Rutube to pay Shorts creators for ad views after 1.5 billion ruble payout in 2025

September 2, 2026 · adindex.ru

More than 40,000 authors currently post to Rutube's Shorts section, and the platform plans to start paying them for advertising placed in their videos starting in the second half of 2026, according to Egor Velikoglo, Rutube's director of author content, speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum. Payouts will scale with each video's reach, matching the system already used for horizontal content, which earned creators a combined 1.5 billion rubles in 2025. Rutube also intends to sign partnerships with major short-form creators and add significantly to its vertical video catalog. Independent creator content, UGC, made up almost 50% of total watch time on the platform in the first half of 2026, with viewers watching more than 35% of an average video's runtime.

Buying options on Rutube already stretch beyond the video feed: since July, the company has run its own Smart TV network, selling placements on TV home screens and inside partner apps alongside standard in-video ads. Extending paid promotion to Shorts adds a fast-growing, high-engagement format to that mix, useful for campaigns aimed at younger, mobile-first audiences who now account for close to half of all viewing time on the platform. Budgets planned around Rutube inventory will need to track reach and view depth across horizontal video, Shorts and Smart TV screens as separate line items, since each format carries its own payout logic and audience behavior.