How Much Do YouTubers Make?
You’ve probably clicked onto this article because you’ve seen a YouTuber doing something unusual, entertaining or educational, and you are fascinated by their success and have wondered, ‘how much money do YouTubers make?’ It’s a complex answer involving multiple factors, including the YouTube channel’s audience size, content type and geographical location. In this article, we’ll take a look at the different ways YouTubers make money, from reviews to partnerships and even merchandise.
What Are the Different Ways YouTubers Can Make Money?
There are numerous ways YouTubers can make money, but the most common are ads, sponsorships, affiliate sales and product reviews.
Ads:
Many YouTube channels display ads for additional revenue, with ad placements in the start and end of videos, as well as during the video. This income is not overly significant, however, as YouTube takes 45% of the ad revenue.
Sponsorships:
These usually involve a brand offering a YouTuber money in return for a video featuring their product/service. This is normally in the form of a collaboration like a video or product review, or an event coverage. Sponsorships offer a larger commission than ads, and many YouTubers have negotiated private deals with these companies to promote their products and services.
Affiliate Sales:
This is when a YouTuber promotes a product or service and gets a commission on any sales resulting from the video. This commission can be anywhere from 5% to even 50%, depending on the product or service.
Product Reviews:
YouTubers often get offered free products or services to review. These reviews are not always favorable and honest, so it’s important to note which reviews from YouTubers are genuine.
Merchandise:
This is a popular way for YouTubers to generate additional revenue from their channel. Many YouTubers are now offering merchandise such as clothing, posters, mugs and t-shirts with their own designs on them.
What Factors Affect How Much a YouTuber Can Make?
There are numerous factors which influence how much a YouTuber can make, including:
• Audience size: The larger a channel’s audience is, the more money they can make. This is because there are more people who will be interacting with the ads, sponsorships and reviews.
• Quality and frequency of content: The type of content produced and how frequently it is posted are important factors in terms of fans and viewer engagement. If a channel produces good quality content, more people will be inclined to watch and engage with it.
• Geographic location: As YouTube is a US-based company, the income of YouTubers from outside the US can fluctuate greatly depending on the currency exchange rate.
• Opportunities: The amount of opportunities a YouTuber gets can hugely affect their earnings; the more opportunities they get to promote products, the more money they will make.
What Are the Earning Potentials of Different YouTube Channels?
The amount a YouTuber can make varies greatly and is dependent on the factors mentioned above, as well as the level of success of the channel.
• Beginner and hobby YouTubers: A beginner YouTuber may have a few hundred or thousand subscribers and lean towards making a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a year.
• Professional YouTube channels: Professional channels with over one million subscribers may be able to make tens of thousands of dollars per month from sponsorships and ads.
• Extremely successful YouTube channels: Channels like PewDiePie, with over 100 million subscribers, can make hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, even over a million dollars.
What Are The Potential Pitfalls of Being a YouTuber?
As with any profession, becoming a YouTuber has it’s potential pitfalls. It is important to be aware of these in order to be prepared and reduce the chances of these issues occurring.
• Financial unpredictability: With any advertising-based model, the income a YouTuber generates can be highly unpredictable and volatile, so it is important to be prepared for when an income may decrease or plateau.
• Public scrutiny: Putting yourself in the public eye can open you up to criticism and hate as well as public scrutiny, so it is important to remain level-headed and professional when facing negative feedback.
• Time commitment: Making a high quality YouTube video takes a significant amount of time and energy and can be very demanding, so it is important to be aware of this when making content.
There are numerous ways in which YouTubers can make money, such as through ads, sponsorships, product reviews, affiliate sales and merchandise. There are a variety of factors which influence how much money a YouTuber can make, including their audience size, the quality of their content and the opportunities they have. Beginners may make a few hundred to a few thousand a year, professionals around tens of thousands a month and extremely successful YouTubers can even make over a million a month. Making money through YouTube can come with a few pitfalls, such as financial unpredictability, public scrutiny and dedicating a significant amount of time to producing content. All this to say, with hard work and dedication, becoming a YouTuber is a viable option for those looking to make money online.
