Direct answer: A YouTube sponsorship is a direct agreement between you and a brand: the brand pays you for agreed content, and YouTube is not a party to the negotiation or the payment. The official discovery route is the Creator Partnerships tab in YouTube Studio, available as of 19 August 2026 to eligible creators in 24 countries including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, for channels whose owner is at least 18, that are in the YouTube Partner Program, and that have no active Community Guidelines strikes. Whatever the source of the deal, one rule never changes: tick the paid promotion box in YouTube Studio.
- The Creator Partnerships tab makes your channel discoverable to brands, supplies a media kit built from your audience insights, and lets you set a desired rate for long-form videos and for Shorts.
- The amount shown in a campaign inquiry comes from the advertiser, and YouTube states it is not a final offer but information for your negotiation.
- You negotiate, sign and get paid directly by the brand, and YouTube suggests you may wish to consult a legal professional first.
- Disclosure is mandatory wherever a commercial relationship exists, and viewers see an automatic 10-second notice at the start of the video.
- There is no official sponsorship rate card, and you will find no borrowed figures here: what follows is a method for building your own number.
The Creator Partnerships tab, and what it gives you
YouTube's page says the Creator Partnerships features let brands discover creators for brand deals, that all eligible Partner Program creators are discoverable to brands, and that the tab appears in the Earn page of YouTube Studio on desktop and in the app. What the tab provides:
- Streamlined inquiries: self-service tools inside Studio for managing campaign inquiries, with clearer briefs from potential partners.
- A customizable media kit: audience insights tailored to your channel, meant for pitching yourself to brands.
- Preferences: your desired rates for long-form and Shorts partnerships, plus a business contact email for a manager or agent who is copied on every inquiry.
- Creator insights sharing: an optional setting that gives advertisers fuller data; YouTube says it can "increase earning potential from ads and the YouTube shopping affiliate program", and that you remain discoverable even with it off.
If you want out, the page gives one address to stop search recommendations and brand outreach, and another to switch Creator Partnerships off entirely.
Eligibility and where the tab works
The requirements on the page today: be at least 18, be in the YouTube Partner Program, be based in one of the available countries, have no active Community Guidelines strikes, and follow YouTube's monetization policies, Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and platform policies.
The list runs to 24 countries and includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey, Israel, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States. So an eligible Saudi creator does see this tab, unlike the Shopping affiliate program, whose country list still leaves Saudi Arabia out as explained in the YouTube affiliate marketing guide. Getting into the program itself is covered in our YouTube Partner Program explainer, and the full income map in the YouTube monetization guide.
Worth stating plainly: not qualifying for the tab does not lock you out of sponsorships. A brand deal happens off-platform, and no official page requires Partner Program membership to sign one. YouTube requires disclosure and policy compliance, not membership.
Readiness: what you put in front of a brand
In practice brands do not buy subscriber counts, they buy audience fit plus the evidence for it. The media kit inside the tab assembles that automatically; outside the tab you build it by hand from YouTube Analytics: audience age and geography, the last 28 days of performance, average view duration, and examples of comparable videos that worked. Reading those reports is the job of the YouTube Analytics guide.
Check, too, that your channel is advertisable in the first place. The advertiser-friendly content guidelines sort every video into three states: it can earn ad revenue, it gets limited ad earnings, or it gets no ad earnings, and the policy covers the video, title, thumbnail, description and tags. A channel where the yellow icon is common is harder to sell to an advertiser even when nobody says so out loud. Those states, and how to request human review, are covered in the YouTube monetization policies guide.
How deals reach you, and how you reach them
Inbound, through the tab
YouTube lists what a campaign inquiry contains: the brand and a summary, the "Earn" figure, partnership details, campaign goals, deliverables, talking points, the call to action, product information and payment terms. Then the caveat: those amounts are "provided by the advertiser and are not meant to be confused with final offers". You respond with Interested, which shares your contact details, or Not interested, which tells the brand you are out.
Outbound, from you
No official page explains how to pitch, so treat this as editorial judgement: approach brands that already appear in your content or your audience's interests, open with one specific execution idea rather than a general request, attach the media kit, and name your business contact if you work with an agent. YouTube does confirm that agents can receive copies of inquiries and be added as authorised users to manage deals inside Studio.
Pricing: a method, not a borrowed number
YouTube publishes no sponsorship rate card, and any figure circulating as "the going rate per thousand views" has no official source. What you do have officially is the desired-rate field in your preferences and the advertiser's suggested amount, which is explicitly not final. Build your number from those:
- Start from deliverables: an integrated segment, a dedicated video, a Short or a series each carry different production cost and time.
- Add usage rights: if the brand wants to run your video in its own paid ads, that is extra usage and is priced separately.
- Add exclusivity: agreeing not to work with a competitor for a period has a price.
- Use real performance, not channel totals: the average of your last ten comparable videos is more honest than an old peak.
- Set an internal floor you will not go below, and revisit it each quarter as your performance moves.
Before you sign
The official wording is direct: "you will negotiate and sign an agreement directly with the brand, and you will be paid by the brand", with the added note that you should understand the terms and "may wish to consult a legal professional". That is general information, not legal advice, and the detail depends on the law where you live.
- Precise deliverables: how many videos, where the paid segment sits and how long it runs, publishing dates, and how many rounds of revisions.
- Review and approval: YouTube notes you may upload the campaign video as unlisted for the brand to review, and that the content is also reviewed against Google Ads policies and Community Guidelines before approval.
- Usage rights: will the brand ask for brand partner access to link the video to its Google Ads account? YouTube says the decision is entirely yours, and that accepting lets the advertiser see the content's organic performance and use the video in its advertising.
- Payment: amount, currency, timing, who pays, and what happens if the campaign is cancelled or delayed.
- What you cannot promise: never commit to view or engagement numbers, and refuse any clause that asks you to delete critical comments or hide the disclosure.
Disclosure: the part that is not negotiable
YouTube's paid product placements page requires you to tell YouTube: Studio, Content, the video, More options, tick "My video contains paid promotion like a product placement, sponsorship, or endorsement", Save. What follows from that:
- An automatic disclosure message runs for 10 seconds at the start of the video; ads keep serving, an ad conflicting with your brand partner may be replaced, and the video is removed from the YouTube Kids app.
- You may not burn advertiser-supplied video ads into your content. Static title cards of 5 seconds or less are allowed (co-branded with your name or logo when placed at the start), as are static end cards in the last 30 seconds.
- The campaign link: the link-sharing page lists "external brand deal links" among clickable link types, while URLs in Shorts descriptions and comments remain non-clickable.
- Google Ads policies forbid paid promotion of some categories outright, among them illegal services, adult content, recreational drugs, pharmaceuticals without a prescription, unreviewed gambling sites, exam-cheating services, phishing and spyware.
- YouTube points out that legal disclosure duties differ by country, links to the relevant regulators, and states that its article is not legal advice.
Frequently asked questions
Can you get sponsored without being in the Partner Program?
Yes. Partner Program membership is a condition for seeing the Creator Partnerships tab, not for signing a deal with a brand. No official page requires it for a private agreement, but disclosure and policy compliance still apply.
Does YouTube take a cut of sponsorship money?
The official page says you negotiate and sign directly with the brand and the brand pays you; it names no YouTube share of that amount. This money does not flow through AdSense.
Does a free product require disclosure?
If the product is given in exchange for coverage or a mention, that is a commercial relationship under YouTube's definition of paid promotion, so the box is required. Your national rules may require an additional spoken or on-screen disclosure.
How do I tell a real inquiry from a scam?
Real inquiries arrive through the Creator Partnerships tab with a Studio notification, an email to your account, and a copy to your business contact address. Any message that asks you to download a file, sign in through a link, or pay a fee up front has nothing to do with that route.
Can my manager handle brand deals for me?
Yes. YouTube lets you set a business contact email that receives a copy of every inquiry, and you can add an agent or manager as an authorised user to manage deals directly in YouTube Studio.
Before any of it comes the audience: a brand is buying an existing relationship between you and a specific group of viewers, not a large number. How that relationship gets built is in the channel growth guide.
Practical summary
- Open the Earn section in YouTube Studio and check for the Creator Partnerships tab; Saudi Arabia and the UAE are on today's country list.
- Prepare the media kit and your audience numbers before you contact anyone, and check the monetization icons on your recent videos.
- Treat the advertiser's suggested amount as an opening point, and build your price from deliverables, usage rights and exclusivity.
- Sign directly with the brand, understand the usage and payment clauses, and take legal advice where it matters.
- Tick the paid promotion box on every sponsored video, and check the rules in your own country.
- For the whole growth and monetization picture, start from the YouTube Resource Hub.
Official sources
- Get started with YouTube Creator Partnerships: eligibility, the 24-country list including Saudi Arabia, the media kit, rate preferences, what an inquiry contains, direct contracting (read 19 August 2026).
- Add paid product placements, sponsorships & endorsements: the disclosure box, the 10-second notice, title and end cards, prohibited categories (read 19 August 2026).
- Advertiser-friendly content guidelines: the topics that are not advertiser-friendly and the three ad-earning states (read 19 August 2026).
- Sharing links with your audiences: external brand deal links among the clickable link types (read 19 August 2026).
- YouTube channel monetization policies: the policies every earning channel must follow, sponsored videos included (read 19 August 2026).