For the most part, Vimeo provides an ad-free video viewing experience. One of their only sources of revenue comes in the form of selling pro services to both users and creators (Vimeo Plus and Vimeo PRO). In order to help video creators receive quick and easy funding for their content, Vimeo has just announced a new Creator Services platform.
“Today, we’re taking one of the most important steps in our evolution as a service, a company, and a community. We’re proud to introduce Vimeo Creator Services, our new suite of simple, powerful tools to help creators make more money for doing what they do best: entertaining us, engaging us, baffling and outright dazzling us with amazing work,” said Vimeo’s Blake Whitman.
The first product on the Creator Services platform is Tip Jar, which allows viewers to make contributions to video makers to the tune of $1-500. If a video maker has activated Tip Jar for their videos, users will see a “Tip the video” button right below the video player.
And Tip Jar is only the beginning of the monetization options coming to Vimeo. Coming next year is a new Pay-to-view service which will allow video makers to charge viewers to watch their content.
“In the coming months, we are incredibly excited to introduce our first pay-to-view service, giving video creators of all types flexible tools to charge for access to your videos, with no coding required. We’re not saying too much at the moment, but we can promise you’re going to like it,” says Vimeo.
Of course, Tip Jar isn’t designed to only help video creators. Vimeo will take a 15% cut on all tips made on the site.