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YouTube Offers Some Premium Users Free Channel Memberships

Normally you'd pay at least $4.99 per month for a channel membership, but YouTube is experimenting with offering them as a perk.

 & Matthew Humphries Former Senior Editor

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One of YouTube's main rivals is Twitch, and it looks as though YouTube is thinking about stealing one of Twitch's better ideas for its Premium subscribers.

As 9to5Google reports, some YouTube Premium subscribers are being offered a free channel membership every month. Premium users pay $11.99 per month in return for no ads, video downloads, and background play for video and music.

Channel memberships cost $4.99 or more per month and act as a way to support YouTube Creators who receive 70 percent of that membership payment. Effectively, YouTube is gifting Premium subscribers a $4.99 channel subscription every month, which is very similar to a feature Twitch has allowing Amazon Prime subscribers to sign up for a free Twitch channel subscription.

For now, the YouTube offer has only been spotted by a few Premium subscribers in Australia, Canada, Germany, Norway, and Sweden, so it's unclear if this is just an experiment or a slow roll out of the feature to all Premium accounts. It's certainly a generous perk, and one that YouTube Creators would benefit from greatly if they continue to receive the 70 percent cut per subscriber.

YouTube has yet to officially comment on the offer and it seems some users being offered it are discovering it doesn't actually work. Hopefully we get some clarity on this potential perk soon.

About Our Expert

Matthew Humphries

Matthew Humphries

Former Senior Editor

My Experience

I started working at PCMag in November 2016, covering all areas of technology and video game news. Before that I spent nearly 15 years working at Geek.com as a writer and editor. I also spent the first six years after leaving university as a professional game designer working with Disney, Games Workshop, 20th Century Fox, and Vivendi.

I hold two degrees: a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and a Master's degree in Games Development. My first book, Make Your Own Pixel Art, is available from all good book shops.

My Areas of Expertise

  • PC components and system building
  • Raspberry Pi
  • Software development
  • Storage technology
  • Video games and gaming hardware

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