YouTube’s memberships gifting feature launches Wednesday, but in beta to start

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Beginning Wednesday, gifted memberships will be available for select channels. You can use your membership to show financial support for creators and get access to perks like custom emoji. If you've ever wanted to buy gift memberships to other fans of a YouTube channel, you haven't been able to.

The memberships will be available to a small group of creators and will be expanded over the next several months, according to a page about the feature. You need to be eligible to enable memberships in the first place to try the feature, but you can fill out the form if you want to. Buying gift memberships on mobile is something YouTube plans to have in place for the feature's full launch.

The changes made to its version of raids could be a way to prevent harassment, as viewers will have to opt in to receive gifted memberships on a channel. You will have to click a link to allow gifts after gifted memberships appear in the chat. You can see what the experience looks like by looking at the image.

Image: YouTube

With Memberships Gifting, your channel members can buy a set number of channel memberships in a single purchase, that YouTube will give out to other viewers in your live stream. As the creator, you receive your usual revenue share from each transaction, even though viewers who receive gift memberships do not pay any charges.

Amazon's popular streaming service has introduced major features to better compete with them. It has also been competing on features, and has attracted some huge names, including DrLupo, TimTheTatman, Ludwig, and, in a deal announced last week, Sykkuno.