouTube Image Post towards the monetization through the Shorts Feed.
What does this mean for you? We have repeatedly suggested to start sharing more Image Posts through the YouTube Community tab as part of your content strategy. Beginning in early May 2026, we are starting to see Image Posts receive more impressions than many short form videos are receiving views.
This is especially apparent in the regions in which high speed Internet access is sparse. If you have a subscriber base in Myanmar or Sri Lanka, you will likely find that you get more likes on Image Posts than Short Form videos. This makes complete sense because those countries do not have an infrastructure built out to allow all citizens to stream short form videos throughout the day.
Not all niches are going to benefit from Image Posts as much as subscriber bases in more remote areas. That said, there are plenty of opportunities to utilize YouTube Image Posts to not only grow your subscriber base, but potentially achieve YouTube monetization with the help of impressions and views of YouTube Image Posts. If you want to discuss a strategy in which you can make money on YouTube, email us at jesse@wojdylosocialmedia.com.
As of late April 2026, we are starting to see YouTube Post live views counting towards total views. This is interesting because there is nowhere to see actual views of YouTube Posts within the YouTube Studio App. It is likely the case that YouTube will blend impressions and views in terms of determining monetization.
We have stated numerous times that Google is going after Instagram through YouTube Image Posts. They are continuing to push these images more and more through the YouTube Shorts Feed. It would benefit both the creators and YouTube to have these views counting towards monetization.
With YouTube stating they are only “testing” Image Posts in the YouTube Shorts Feed, this is likely their way of not including these impressions or views until it is completely rolled out.
We have worked with a number of channels that are getting over 10k likes per day on Youtube Image Posts. This is likely going to be a way that YouTube creators can create a separate stream of revenue and a better way to reach fans than having to switch apps to read Instagram comments.
If Google truly wants this to work, they need to improve the way in which YouTubers can privately message each other. Now that YouTube has Image posts, people are going to want to send DMs. How they will roll this out is anyone’s guess.
Over the last few years, YouTube has drastically changed the monetization requirements. There was once a time when you could simply sign up for a YouTube account and attach Adsense and make money off ads. That is no longer the case. Google and YouTube have struggled with spam so they changed the requirements making YouTube Channels prove they have popularity and longetivity.
In April 2026, the requirements to qualify for the Shorts Feed ads monetization includes 10 million Shorts Feed views in 90 days. Note that the total number of Shorts Feed views can vary widely depending on the Analytics you are viewing. The only way to truly know how many views are counting towards your running total in 90 days is to look in the YouTube Studio app under the monetization tab.
Receiving 10 million views in 90 days is a lot. Now that YouTube is pushing Image Posts in the YouTube Shorts Feed, we suspect many YouTube creators will parlay Image Posts with Short Form videos in an attempt to qualify for monetization.
As of April 17th, 2026, Image Post views in the YouTube Shorts Feed do not count towards total monthly views nor monetization. That said, we are only a few days into YouTube Image posts showing up in the live realtime YouTube Studio data. That data is still a little broken as not all YouTube Image Posts are showing live data.
In the next few weeks, we expect to hear much more about the value of a view on the YouTube Shorts Feed with an Image Post. We do not know any metrics on these posts as the title is not clickable in the YouTube Studio app.
There are going to be many different metrics that determine which Image Posts show up in the Shorts Feed versus Short form videos. Obviously, audience watch retention isn’t going to factor as these are still images. We believe Like(s) Per Total Viewer(s) will determine which Image Posts go viral in the YouTube Shorts Feed. We will continue to test this, but in our early testing, it is definitely number of likes that is pushing YouTube Image Posts.