Let’s start with a fun fact about YouTube….
You would have to acquire immortality for at least 57,000 years to watch all the content out there on this popular search engine, and provided no one uploads a single video during that period. (which btw is not happening anytime soon as more than 500 hours of content gets uploaded every minute!)
With such an astronomical amount of content to watch, it is no surprise that YouTube is deeply ingrained with our digital lives. Right from “how-to” to funny babies, from kitchen hacks to science experiments, from celebrity vlogs to makeup tutorials, you can’t get enough of the amazingly creative content on this platform.
But do these people, aka YouTubers, create and upload their content on YouTube for free?
The answer is yes and no.
Yes, because they might have started out that way before being famous.
And no, because some of YouTube’s most-watched channels act as money-vending machines for the content creators creating videos for those channels.
But exactly how much money do YouTubers make yearly? We have got it covered in this post. So stick around.
Before we get into the earning potential of YouTubers, let’s get you all familiar with the different routes YouTubers take to monetize their content on YouTube and learn the tricks for growing your youtube channel.
How Do Youtubers Make Money?
Many people feel that making money on YouTube is easy because of this strangely common misconception – YouTube pays its members for the number of likes on their videos.
While getting paid for the total number of likes would have been nice, it’s certainly not the case. YouTubers are not paid for the likes on their videos.
Fortunately, there are other ways to earn on YouTube.
The journey of YouTubers for monetizing their videos starts with applying and getting accepted for YouTube Partner Program.
1. YouTube Partner Program
YouTube caters to and takes care of content creators and their fan base. A YouTube channel with more than 10,000 subscribers and 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last year is considered to be eligible for the following features. (Each feature has its own minimum eligibility criteria.)
- Advertising Revenue: Google AdSense revenue from the display, overlay, and video ads on YouTube channels. The earnings can be around $3 and $5 per thousand video views on average.
- Channel Memberships: Monthly recurring payment by channel subscribers for special perks and privileges offered by the YouTuber.
- Super Chats & Super Stickers: Payments made by subscribers to have their messages displayed in chat streams.
- Merch Shelf: Revenue by linking to crowdfunding and merchandise distribution sites when subscribers purchase merchandise displayed on watch pages of the channel.
- YouTube Premium Revenue: A chunk of a YouTube Premium subscriber’s subscription fee when they view the content on the channel.
2. YouTube Affiliate Marketing
You know this fella if you’ve seen videos of YouTubers reviewing, recommending, even unboxing a product! Content creators add affiliate links in their video descriptions and earn commissions based on the click-through rate (when viewers click the link) and conversion rate (when viewers make a purchase).
Unlike the above-mentioned built-in ways of monetization by YouTube, affiliate links offer content creators direct control over profits they make through their content.
3. Sponsorships
This is something every content creator dreams of, but only the uber-popular ones with a strong following can have in reality. Sponsorships are the sign that the content creator has made it.
Considering the reach of the videos of such creators, brands are ready to take a risk investing in them. Many brands often opt for famous YouTubers to promote brands and boost their sales.
Now the question remains how much do YouTubers make through this variety of ways?
How Much Money Do Youtubers Make?
YouTube content creators are far from making money in the beginning when they upload their first video. For a simple reason that the main way YouTubers monetize their videos is by running ads at the start of their videos. The amount they get paid in turn depends on how many viewers view the ad, and it is called the Cost per 1000 views or CPM. Some ads are Cost per Click (CPC), wherein the channel earns when the viewers click on the ad.
So obviously, someone who is just getting started on the platform neither has much engagement from subscribers nor a lot of views on their channel. Additionally, for getting paid for CPM ads, a viewer needs to watch the ad at least for 30 seconds meaning the viewer skipping past the ad is wiping out any chance of payment to the channel.
But if viewers click or view the ads long enough to earn income, then?
Here’s an estimate of YouTubers’ income per view and per 1000 views.
How Much YouTubers Get Paid Per View And Per 1000 Views
Let me first elaborate a little on how advert revenues are paid.
It goes like this-
Google AdSense payout 68% of the AdSense revenue with the publishing channel or the YouTuber.
Where does this revenue come from?
Simple. Advertisers. They pay Google to show their product ads on YouTube. When Google displays those ads on YouTube videos, YouTubers get paid a certain amount per 1000 ad views (or per click) through Google AdSense.
Now, the rate at which the advertisers pay vary but usually ranges between $0.10 and $0.30 per ad view, with an average of about $0.18 per view.
It means the average a YouTube channel earns is around $18 for every 1000 ad views and $3 to $5 per 1000 video views.
And if the creators are hustling enough to grab other monetization opportunities along with the Ads revenue, then this figure can be much higher, even be as high as $25 for 1000 views.
One fact must be emphasized here.
While most YouTubers find it incredibly daunting to earn their first dollar on YouTube, once a decent audience and subscribers are built, their earnings are steadily increased. Because more subscribers mean more views on ads which again means more sponsorships and merchandise deals. An upward spiral!
How Do The Earnings Look Like On 1 Million Views?
Let’s have an example.
Imagine Mr YouTuber has uploaded a video on “How to make a baby stop crying?”(because parenting is tough as hell!).
Suppose the video has 3000 views with video ads displayed 1000 times. Out of these 100 times, the ads were not skipped and viewed for more than 30 secs.
If the advertiser pays $0.15 per video view, then Mr YouTuber will make:
100 (number of ad views)x $0.15 (rates per view) x $0.68 (remember AdSense share?) = $10.20.
Thus, $1000 to $3000 is what Mr YouTuber can expect to earn after getting 1 million views on that video.
Nonetheless, it takes a lot of perseverance, consistent efforts, and creativity to reach up to 1 million views.
Not that it is impossible.
In fact, there are some super successful YouTubers who quickly hit the one million views mark for almost every video they upload. With the lucrative CPM of up to $10, these stars can make $10 K per video. As the channel grows, chances of a multi-channel network open the doors to yet more millions of dollars per year. It’s no surprise that once the YouTubers get to this point, they become influencers and can afford to do this for a living!
Case in point example: Lily Singh.
Who would have thought that creating over-the-top Indian parent characters would help someone earn millions of dollars every year?
She is one of the wealthiest YouTubers and has built a multi-million dollar net worth by educating yet hilariously entertaining content on YouTube.
Since October 2010, when she launched her first YouTube video, her channel has garnered over 14.8 million subscribers with a total of 3.5 billion views. Her daily revenue from the YouTube platform is estimated to be near $2,600! Not to mention that she has generated even bigger monetization opportunities from collaboration with big brands, night talk shows, authorship, mentorship, and countless other deals.
She is a perfect example of how it’s possible to build a generous revenue stream from YouTube and various other cascading incomes as a result of success there over a period of time.
So, let’s see what income these alternative revenue streams generate.
How Much Money Do Youtubers Make From affiliate marketing?
Hard to tell as it varies by company and product. If the channel’s niche is positioned into selling products, then there are chances that viewers visit the channel intending to buy the product. Some product review channels earn more from affiliate links than they do from adverts.
How Much Money Do Youtubers Make From Sponsorship?
YouTubers can charge between $10,000 per 100,000 views if their channel looks like a lucrative option for effective influence marketing.
Want a super easy tool to calculate the estimated income from a YouTube channel? Check out this YouTube Money Calculator for any YouTube channel’s daily, weekly, and yearly earnings potential.
Wrapping up
It is pretty challenging to get an accurate picture of how much money YouTubers make from merely CPM estimates because many factors determine this figure, including the content quality, target audience, the frequency of upload, the location of video views, and so on.
And there is no reason to think that these are ironclad numbers and remain the same for every YouTuber. In fact, the amount of money a YouTuber makes hinges very much on the business plan they’ve built around their channel.