The mechanism a platform uses to count an impression determines who actually gets paid. X is replacing its long-revised, contentious revenue-sharing program with a new structure called Original Content Rewards, set to launch September 8th. The change redraws the eligibility floor and narrows the definition of a countable view to a specific slice of Premium subscriber traffic.
The new eligibility wall
Two thresholds must be cleared simultaneously. A creator needs at least 500 verified followers and at least 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users in the last 90 days. Neither metric alone qualifies anyone. Tying the impression count to verified-user traffic, rather than raw view totals, tightens the qualifying pool beyond what either condition would catch on its own.
The 90-day rolling window matters in practice. Impression tallies accumulate and expire continuously, so a creator with a strong run several months back but quieter recent output will not clear the bar on historical performance alone.
What counts as a qualified impression
X defines a "qualified impression" as a unique view from a Premium subscriber on the Home Timeline feed, where at least 50% of the post is visible on screen. Only "original content" earns against that count.
The 50% visibility floor is the operative constraint here. A post that partially loads below the fold does not register. The Premium subscriber gate narrows the monetizable audience further: what matters for payout is not a creator's total follower count but the paying, verified subset that actually views the post in-feed. For creators with large but non-Premium audiences, that filter compresses the effective impression number considerably.
A program defined by revision
The outgoing revenue-sharing program was described as controversial and underwent numerous revisions during Elon Musk's tenure at X. The source does not specify what payout formula it used, but the repeated changes became its most-noted feature.
X has not published a rate card for Original Content Rewards as of publication. The September 8th launch sets a hard cutover: creators who fall short of the 500-verified-follower or 500,000-impression mark are ineligible from day one.