All Guides

YouTube's own figures put fan funding on a better split than watch page ads. Here's what memberships, Super Thanks, Super Chat and Super Stickers actually pay, and what that means for a small channel.

Google has answered this directly, and the answer is not the one most articles report. Here's its exact wording on AI content, the line that separates useful automation from spam, and what it means for bylines.

Shorts don't pay per view — revenue is pooled, split with music rightsholders, then shared at a fixed 45%. Here's each step, and why adding a second track costs the creator pool two thirds.

The two routes to the YouTube Partner Program threshold, the monetization policies that disqualify channels after they qualify, and what the reused-content rules mean for AI-assisted video.

A realistic, policy-compliant blueprint for building a faceless YouTube channel using AI-assisted scripting, voiceover, and editing — without running afoul of YouTube's monetization rules.

Build small, genuinely useful web tools with AI coding assistance, deploy them for free, and turn steady organic traffic into passive AdSense income.

Every comparison quotes headline platform fees and ignores payment processing. Adding both changes the ranking — and Substack's widely repeated '90%' is really 86% at $100 and 83% at $10.

Becoming a Twitch Affiliate takes 25 followers and an average of 3 viewers. Partner needs 75 average viewers across six streams a month. The distance between those two numbers is the whole story.

Publishers get 80% — but also about 68%. Both figures are Google's own, they measure different things, and confusing them is why RPM estimates never match reality.

Ezoic now wants 250,000 monthly active users and Mediavine measures revenue rather than sessions. The 10,000-pageview and 50,000-session figures still being quoted are out of date.

Substack's 10% is the headline, but Stripe takes three more bites. Here's the real arithmetic on a $10 subscription, and why annual plans quietly pay you more than monthly ones.

Blank spaces where ads should be usually mean one of two very different things. Here's how to check which, the code faults Google actually lists, and the CSS that collapses unfilled units.

LCP, INP and CLS explained with Google's exact thresholds — plus why display ads attack all three, and the fixes that keep revenue without wrecking the scores.

Discover can send more traffic than Search, but you can't rank for it — there's no query. Here's what Google says decides eligibility, and the one meta tag most sites are missing.

Google's ad placement policies in plain English — the layouts that trigger invalid-click penalties, the labels you're allowed to use, and how to lay out a page so it earns without risking your account.

Google limits ad serving for two specific reasons. Here's how to tell which one applies to you, how long the limit typically lasts, and why most of the advice you'll find online makes it worse.

AdSense's vaguest rejection message, decoded against Google's published content guidelines — the self-assessment questions reviewers effectively apply, and what to change before you reapply.

The $10 and $100 thresholds explained, what triggers the PIN letter, the deadlines that stop your ads if you miss them, and exactly when money lands each month.

The three technical requirements Google actually states for indexing, how to submit a sitemap correctly, and why 'not indexed' is usually a crawl problem rather than a quality one.

Google publishes no minimum article count — every number you've read was invented. Here's what the eligibility requirements actually say, and the questions that genuinely decide approval.

A field-tested, policy-accurate walkthrough of exactly what Google looks for before approving a site for AdSense — and the specific fixes that turn a rejection into an approval.

Nobody withholds tax from a client payment, so the IRS expects you to pay through the year. Here's the threshold that triggers it, the safe harbour that prevents penalties, and why a refund won't save you from one.

A contract calling you an independent contractor doesn't settle it. The IRS weighs behavioural control, financial control and the type of relationship — and there is no single deciding factor.

Freelance income carries a tax employees never see. Here's the rate, the $400 threshold that triggers it, the deduction that softens it, and why your first freelance tax bill is usually a shock.

PayPal's headline rate is 3.49% + $0.49, but international freelancers pay two more charges on top. Here's the real arithmetic on a cross-border invoice, with every rate from PayPal's own fee page.

The old 20/10/5 sliding scale is gone. Upwork now sets a fee of 0% to 15% per contract, fixed before you accept, and most guides online still describe a model that no longer exists.

A practical, credential-agnostic system for winning your first high-value remote contracts on Upwork and getting shortlisted on Remote.ok — from profile setup to rate negotiation.

KDP Select pays from a shared monthly fund divided by everyone's pages read, so your per-page rate is set by other authors' readers. Here's the model, the 3,000-page cap, and what exclusivity costs.

Printful charges no commission — you pay the fulfilment cost and keep the difference. That sounds better than a percentage until you work out what's left after the marketplace takes its cut too.

Stripe charges 2.9% + $0.30 where Gumroad takes 10% + $0.50 — but the gap buys you tax compliance, file delivery and dispute handling you'd otherwise do yourself.

eBay's final value fee is not one number. It runs from 6.7% to 15.3% depending on what you sell, plus a per-order fee and a 1.65% international charge most sellers never budget for.

Amazon's affiliate rates run from 10% down to 0% depending entirely on category — and the products people assume are lucrative are often the worst paying. Here's the full rate card.

The famous 30% cut is now the exception rather than the rule. Both stores drop to 15% for smaller developers, and Google Play restructured its fees entirely on 30 June 2026.

Gumroad charges triple when a customer finds you through its marketplace instead of your own link — and since 2025 it handles worldwide sales tax as Merchant of Record, which most comparisons ignore.

Udemy pays instructors two completely different rates depending on who brought the student — and a third factor, the 30% mobile app store fee, quietly cuts both before they apply.

KDP's 70% royalty band moved from $9.99 to $12.99 in July 2026, the first change since 2007. Here's how both royalty options actually calculate, including the delivery cost most articles ignore.

Paperbacks pay 50% or 60% depending on a single cent of list price, then subtract printing costs. Here's the formula, the breakpoint, and why page count decides whether a book is viable.

Shopify's plan prices are only part of the bill. Here's what each tier costs monthly and annually, and the extra transaction fee you pay on every order if you don't use Shopify Payments.

A step-by-step, fee-accurate guide to building a digital download shop on Etsy — from picking a product people actually search for to your first hundred sales.

Four day trades in five business days makes you a pattern day trader, which triggers a $25,000 minimum you must maintain at all times. FINRA replaced these rules on 4 June 2026.

The regulator that oversees US markets has published its own assessment of day trading outcomes. It is considerably blunter than anything you'll hear from a trading course.