Today’s self-made celebrities are the YouTubers who built their fan bases by posting helpful, funny, critical, and generally wonderful videos online.
Even if financial gain isn’t your first motivation for creating a YouTube channel, you’ll likely be pleasantly surprised by the abundance of potential revenue streams after you get started. Thankfully, there are a variety of novel approaches to monetizing your YouTube channel.
Like Instagram influencers and bloggers, you can increase your YouTube channel’s earnings by expanding your audience, but it’s more effective to generate income from a variety of sources, such as a side company.
How to Make Money on YouTube
1. Join the YouTube Partner Program
In all likelihood, advertising will be the first kind of monetization you test. To start making money on YouTube, either as a content provider or without making videos, you need to sign up for the YouTube Partner Program and enable monetization.
You must be a resident of a country or territory where the YouTube Partner Program is active and agree to adhere to all of YouTube’s monetization standards. Then, if you’ve reached 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months, you may seek to get monetized.
Putting your YouTube videos up for sale is as easy as following these steps:
- Sign in to the YouTube account you want to monetize.
- Click the icon for your account in the top right corner.
- Click YouTube Studio.
- In the left menu, select Other Features > Monetization.
- Read and agree to the YouTuber Partner Program terms and eligibility requirements.
- Create a new Google AdSense account or connect an existing one to your channel. (You need an AdSense account to get paid.)
- Set your monetization preferences.
When finished, return to the dashboard and select the Analytics link from the menu on the left. Select Revenue from the menu bar, then look for the chart labeled “Monthly Estimated Revenue” to get an estimate of how much money you can make off of YouTube per month.
What is YouTube Premium?
By joining YouTube Premium, subscribers may view videos from their favorite creators without interruption from YouTube commercials. Not much will change for producers, since they will still get compensated for both YouTube and YouTube Premium material viewed by non-members.
With YouTube Premium, creators earn money depending on how often their videos are viewed by subscribers. Think of the money you make from YouTube Premium members as an additional source to the money you make from commercials.
While becoming a YouTube Partner might help you generate some income, it is not the most profitable option available.
Why you should look beyond ads for revenue
YouTube has taken a more open approach to advertising on the site and what constitutes “advertiser friendly” video, but this has prompted a lot of criticism recently.
In essence, many YouTube producers were worried that they would no longer be able to benefit from the advertising money that helps keep their channel up.
If your video contains the following, YouTube may not share in the ad income.
- Sexually suggestive content, including partial nudity and sexual humor
- Violence, including displays of serious injury and events related to violent extremism
- Inappropriate language, including harassment, profanity, and vulgar language
- Promotion of drugs and regulated substances, including selling, use, and abuse of such items
- Controversial or sensitive subjects and events, including subjects related to war, political conflicts, natural disasters, and tragedies, even if graphic imagery is not shown
However, since 2012, YouTube has been using an automatic approach to demonetize content that it does not deem advertising friendly, all without notice or the creator’s consent.
Now, artists receive alerts when their videos are flagged, and they may file appeals if they believe their videos were incorrectly removed from YouTube’s ad network.
While advertisements are a typical way for producers to make passive cash, YouTube’s parent company, Google, keeps around 45% of ad revenue.
In a nutshell, YouTubers need to find alternative ways to make money in order to keep up their artistic pursuit. How to get money off of YouTube without using AdSense is detailed below.
2. Sell Products or Merchandise
If you want to monetize your channel on YouTube, there is no shortage of items you may sell. T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, snapbacks, you name it, all have a secondary purpose beyond financial gain when sold as merchandise.
Selling merchandise helps you become more well-known because it extends your online identity into the real world, and it strengthens your connection to your audience because they are investing time and money in your endeavors. Products designed by Roman Atwood and other creators are available in his shop under the Smile More label.
It’s simpler than it seems to sell branded swag. You can get low-cost, custom designs made for things like t-shirts on freelance sites.
Alternately, you may team up with a pre-existing merchandising network for creators like DFTBA (Don’t Forget to Be Awesome). You can sell your wares on YouTube, but you’ll have to compete with other YouTubers and won’t have as much freedom as you would with your own e-commerce site in terms of stock management, pricing, promotion, and content integration.
Like Luxy Hair, which sells hair extensions by posting how-to videos on YouTube, you may take your business to the next level by producing and selling your own original items.
You, as a YouTuber with a built-in fanbase, will have an immediate leg up on the competition because to two factors:
- A source of constant customer interest that may be used to boost sales
- The respect of your target market, which you have won by consistently providing them with free material of your own design.
3. Crowdfund Your Next Creative Project
Crowdfunding is a viable option when financial resources are the only thing preventing an idea from being put into action.
If your audience and the crowdfunding community believe in your project, they will help you raise money to acquire better equipment, hire actors, and cover other production costs.
Creating a video describing your project or delivering a sample of what it’ll be like, like this popular Kickstarter for Kung Fury, a short film playing homage to ’80s action flicks, may be an effective way to garner support from the crowdfunding community.
Some of the more well-known crowdfunding platforms where YouTubers have had successful campaigns include:
- Kickstarter. Popular platform for raising money for unique goods and imaginative ventures. Remember that you won’t get the money unless you reach your funding target, so make it realistic.
- Indiegogo. A financing platform similar to Kickstarter but with greater leeway for donors.
4. Let Your Audience Support You Through “Fan Funding”
Setting up “fan financing” streams to collect contributions from your audience is quite similar to crowdsourcing a project.
If you’re a creator, you get to add your voice to the internet without charging others to listen. So, if your material is worthwhile, readers may want to stick around and show their support.
As a result, many fan-funding systems provide artists with another another avenue for content discovery, as well as a means to interact with and reward their most devoted fans.
While Wait But Why’s output consists primarily of written pieces rather than videos, the channel’s success on Patreon serves as an excellent case study.
If you decide to go the crowdfunding route, there are several guidelines you should stick to. Make the plans for spending the money public first. Doing so will get your audience emotionally connected in your tale or cause, which will lead them to actively support what you’re selling.
Secondly, you should dangle alluring benefits in front of pledgers who make particularly impressive commitments. It’s more likely that you’ll receive donations and larger commitments if you can make contributors feel like they’re getting something special for being devoted fans.
Among the most well-liked ways to raise money for fans:
- Super Chat on YouTube. When broadcasting live on YouTube, you may interact with viewers using Super Chat. Create a virtual jar where viewers may drop in anything they feel like as a tip whenever they want. Your YouTube channel must be monetized, so make the appropriate settings.
- A subscription to the channel. Subscribers may show their support for your channel on a recurring basis by purchasing a subscription in exchange for access to exclusive content. In the same vein as Super Chat, you need to be a part of YouTube’s Partner Program in order to use this function.
- Patreon. The subscription service that facilitates the collection of author royalties. For as little as one dollar a month, fans can subscribe to their favorite creators and have access to exclusive benefits.
- Tipeee. You can use this site to collect both one-time and regular contributions.
- Get Me A Coffee On The House. The makers and artists that use Buy Me A Coffee are able to collect membership fees and monetary donations from their audiences. As the “#1 Patreon Alternative,” it boasts over 300,000 content producers. The main distinctions between Buy Me A Coffee and Patreon are the ease of accepting donations, the flat 5% cost for all features (compared to up to 12% for Patreon), and the fast nature of rewards.
5. License Your Content to the Media
You can get paid to license your material if you make a popular viral video, like an amusing footage of your dog doing something silly.
If your films become viral, producers from TV news shows, morning shows, and online news sites may contact you about acquiring the rights to use them.
Videos may also be included in a marketplace like Trusted Media Brands, making it simpler for the proper individuals to discover and buy your material.
When this video of a woman wearing a Chewbacca mask went viral, tons of media outlets wanted in.
6. Work with Brands as an Influencer
Brands are increasingly allocating a sizable portion of their advertising budgets to influencers who have previously established credibility with their target demographics.
To the extent that you can strike the appropriate agreements, this is a tremendous opportunity for you as a creator.
The YouTube marketing guru and influencer Brendan Gahan suggests figuring out your starting flat rate by calculating the average amount of views each video and multiplying that figure by $0.05 to $0.15. (which is around what many brands are willing to pay for views via YouTube ads).
WebFX research indicates the following possible costs for YouTube influencer marketing:
- $200 per video for a YouTuber with 10,000 subscribers
- $2,000 per video for a YouTuber with 100,000 subscribers
- $20,000 per video for a YouTuber with 1,000,000 subscribers
If the company and your audience are a good fit, you may be able to negotiate a better contract. Your leverage here will depend on factors like the size and makeup of your following, the quality of your material, and how profitable your niche is.
You should be honest with your audience and yourself when collaborating with brands to create sponsored content, and you should never promote something you don’t genuinely like or believe in.
You can get your channel in front of both large and small businesses by signing up with one of the numerous influencer markets out there, a few of which are listed below.
- Crowdtap. Complete small content creation “tasks” in exchange for money and other rewards. There’s no restriction on how many followers you need to join.
- Upfluence. A full-scale influencer platform with a database over 3 million influencers. Clients can search through Upfluence to find creators by keyword and contact them to form a partnership.
There are influencer markets where you can get free stuff, and there are marketplaces where the large businesses pay you to promote their stuff. Take advantage of the chances that work best for you, but register your channel as widely as possible.
7. Become an Affiliate Marketer
The term “affiliate marketing” is used to describe the practice of receiving a commission via the promotion of a third-party brand’s goods or services. Affiliate marketing allows you to promote other people’s products by using your own. Nonetheless, you are obligated to tell your viewers about your connections in the films itself.
If you do product reviews on your YouTube channel, this is a great strategy. There is little to no barrier to entry because the brand bears no risk (they only pay when they earn sales).
Affiliate marketing is big business, and some of the most well-known affiliate programs are ClickBank (commissions range from 1% to 75%, depending on the seller) and Amazon’s Affiliate network (up to 10% per transaction). Affiliate marketing is commonplace in the online retail industry, so you may also reach out to related businesses who are operating their own programs.
How Many Views Do You Need on YouTube to Make Money?
According to statistics from Influencer Marketing Hub, the average YouTube channel may earn roughly $18 per 1,000 ad views, or between $3 to $5 each video view.
Earnings have little to do with viewership numbers. Even if your video is seen thousands of times, if no one really takes the time to watch it or clicks on the advertisement, you will have wasted your time and effort. This is because YouTube’s billing requirements require viewers to take action (click an ad or watch the commercial for the entire ten, fifteen, or thirty seconds) before you receive payment.
How to Get Paid on YouTube
- Publish ads on your channel
- Offer channel subscriptions
- Offer channel memberships
- Sign up for affiliate marketing
You need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 view hours in the previous 12 months before you can start making money on YouTube. In order to start making money off of your YouTube channel, you need to have at least that many views before you can apply to the YouTube Partner Program.
Affiliate marketing is one way for newcomers with a modest subscriber base to generate money. YouTubers sometimes focus on certain niches, such as reviews of restaurants or new products or lists of the best [X]. Instead of getting paid for each ad click or video view, you can profit when viewers buy products recommended in your video.
How Much Money Do YouTubers Make Per Year?
As of January 2021, the five most popular YouTubers each have tens of millions of subscribers. MrBeast, Jake Paul, Markiplier, Rhett and Link, and Unspeakable are just a few examples of popular YouTubers. Some of these YouTubers make more than $28.5 million a year from their channels. Even if their income is immense, lesser accounts may make a livelihood on YouTube as well.
Consider Justine Leconte’s channel on YouTube. She has 913,000 followers on her channel and 91 million video views from people looking to improve their wardrobes and knowledge of fashion. Based only on ad income, she has made an estimated $259,304, with an average of $979 each video.
How Do YouTubers Get Paid?
According to Forbes, the top YouTube earners generate half of their annual revenue from advertising. Once you have a YouTube channel, you can sign up for an AdSense account to start making money off of your videos. If your AdSense balance is less than $100, you won’t receive payment.
Even if a YouTube channel doesn’t have millions of followers, it may still be monetized. Earning potential is influenced not just by the quantity of subscribers and views, but also by the quality of interaction generated, the market segment targeted, and the variety of monetization strategies tested.
Tips for Selling on YouTube
The promotion of items or campaigns is fundamental to many of the aforementioned methods of making money (e.g., crowdfunding a video series). Make sure your marketing don’t compromise the quality of the content you’ve worked so hard on, though.
Many artists worry about “selling out.” But you’ll never go anywhere if you don’t try. You may promote your items or campaigns in a variety of different “placements.”
Understand Your Audience on YouTube
When you have your own following, you have several options for making money off of your material. But you can’t make the most of the chances you have until you know who you’re talking to.
If you’re a YouTuber hoping to make money, having a very precise niche channel will put you in a better position to partner with advertisers who want to reach your unique audience (more on that later).
Here are the things that need your undivided attention:
- The gender of your audience, to see if it skews toward one particular group
- The age range most of your audience falls into
- The geographic location—countries or cities—where your videos are being watched
- Your audience’s overall engagement, or “watch time”
Knowing your audience’s demographics will help you better connect with advertisers and create content that resonates with them. YouTube statistics provide complete demographic data.
Record a Call to Action in Your Videos
Click the “Like” button and “Subscribe” if you enjoyed this video.
A lot of popular YouTubers use a similar call to action at the end of their videos in an effort to get more subscribers. A greater percentage of your audience will execute the desired action if you explicitly ask them to do so.
This strategy is easily adapted to attract interest in a product or service that may help you make money.
Add Well-Timed YouTube Cards to Your Videos
YouTube Cards are a striking method to grab the attention of interested viewers, whether as part of a brand partnership or to promote your own items.
Setting them to appear at optimal times—when they’ll be most helpful and least disruptive—is a simple way to boost their effectiveness.
Promote Your Offer on Other Platforms
You shouldn’t limit yourself to use YouTube as a distribution method just because your work is posted there.
Share updates about promotions and sales on your social media accounts.
There will be more people exposed to your message if it is dispersed widely.