Millions of views, and almost nothing in the account

June 2026. In “Mélo Décalé”, the rapper Tiakola calls on the platforms to finally monetise the music videos of French-speaking African artists. The finding behind it comes down to two figures. According to Africa Music & Charts, quoted by RTBF, 48% of the most-streamed certified artists in French-speaking Africa come from the DRC, and 28% from Côte d’Ivoire. These are two countries where YouTube does not pay its creators.

Millions of views, then. And almost nothing in the account. This is not a problem of talent, or of audience. It is a matter of geography, payments and rules. Let’s take stock.

Platform by platform, where things stand

YouTube pays its creators in thirteen African countries, according to its official page: Algeria, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, Uganda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Tunisia and Zimbabwe. Senegal, eligible since 2013, is the only French-speaking country in sub-Saharan Africa on the list. Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, the DRC and Benin are not. And to be paid, you have to live in an eligible country.

TikTok does not pay for views in any African country. Its creator payment programme remains limited to a handful of markets, from the United States to Japan. In Africa, TikTok highlights gifts received during live streams and under videos, paid subscriptions, and promotional videos commissioned by musicians. In July 2026, South Africa’s Minister of Communications spoke of economic justice and called for a coordinated response from African countries. TikTok replies that it is exploring options.

Facebook is the platform where things are moving most. South Africa and Egypt were already benefiting when Meta opened monetisation to Nigeria and Ghana in June 2024, then to Kenya and Tanzania in August of the same year. On 5 October 2026, Côte d’Ivoire’s Minister of Digital Transition announced the “final phase” of the opening for Côte d’Ivoire, after months of tests requested by the state. It would be a first in French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa, but no date has been given yet. In Cameroon, creators have no direct monetisation programme.

X replaced its ad revenue sharing on 8 September 2026 with a new programme, reserved for creators who pay for the Premium subscription themselves. Payments go through Stripe and cover only seven African countries, including Senegal. Not Cameroon.

In music, the issue is not access but value. In 2025, Spotify paid 43.8 million dollars to Nigerian artists, up more than 140% in two years. Divided by the number of streams, that comes to a little under 2 naira per stream, according to TechCabal’s calculation.

Even where it is open, an African view is worth little

A creator who gets paid is not necessarily a rich creator. The order of magnitude that circulates in reports on the creator economy: less than one dollar per thousand YouTube views in Africa, against three to ten dollars in the United States and Europe. It is not an official rate card, but every account points the same way.

Why such a gap? The specialists interviewed by Techpoint Africa in August 2026 point to economic reasons more than discrimination: fewer advertisers, and ones less willing to pay to reach audiences with lower purchasing power, advertising rates pegged to those of television, and music subscriptions sold for less. The result is the same: an African view earns a fraction of an American view.

Getting paid, the other wall

Having the right to be paid is not enough. You still have to be able to collect the money.

Stripe, which serves as the pipeline for several platforms, is open in only five African countries, through its subsidiary Paystack: Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa. PayPal is only partly available in French-speaking Africa, with restricted withdrawals. And where there is no tax treaty with the United States, as in Nigeria, YouTube withholds 30% of what American viewers bring in.

The tax arrives before the money

While the platforms hesitate, governments move ahead.

In Kenya, Meta has withheld a 5% tax on creators’ earnings since January 2026, and YouTube since September 2026. The Kenyan creators’ association does not reject the tax, but disputes the fact that it applies to gross income, without taking account of the cost of data, equipment and editing.

In Cameroon, the 2024 finance law made the income that individuals earn from digital platforms taxable, with 5% withheld at source. And the 2026 finance law taxes the large foreign platforms at 3% of their Cameroonian turnover. The state has therefore organised taxation of an economy whose rewards Cameroonian creators do not directly receive.

The workarounds, and their price

With no door, many go through the window. In Cameroon, pages are handed to a manager, a spouse or a partner based in Europe or America, who receives the money from the platform and passes it on. On TikTok, tutorials viewed millions of times explain how to set up an account so that it is not located in Africa, though the block comes back when it is time to be paid.

All these practices breach the platforms’ terms. We have found no documented sanction against an African creator for these specific reasons, but the risk is real: a suspended account means years of work lost, and an intermediary abroad means an income that depends on someone else’s good faith.

When the door is shut, you go through the window. But the window always belongs to someone else.

What creators say

“Monetisation in French-speaking Africa is difficult”, the Ivorian entrepreneur Paola Audrey Ndengue summed up in Forbes Afrique in May 2026. The figures prove her right, even where the platforms do pay.

According to the Africa Creator Economy Report 2.0, presented in Lagos in January 2026 and based on a survey in Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Egypt, six creators in ten earn less than 100 dollars a month. Above all, platform advertising accounts for only 5.8% of their income. Brand partnerships make up 28%, digital products and services 25%, physical products 14%. No French-speaking country was in the survey: here at home, the share from brands is probably higher still.

In Cameroon, an article by Camer.be published in January 2026 describes audiences that rarely turn into financial independence. Brand partnerships are the main source of income, but the market is saturated and local budgets are small. The most strategic creators open a shop, a salon or a cosmetics line, and use their audience to bring customers in.

Why this is a problem

Because the money exists. According to a projection by the firm 3Vision, YouTube is set to earn 583 million dollars in video advertising revenue in sub-Saharan Africa this year. And since 2020, YouTube has been able to run ads on videos from channels that are not partners, without sharing that revenue: where the programme is closed, an audience can be monetised without its creator being paid.

Because creating is becoming a job without a wage. Only 4.2% of the creators surveyed for the January 2026 report have received institutional investment. Without a regular income, there is no bank credit, so no equipment, no team, no growth.

And because exclusion is not a technical inevitability. Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya have been opened up. Côte d’Ivoire is being opened up now, because the state sat down at the table with Meta. Other countries can do the same.

What is going to change

Two movements are crossing. On one side, doors are opening, country by country, when governments negotiate: Côte d’Ivoire with Meta, South Africa facing TikTok, Liberia training its creators with Meta. On the other, the requirements are rising: on 1 February 2027, YouTube will double its entry thresholds for new applicants to ad revenue sharing, to 8,000 watch hours over a year or 20 million Shorts views over 90 days.

In the meantime, one reality stands out: on the continent, it is brands that pay creators.

What we think at mystiQ

We work with creators every week, and we train some of them. We see the paradox up close: talented people who get hundreds of thousands of views, and who cannot pay for their data bundle with what the platforms pay them.

We believe three things. The platforms must open their programmes to French-speaking Africa, and governments have shown that they can push them to do so. Creators must think of themselves as businesses, with products, customers and contracts, without waiting for a platform to pay them. And brands, which are now their main source of income, must treat them as partners, not as billboards.

So, one question to finish: is your brand ready to be, for creators, what the platforms still refuse to be?