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How to Make Money on YouTube

How to Make Money on YouTube (Without a Million Subscribers)

YouTube stars are today’s self-made celebrities—people who have earned an audience by creating content geared toward teaching, entertaining, reviewing, and being awesome on the internet.
Most of these small-screen celebs do what they do just to do it, to scratch an itch for creating things and being in front of an audience.
Making money might not be your reason for starting a YouTube channel, but the opportunities to earn are a pleasant surprise once you realize how many of them there are.

  1. Who makes the most money on YouTube?
  2. Who’s going to watch your YouTube Channel?
  3. How to make money on YouTube
  4. How to “sell” without annoying your audience
  5. Are you ready to monetize your YouTube channel?

Who makes the most money on YouTube?

According to Forbes, these 10 channels were the top earners on YouTube from June 2017 to June 2018:
  1. Ryan’s World, $22 million (22.4 million subscribers)
  2. Jake Paul, $21.5 million (19.7 million subscribers)
  3. Dude Perfect, $20 million (47.1 million subscribers)
  4. DanTDM, $18.5 million (22.3 million subscribers)
  5. Jeffree Star, $18 million (16.5 million subscribers)
  6. Markiplier, $17.5 million (24.5 million subscribers)
  7. VanossGaming, $17 million (24.9 million subscribers)
  8. Jacksepticeye, $16 million (23 million subscribers
  9. PewDiePie, $15.5 million (102 million subscribers)
  10. Logan Paul, $14.5 million (19.9 million subscribers)

This list might leave you with a lot of questions about how these YouTube stars earned their fortunes. Let’s explore some of those questions.

Do you get paid for uploading videos on YouTube?

Content creators aren’t paid by YouTube for the videos they upload. Neither are videos monetized by default. For you to start making money on YouTube, you have to enable monetization in your YouTube account settings. From there, you have options to join the YouTube Partners Program or have your videos listed on YouTube Premium.

How do you make money from YouTube?

There are a few takeaways from Forbes’ list, putting aside the millions of dollars made and subscribers gained.

First, YouTube channels can be monetized even if they don’t have millions of subscribers. Your earning potential isn’t determined solely by the number of subscribers and views you have, but also by the level of engagement you generate, the niche you cater to, and the revenue channels you explore. That’s not to say subscriber count doesn’t matter—check out our tips to get more subscribers on YouTube.

Second, this list of top 10 earners might give you the impression that the millions of dollars made comes directly from YouTube. In fact, each of these channels has its own line of merchandise. These channels found and built their audiences first, before launching their own merchandise. If making money on YouTube is in your marketing plan, the first step is the same for everybody: have a clear understanding of your target audience.

Who’s going to watch your YouTube channel?

Building your own audience puts you in a great position to monetize content in a variety of ways. But you’ll only be able to take full advantage of the opportunities you have if you understand the makeup of your audience.

For many YouTubers looking to monetize, the more niche your channel, the better position you’ll be in to work with brands looking to target specific audiences (more on that later).

You’ll want to pay close attention to:
  • The gender of your audience, to see if its 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.”

With this demographic information at hand, you’ll have a better understanding of your own audience and be able to work better with brands. All demographic insight can be pulled from your YouTube analytics, but to compare your own channel against others try a tool like Social Blade.

With that out of the way, we can start talking about the different ways your YouTube channel can make money.

How to make money on YouTube

Like learning how to make money on Instagram or via blogging, your audience might unlock your YouTube channel’s earning potential. But when you create multiple revenue streams, through side side hustles or businesses, it’s easier to monetize. Luckily, there are several ways to accomplish this—let’s take a deeper look at each of these streams.
  1. Become a YouTube Partner and earn money from ads.
  2. Sell products or merchandise.
  3. Crowdfund your next creative project.
  4. Let your audience support your work through “fan funding.”
  5. License your content to the media.
  6. Work with brands as an influencer or affiliate.

1. Join the YouTube Partner Program and earn money from ads

The first revenue stream you’ll likely explore is ads. Whether you want to earn money on YouTube without creating videos or as a content creator, joining the YouTube Partners Program and setting up monetization is a vital step. You can apply for monetization once you’ve hit 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over the past year.

How to enable monetization on YouTube

  1. Sign in to the YouTube account you want to monetize.
  2. Click the icon for your account in the top right corner.
  3. Click YouTube Studio.
  4. In the left menu, select Other Features > Monetization.
  5. Read and agree to the YouTuber Partner Program terms.
  6. Create a new AdSense account or connect an existing one to your channel. (You need an AdSense account to get paid.)
  7. Set your monetization preferences.
Once that’s done, head back to the dashboard and click the Analytics tab on the left side. From there, you’ll need to choose Revenue from the tabs at the top, then scroll down to the chart Monthly Estimated Revenue to get an idea of your predicted revenue.

How many views do you need to make money?

The number of views you get doesn’t correlate to revenue earned. If your video gets thousands of views but no one watches or clicks the ad, you won’t make any money. This is because of YouTube’s criteria for billing advertisers: a viewer must click an ad or watch the ad in full (10, 15, or 30 seconds) for you to get paid. However, with the release of YouTube Premium, you no longer need to rely on advertisers to create engaging or enticing ads to earn revenue.

Check out YouTube Premium

YouTube Premium is a paid membership program that allows fans to watch and support their favorite content creators without ads. For creators, not much changes, as they will get paid for content consumed by non-members on YouTube along with content on YouTube Premium.

Creators are paid for YouTube Premium based on how much members watch their content. Consider revenue earned from YouTube Premium as a secondary revenue stream in addition to what you’re already earning through ads.

While it’s easy to set up, earning money through advertising as a YouTube Partner is far from the most lucrative revenue stream you can create for yourself.

Why you should look beyond ads for revenue

YouTube recently received a lot of backlash due to its decision to be more transparent about advertising on the platform and what qualifies as “advertiser friendly” content. Essentially, many creators feared that, due to the nature of their content, they would lose out on the ad revenue that helps support their channel. According to YouTube, your content could get excluded from ad revenue if it includes:
  • 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
But the reality is that YouTube has been demonetizing content that it doesn’t deem advertiser-friendly since 2012 via an automated process, without warning and without the content creator’s knowledge. Now, the situation is actually better, as creators are notified when their content is flagged and can contest any time they feel a video was mistakenly excluded from YouTube’s advertising network. Advertising might be a common means of generating passive income for creators, but the trade-off is that YouTube gets to keep around a 45% share of ad revenue. In short, YouTubers should explore other revenue streams to sustain their creative hobby. Below, we’ll share how to earn money from YouTube without AdSense.

2. Sell products or merchandise

There are plenty of products to sell that can help you make money through your YouTube channel. Making and selling merchandise—t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, snapbacks, you name it—has a benefit beyond revenue. Merchandise increases your exposure by putting your online brand and personality out into the offline world and deepens the relationship between you and your fans as they literally “buy” into what you’re doing.

How to “sell” without annoying your audience

Many of the above strategies for monetizing involve promoting products or campaigns (e.g., crowdfunding a video series). But you’ll want to make sure your promotions don’t sabotage the integrity of your content. “Selling out” is a real concern for a lot of creators. But if you never ask, you’ll never get. There are a number of “placements” you can choose from for promoting products or campaigns.

Record a call to action in your videos

“If you liked this video, then hit the Like button and subscribe.”

Many YouTubers include a call to action along those lines at the end of their videos to grow their viewership. By suggesting the intended action you want them to take, your audience is more likely to take it.

You can adapt this approach to direct your audience’s attention to a revenue-generating opportunity.

Add well-timed YouTube cards to your videos
Whether it’s part of your deal with a brand or you’re promoting your own products, YouTube Cards offer an eye-catching way to get the attention of engaged viewers.

You can set them to pop up at just the right moment, when they’re most relevant and least distracting to increase their impact.

Add links in your video descriptions
You can funnel viewers to your store, Patreon page, Kickstarter campaign, or other revenue-focused part of your online presence by adding links to your video descriptions.

If you’re a video creator who wants to focus on generating revenue as an affiliate marketer, look at Unbox Therapy. Unbox Therapy specializes in product reviews, and it uses affiliate links in their video descriptions to make money via YouTube audiences. The channel is signed up as an Amazon affiliate. It places these unique links—pointing to the reviewed product on Amazon—in video descriptions. If the viewer purchases the item via clicking that link, the affiliate will earn a small percentage of revenue share paid to them by Amazon.

Promote your offer on other platforms

Just because your content is hosted on YouTube doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking advantage of all the other distribution channels out there. Spread the word about new campaigns or discounts on Twitter, Facebook, and any other profiles you own. The more places your message lives, the greater the chance it’ll be seen. So it’s always a good idea to grow your following beyond YouTube with social media marketing.

Are you ready to monetize your YouTube channel?

What compels most creators to create is rarely money. It’s the thought of making something for the world to enjoy. But ironically, that puts them in a great position to actually make money in a content-obsessed world. While the hard part for many businesses is getting and keeping their audience’s attention, YouTubers have already figured that bit out. All that’s left is to get creative—to channel the entrepreneurial drive to explore ideas—with how you choose to monetize your passion.

Frequently asked questions about making money on YouTube

There are several ways you can make money on YouTube:
  • Become a YouTube Partner and earn money from ads.
  • Sell products or merchandise.
  • Crowdfund your next creative project.
  • Let your audience support your work through “fan funding.”
  • License your content to the media.
  • Work with brands as an influencer or affiliate.

You need 4,000 watch hours to join YouTube’s Partner Program to make money from ads. However, the number of views you get doesn’t correlate to revenue earned. If your video gets thousands of views but no one watches or clicks the ad, you won’t make any money.

You need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over the past year to join the YouTube Partner Program and earn money from ads.