X (Twitter) as a Channel for Brand and Influencer Marketing in 2026

The short answer

X (formerly Twitter) fundamentally changed its creator monetization in 2026: the organic payout program Creator Revenue Sharing stopped accepting new enrollment on 7 August 2026 and pays out for the last time on 7 September 2026. From 8 September 2026 it's replaced by Original Content Rewards, which pays for qualified impressions of original content from Premium subscribers — with an impression threshold cut to a tenth of the old one (500,000 vs. the previous 5 million over 90 days), but a tightened requirement that the content is genuinely new, not reposts. Brand collaborations still run as direct deals between a brand and a creator, now alongside a new, optional paid-partnership labelling tool from March 2026.

What is X, structurally, in 2026?

Twitter was rebranded X in July 2023, after Elon Musk acquired the platform in October 2022. Ownership changed again on 28 March 2025, when Musk's AI company xAI acquired X in an all-stock deal that — per Musk's own announcement, cited by CNBC (28 March 2025) — valued X at $33 billion and the combined company at $113 billion under a new holding company, xAI Holdings Corp. X is therefore now owned by the same group as the Grok chatbot — relevant background, since several of the changes covered in this article come from a platform increasingly built alongside an AI product.

X runs a tiered subscription — Premium, Premium+ and Premium Business — which is, in practice, the entry ticket to nearly every creator tool covered here. X no longer publishes official user figures, so independent estimates have to be treated with caution: different analytics firms' 2026 numbers typically land somewhere between roughly 540 and 610 million global monthly active users — a spread that's a reminder none of these figures come from X itself and should be used only as a rough guide.

The end of Creator Revenue Sharing: what changed, and when

The previous program — X's organic ad-revenue-sharing scheme, commonly called Creator Revenue Sharing or Ads Revenue Sharing — required an active Premium or Verified Organization subscription, at least 500 verified followers, and 5 million organic impressions within the trailing 3 months, where only impressions from verified/Premium accounts on the so-called "Verified Home Timeline" (the For You and Following feeds) counted. The requirements loosened over time: the follower bar dropped from 5,000 to 500 in May 2024, which Elon Musk himself framed as an effort to "reward more voices" on the platform, and the impression requirement started at 15 million before being cut to 5 million. Payout ran through Stripe, with a $10 minimum withdrawal (down from an earlier $50).

On 7 August 2026, X stopped accepting new enrollment into the program. Existing participants can keep earning through 7 September 2026, after which the scheme ends entirely.

Original Content Rewards: how the new program works

From 8 September 2026, creators can apply for the new program, Original Content Rewards. The requirements, as reported consistently across several independent outlets (X's own help page returned a blocked response to automated fetch at write time), are:

• At least 18 years old and based in one of roughly 116 countries where the program is available — Denmark is among the confirmed countries.
• An active Premium, Premium+ or Premium Business subscription.
• At least 500 verified followers.
• At least 500,000 Home Timeline impressions from verified users within the trailing 90 days — impressions on replies don't count.
• An account in good standing, with no history of repeated Monetization Guidelines or Terms of Service violations, and ongoing posting of original content.

A "qualified impression" is a unique impression from a Premium subscriber on the Home Timeline, where at least 50% of the post is visible on screen. Replies, paid impressions and artificially generated views don't count. X defines original content as a creator's own reporting and analysis, their own photos and videos, or memes and graphics they designed themselves — commentary on someone else's content can also qualify if the creator adds "meaningful original value" on top. Pure reposts, content aggregated without any original contribution, explicit material, misleading posts and content that violates the platform's policies don't qualify.

X's own stated rationale, per an X representative quoted by TechCrunch (8 August 2026), is that the old scheme "had reached a point where its incentives were misaligned," and that "creators should be focused on bringing net new content to the platform instead of maximizing payouts."

Comparison: old vs. new program

	Creator Revenue Sharing (retired)	Original Content Rewards (from 8 Sept 2026)
Impression requirement	5 million organic impressions / 90 days	500,000 qualified impressions / 90 days
Follower requirement	At least 500 verified followers	At least 500 verified followers
Which impressions count	Impressions from verified/Premium accounts on the Verified Home Timeline	Unique impressions from Premium subscribers, ≥50% of the post visible; replies excluded
Content requirement	No specific originality requirement	Must be original content — reposts and pure aggregation don't qualify
Country availability	Broadly available to Premium subscribers	Roughly 116 countries, including Denmark
Payout	Via Stripe, $10 minimum	Not fully documented at write time

Worked calculation: what the thresholds actually mean

The figures below aren't hypothetical — they're simple division of the published thresholds, illustrating the gap between the two programs. The old scheme's requirement of 5,000,000 impressions over 90 days works out to 5,000,000 ÷ 90 ≈ 55,556 impressions a day on average. The new scheme's requirement of 500,000 qualified impressions over the same period works out to 500,000 ÷ 90 ≈ 5,556 impressions a day — a tenth of the old bar. In other words, the raw volume barrier has dropped sharply, but the impressions now have to come from genuinely original content and specifically from Premium subscribers, which in practice makes the requirement harder to clear for an account that built its reach on reposts and quote-tweets.

The new paid-partnership labelling tool

Alongside the changes to the organic payout program, X introduced its first built-in labelling tool for paid collaborations in 2026. The tool was previewed in late February 2026 and rolled out in early March 2026, per Social Media Today's coverage (2 March 2026). A creator can activate the label via a flag icon inside the post composer, or add it retroactively via the "Add content disclosure" option on an already-published post. The label appears as a small indicator below the post's preview image in-stream. Per Social Media Today, the tool is optional for creators, not a requirement — and X's own Head of Product, Nikita Bier, said the main target is pay-per-post promotions "that have run rampant recently," particularly crypto and so-called InfoFi projects.

It's worth keeping two things separate: the labelling tool is about disclosing a paid deal between a brand and a creator — it has nothing to do with whether that creator is enrolled in Original Content Rewards. Regardless of whether X provides a labelling tool itself, Danish and EU disclosure rules still apply in full, and don't depend on which platform the post is on. See influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU for the full rundown.

How brand collaborations on X actually work

Unlike Instagram and TikTok, X has no official marketplace where a brand can search for and book creators directly through the platform. A brand collaboration on X is therefore typically an ordinary, direct deal between the brand and the creator — negotiated outside the platform, with the new labelling tool as the only X-specific addition. That's an important distinction to hold onto: X Ads, the platform's paid advertising product, is a different thing entirely — a brand paying X for placement of its own content, not a payment to a creator. The two can be combined (for example, boosting a creator's sponsored post as an ad), but they solve different problems.

Decision framework

IF the goal is for a creator to earn money directly from X for organic content that performs well → from September 2026 that requires enrollment in Original Content Rewards, and only genuinely original content qualifies — reposts and quote-tweets don't.

IF the brand wants to enter a direct, paid deal with a creator on X → it works like any other direct-deal collaboration, and from March 2026 the creator can label the post with X's own "paid partnership" tool as a supplement to ordinary text-based disclosure.

IF a creator was already enrolled in Creator Revenue Sharing → their earnings stop after 7 September 2026, and a fresh application to Original Content Rewards must be filed separately from 8 September — it isn't an automatic carry-over.

IF the brand instead wants paid, scalable reach independent of creator collaborations → that's X Ads' job, not Original Content Rewards, which is purely a payout to the creator for organic content.

Worked example

The figures below are hypothetical and illustrate only how a brand might think about pricing a sponsored X post deal — they are not a documented market price and not a real Make Influence customer case.

A brand pays a creator DKK 5,000 for one sponsored X post. If the post hypothetically generates 150,000 qualified impressions (a hypothetical, undocumented figure used only to illustrate the calculation), that works out to 5,000 ÷ 150 = DKK 33.3 per 1,000 impressions — a CPM-equivalent figure the brand can compare against what it pays for similar reach via X Ads or another channel.

Common mistakes

• Confusing Original Content Rewards with payment for sponsored posts. They're two separate things — Original Content Rewards pays for organic, original content, not for brand collaborations.
• Assuming Creator Revenue Sharing enrollment carries over automatically. It doesn't — a fresh application is required from 8 September 2026.
• Assuming reposts and quote-tweets still count. Under Original Content Rewards, purely aggregated content doesn't qualify — only genuinely original contribution does.
• Skipping disclosure because X now has its own tool. The tool is optional on X's side — Danish and EU labelling rules apply regardless.
• Expecting an official creator marketplace like Instagram or TikTok. It doesn't exist on X — collaborations are negotiated directly between brand and creator.

Make Influence's operational perspective

In our experience, X's own creator payout programs are rarely what a Danish brand asks for as part of a collaboration — they're about what the platform itself pays the creator, not the brand deal we typically facilitate. What is relevant for a brand is that X, for the first time in 2026, has a built-in labelling tool for paid partnerships, which makes it easier to document correct disclosure on the platform. Our recommendation is to treat any X deal like any other direct creator collaboration — negotiated and priced outside the platform — and not let a creator's Original Content Rewards status influence what the brand itself pays for the content.

FAQ

Does X still pay creators for popular posts?

Yes, but under a new program. Creator Revenue Sharing stopped accepting new enrollment on 7 August 2026 and pays out for the last time on 7 September 2026. From 8 September 2026, creators can instead apply for Original Content Rewards.

Is Original Content Rewards available in Denmark?

Yes. Denmark is among the roughly 116 countries where the program is confirmed available, per available sources.

Does X have a labelling tool for paid partnerships?

Yes, since March 2026 — an optional tool letting a creator mark a post as a paid partnership via a flag icon, or retroactively via the post's menu.

Do Danish disclosure rules apply on X?

Yes. The rules are medium-agnostic and apply regardless of whether the platform itself provides a labelling tool.

Does X have an official creator marketplace like Instagram or TikTok?

No. Brand collaborations on X are negotiated directly between brand and creator, with no built-in booking function.

What about Threads, Bluesky or Reddit?

Each of the four platforms has its own model: Threads has ads but no creator payout; Bluesky has neither ads nor creator payout; Reddit has ads and its own disclosure tag; X is the only one of the four with a genuine organic creator-payout program. See Threads as an influencer marketing channel, Bluesky as an emerging channel for brand and influencer marketing and Reddit as an emerging channel for brand and influencer marketing.

What about Facebook's Creator Fast Track and Content Monetization?

Facebook's temporary Creator Fast Track pays up to $3,000/month to creators moving over from Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, but that guaranteed-pay tier is currently US/Canada-only — unlike X's Original Content Rewards, which is confirmed available in Denmark. Facebook's ongoing Content Monetization program is likely available in Denmark too, per independent sources, though not Meta-confirmed. See Facebook's Creator Fast Track and Content Monetization explained.