01 Nov
Ever thought while watching your favorite YouTubers how much money they make on YouTube? YouTube is world’s best video sharing platform loved by millions and watched by billions. It’s a platform that turns your high quality content into cash. With the evolving technology and best camera and equipment, it’s possible for beginners to make money on YouTube.
500 hours of video content is uploaded to YouTube every minute. Now you can imagine how big this platform is. Around 2 billion users log in to YouTube every month. You can read the amazing stats of YouTube here, I love to read it. YouTube is also one of the best online earning hustle, the most popular YouTube channels are making millions, but the fact is, those channels produce great content on a regular basis.
So the question is for a guy like you and me, can we make money on YouTube without having a million subscribers? Here, I’ll lay out the possible ways to make money on YouTube.
Let’s get started!
1. How to Make Money on YouTube?
Well surprisingly, kids on YouTube are making more money than anyone else. The world’s highest paid YouTuber is an eight-year-old Ryan with over 26.9 million subscribers, going to pass the 27 million mark soon. His channel’s name is Ryan’s World with an estimated earning of $22 million. He just unboxes toys and carry out interesting scientific experiments. I am sharing this as an example, just to let you know, you need an idea and YouTube got you covered.
There are a number of ways YouTuber bring in big bucks. There is no doubt about the fact that they make money from millions of views on their videos, but it’s not the only way they make money on YouTube. In fact, popular YouTubers have a range of products and merchandise to sell. For instance, toys, clothing, games, best streaming cameras, books, home goods, music products like headphones, beauty products and other affiliate products. In short, these YouTubers are affiliate marketers earning commissions via selling affiliate products. But the short story behind this is— “they build their audience first”.
Worried about a YouTube channel, if you have a Google account, means you own a channel. Simple!
When you have the right audience on your channel, that means you’ll sell more on YouTube than any other social media platforms out there.
Now let’s see the most legit ways to make money on YouTube.
i). Join YouTube Partner Program
If you have a passion for creating high quality videos and uploading them to YouTube, you need to join the YouTube Partner Program. This program provides an opportunity for the content creators to access YouTube features and important resources. This is the initial point where you start making a little earning from YouTube. It’s not that you’ll start making money right after uploading your first video, you need to fulfill the eligibility requirements.
Let me give you an overview:
- 4000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months
- 1000 subscribers
- You must live in a country where the partner program works
- Linked Google Adsense account
Login to YouTube, on the right top, click on your picture. You’ll see YouTube Studio, click on it to enter your own studio. It’s where you manage the whole video content and monetize it. At the left bar, there is “Monetisation” option. Just click on it and it will show your progress of subscribers and watch hours. You can see the image above, click on the notify button and you’ll get an update when you are ready for the review.
YouTube will review the channel for it’s monetization policies. After you qualify, you’ll start generating revenue by running ads on the videos. The revenue will increase as your channel grows. Therefore, you should never stop uploading content.
ii). Make Money on YouTube via Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is one of the hot ways to make money online. First of all, you must know what is affiliate marketing and how it works? In simple words, in affiliate marketing, you join popular affiliate programs as an affiliate and promote the products. It works very well once you are selling a product for the right audience. Therefore, targeted audience matters a lot.
Affiliate marketing can get you big money when you are selling the products your audience is looking for…
Got my point?
Nope? Let me explain it a bit!
For instance, if your video is about starting a business blog and you are about to promote Bluehost as the best web hosting company. It should be a detailed Bluehost review. You can let people know about Bluehost as the best host to start off a blog. You just need to put the affiliate link in the description of the video. Tell your audience the discount they can avail by using your affiliate link.
Another example is, if you have a food or cooking channel, you must be selling kitchen tools and accessories you used in the video. These tools can be chef hat, kitchen towels, bamboo cutting board, aprons, dish drying mat, or kitchen floor mat; the list is huge. If you want them to buy from Amazon, put your Amazon affiliate links in the description.
That’s how to make money on YouTube through affiliate marketing. Trust me, every YouTuber is an affiliate.
iii). Get Sustainable Income from Your Loyal YouTube Followers
If you don’t have a huge subscribers count, no worries; but if your fans are loyal and engaging, they can help you through the following methods.
These are the best platforms to support your creative work. You can create a profile on any of the above sites and start sharing with your fans through YouTube videos. Here’s a great example of a YouTuber named Suede who makes $3000/month through Patreon with less than 10k subscribers.
If a YouTuber whom you are following is on Patreon, he’ll definitely share his Patreon link. If not, you can find him by searching in the “find creator” search bar as shown in the image below. YouTubers create multiple membership plans for their audience to say a hello or a professional business shout out. This way you can support them on a monthly basis.
It’s the best way to get a passive income through your viewers. Whether you are a podcaster, musician, gamer, or a VA on YouTube, it works for all. So, never stop creating quality and engaging content.
iv). Sell Your Merchandise to Make Money on YouTube
Its not easy to sell stuff if you are an absolute beginner on YouTube.
Why?
First, you need to build a large audience first. Second, the products you are going to sell must relate to the videos you make. Another key aspect to keep in mind is that you need an upfront amount to create the merchandise.
Selling merchandise is more likely to sell your own brand
However, once you’ve gathered a good count of subscribers, you are ready to sell simple products like t-shirts, coffee mugs, bags, caps, jewelry, makeup stuff, books, mobile or computer accessories, you name it; it’s a long list. You can sell Amazon, eBay or Etsy products too. It works the same way as we discussed affiliate marketing above.
I’d strongly recommend to check out Teespring if you are going to launch your own branded t-shirts, bags, caps or other products.
v). Add Paid Sponsorships and Endrosements
YouTube allows you for paid product placements, endorsements and sponsorships in your videos. Just like affiliate marketing, you put the disclosure as per the affiliate program policies, similarly, such videos require disclosure to viewers.
It’s very simple to do that by the just following the below steps:
- Sign in to YouTube Studio and select Videos from the left section.
- Click the video to edit it.
- Select More options.
- Check the box next to “My video contains paid promotion like a product placement, sponsorship, or endorsement.
- Save the video
You’re done. This leaves a good impression on the viewers and additionally, you are helping YouTube to maintain a good viewer experience. For your information, YouTube shows a 20 seconds disclosure message to it’s viewers when it contains paid promotion.
It is good for both your channel and the brand you’re promoting. It’s the best way to make money on YouTube. You can even make a lot from the big brands if your channel is popular enough.
vi). Make Money with YouTube Red
YouTube Red is a premium service that allows viewers to pay $9.99 for ad-free videos. So, if there are no ads, how the content creators will make money? No need to worry about it, YouTube shares 55% of revenue with content creators. This money is calculated on watch time, higher the watch hours of your videos, higher will be the revenue.
2. YouTube Money Calculator
Every YouTuber is curious to know how much money he can make from YouTube. Well, it depends on a number of factors like the CPM rate, audience location, average video engagement, number of subscribers, and pageviews etc.
Let’s broaden this topic a little more by considering CPM. It stands for “cost per thousand” which means money you can make for 1000 page views. It varies according to the country, the average CPM ranges from $6 to $8 dollars in USA and it’s high even more for Australia. Finally, it concludes that if your audience is from Australia you are going to make more money on YouTube.
The diagram shows a rough estimate of earnings depending upon average daily views and engagement. You can visit it and move the slider back and forth to know more about your potential earnings.
3. Making Money on YouTube FAQ
i). How Much Money Do YouTubers Make?
Most of the YouTubers do not share their income stats from YouTube. That’s why, those people who are going to start off their journey on this platform, they are curious to know about their estimated earnings.
You might have seen some of the YouTubers who quit their jobs to focus only on YouTube making it full time income stream. But they took that step after a couple of years when they started making $2000 – $4000 per month.
You can check out money calculator above to get an idea by the way. Keeping it short, 1000 views will give you around $0.35 to $1— it’s for my country Pakistan.
ii). Who is the highest paid YouTuber?
According to a report on CNBC, Ryan Kaji is the world’s highest paid YouTuber earning $26 million in 2019.
The other highest paid YouTubers for 2019 are:
- Dude Perfect – $20 million
- Anastasia Radzinskaya – $18 million
- Rhett and Link – $17.5 million
- Jeffree Star – $17 million
- Preston – $14 million
- PewDiePie tied with
- Markiplier – $13 million
- DanTDM – $12 million
- VanossGaming – $11.5 million
Stay tuned for 2020!
iii). How many subscribers do you need to make money?
Just a reminder, you need to have 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours before you can monetize your channel. For more details on that, please read how to join YouTube Partner Program above.
iv). Can you make money on YouTube without ads?
Of course you can! You can promote Amazon products and earn commissions, put affiliate links of your products in the description. Additionally, you can sell out your digital products, online courses and books to make money on YouTube without ads.
4. How to Make Money on YouTube? A Quick Summary
We all know YouTube is the world’s best platform to make money online. As compared to other popular platforms, and internet giants like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter, YouTube is at the top sharing huge revenue with it’s creators. There are YouTubers that are making millions on YouTube. For most of the YouTubers who share their experience being new, it took a while to build viewers. YouTube is all about uploading quality videos and promoting your channel. Earning from YouTube ads is the basic method to make money on YouTube for startup YouTubers.
However, once your channel has grown and reaping viewership in millions, it’s time to generate more revenue. The best and the most legit ways that actually work are affiliate marketing where you can promote other products of the same niche to earn affiliate commissions.
Finally, YouTube is the best way to promote your blog or an e-commerce store. That’s how you can double your money and traffic. Asking your viewers to visit the affiliate links is also a good practice, but if you re-direct them to your blog, you will earn more. Your blog will get the traffic you will be able to earn from the blog traffic as well.
My final recommendation is to start your blog with Bluehost.com, get a free domain and install WordPress. You’re all set to go!
Having a blog with YouTube channel is the best way to make money blogging.
Good luck!
Hi, I am Faisal Rehman.
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