- YouTube expands Gift Goals to all eligible U.S. creators, gamifying livestream donations to increase revenue and participation.
- The rollout intensifies competition with TikTok, embedding gifting as a cultural norm within YouTube’s live ecosystem.
- Updates also include improved auto-dubbing, expanded Effects Maker, and new donation stickers, enhancing both monetization and community engagement.
- Gift Goals signal YouTube’s strategy to reframe livestreaming from passive viewing into active, gamified social commerce.
Gamified targets aim to boost livestream earnings, strengthen community participation, and deepen YouTube’s competitive edge in live monetization.
YouTube is taking livestream monetization to the next level. With Gift Goals now available to all eligible U.S. creators, the platform is betting that gamified donations can transform livestreams into interactive, revenue-driving events. This expansion comes as part of YouTube’s broader effort to strengthen its live video ecosystem, directly challenging TikTok’s dominance in the culture of live gifting.
By pairing Gift Goals with its virtual currency system and engagement leaderboards, YouTube isn’t just adding another monetization tool—it’s working to make gifting an expected behavior on the platform.
As YouTube explained:
“Gift goals can help you build your community by encouraging your viewers to work towards a common mission. Once you reach your goal, you can celebrate with your community in a variety of creative ways.”
The feature is designed to gamify support, building momentum as viewers work together to unlock celebratory milestones, ultimately driving higher engagement and revenue.
Competitive Pressure From TikTok
The expansion of Gift Goals highlights YouTube’s urgency to compete with TikTok, where LIVE gifting has become a cultural cornerstone of live monetization. On TikTok LIVE, fans are accustomed to contributing toward visible milestones, and the collective momentum of these donation mechanics fuels both community energy and creator income.
This model has already proven itself not only as an engagement driver but also as a revenue engine that sustains the platform’s dominance in live social commerce.
YouTube is clearly borrowing from this playbook. By embedding Gift Goals alongside its Jewels donation system and live engagement leaderboards, it is working to normalize gifting as an expected behavior within its ecosystem. Importantly, this goes beyond simple feature parity.
YouTube is attempting to reframe livestreaming from a passive viewing activity into an active, gamified experience where audiences feel directly responsible for creator success.
The move also acknowledges the strategic stakes. If TikTok continues to own the cultural imagination of live gifting, YouTube risks losing both creators and fans to rival platforms. Gift Goals, then, is not just another monetization tool—it is part of YouTube’s larger bid to position itself as a viable alternative for creators seeking sustainable income streams in live video.
Business Model and Incentives
As with other YouTube donation mechanics, gifts are bought as Jewels, converted into Rubies, and redeemed by creators. This keeps the platform aligned with familiar currency-based ecosystems across social media.
To accelerate creator adoption, YouTube initially offered select streamers a 50% bonus on gift earnings for three months. While bonuses may evolve, the rollout signals that gifts are now the platform’s preferred monetization mechanic, superseding Super Stickers in many contexts.
Beyond Gift Goals: YouTube’s Broader Updates
The expansion comes as part of a wider package of creator-focused updates:
- Auto-dubbing improvements: More expressive speech, better intonation, and improved lip-sync for multilingual videos.
- Effects Maker expansion: Generative AI transformation and drawing tools now available to more creators, with templates to simplify creative projects.
- Moderation refinements: Channel settings on desktop have been reorganized under “Community Moderation,” with clearer subsections for content controls and user management.
- New seasonal donation stickers: Including fall-themed bear, fox, and rabbit icons, designed to give fans fresh ways to support creators.
Each of these changes reinforces YouTube’s effort to sharpen both monetization and community tools, especially for Shorts and vertical livestreams.
Check out the YouTube Live Monetization: How Dual-Format Streams and AI Highlights Redefine RPM (2025)
Why It Matters
Gift Goals are YouTube’s strategic signal that live monetization is central to its future. By gamifying contributions, rewarding collective fan energy, and pairing it with broader creative updates, YouTube is transforming livestreams from simple broadcasts into commerce-enabled communities.
For creators, this expansion opens a pathway to sustainable live income streams, backed by tools that keep audiences engaged and invested. For YouTube, it closes the gap with TikTok while positioning the platform as a serious contender in the social commerce arms race.
The message is clear: Livestreams are no longer about passive viewing. They are about participation, gamification, and direct financial impact—and the platforms that master this formula will define the next era of creator monetization.
