YouTube requires some benchmarks before paying out for views. These benchmarks are 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in 365 days. A misconception is that if a channel doesn’t reach 1,000 subscribers in the first year, it is not eligible for monetization. This misconception is false. YouTube determines eligibility based on the past 365 days. Therefore, a channel taking more than a calendar year to reach 1,000 subscribers is eligible for monetization the same as any other, regardless of when this goal occurs.