How Much Money Does My SMALL 20,000 Subscriber YouTube Channel Make?

I made a video about how YouTubers made money and why a lot of them lie to you. But, you know, I feel like I didn’t go in depth enough with some of those topics as I could have. I do recommend you watch that first before this video, but you can start with this one, because this one does dig deeper, and I show you how well that video does as well. This is a long, long, lonnng video. Now let’s get started with a little analysis.

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First let’s talk about a Myth of how you make money on YouTube. Subscribers. That number does not determine how much money you make, it’s not $100 per subscriber after a specific amount or anything like that at all. When we’re talking about how much a YouTuber makes the only thing that matters is views. You could have a million subscribers, but if you only get 1000 views, and a person with 1000 subscribers got 100,000 views. They’re most likely making more money than that the million-subscriber channel. What subscribers really do, is give you a solid base of people who are willing to watch your content the moment it goes live.

See, here’s the tricky part, views matter but value of someone’s view, and its impact on how much a channel makes depends on: their age group, gender, genre of video, device you’re watching on, country, and whether the viewer has youtube premium or an adblocker.

So, how MUCH do those ads you see all up in front of every video pay? Let’s rewind a sec, remember how literally a few seconds ago I said: “It depends on: age, gender, video genre, device you’re watching on, and country? Well, those are all criteria that advertisers use to bid for ad space on a specific video. Basically, what happens is if an advertiser wants to reach a specific demographic based on those factors, they determine how much they are willing to pay per 1000 views, and then the highest bid wins.

So, the amount of views, and demographic of views matter, how can we determine how much a channel makes? The same way we did last time, looking at CPM. That means how much they make every 1,000 views. YouTube calculate CPM based on how much money someone makes based on Monetized views. That means views with ads. But for the sake of our analysis and to make things easier for everyone else in the world, we’ll look at it based on “True CPM” which I base off of total revenue divided by views then multiplied by a thousand. To get how much a specific channel or video makes per 1,000 views. Doing so, we can predict roughly how much money a specific channel or genre of video makes in revenue. In my last video, I wasn’t completely consistent, some data I used were specific videos, and others were entire channels. But each video a creator makes can have the CPM vary wildly just because you may cover different topics between videos. So, it’s pretty unpredictable.

So now let’s take a look at how well the best video on my channel did, as well as some other creators’ earnings to just compare across topics. The results across my videos actually really surprised me. Let’s take a look.

But YouTube income isn’t the only way creators can make money, like sponsorships, merch sales, Patreon and Amazon affiliate links helps creators earn money too. I only have an amazon affiliate account so I’ll go into that. The moment you click on a link that looks like this: any item you buy on amazon, it doesn’t even have to be the same item that the link lead you to, if you buy it, the creator whose link you clicked on, earns a small percentage of revenue from your purchase until you close that window. Oh, and they can see what you buy. I’ve seen some weird stuff being bought. Trust me. I can’t see what individual people are buying, just a list of everything that has been bought using my links.

So, what’s the point of this video? How much money a specific youtuber makes can vary greatly by their audience, their content, and everything that goes into making their content. It’s really hard to predict what they make. But at least now you know what I make, and that would probably help you figure out some others as well. YouTube is really fun, and I enjoy editing and putting up an uploaded video. But you really shouldn’t go in with the mentality that oh “easy money”. Because it’s not. My first two years on the site were not profitable, I lost money making videos. Money didn’t make me start a channel. I did it because I love it, and that’s why you should too.

[dragofand]

You know. Now I think I understand why some people have like 5 seconds of an airplane in their vlogs.

[WilliamCooper]

I watched the ad before this video all of the way through. You're practically a billionaire now.

[jhort]

I've never seen an ad on youtube that made me want to buy any damn thing.

[TheHistoryGuyChannel]

As side note- enabling mid-rolls will annoy viewers, but massively increase CPM. Advertisers prefer captive viewers. Enabling midrolls tripled my CPM/PPM.

[TheCottonCandie]

I think the reason, the primary reason, that for gaming and tech stuff that the CPM is so low by comparison to lifestyle people is because of a couple factors, but the main of which likely being that Adblock is MUCH more prevalent among gaming and tech people than people who watch daily vlogs and etc.

[spondoolie]

I just watched this video so that you would make 4 cents.... Merry Christmas

[kapppz]

I love when you are about to click on something and somehow magically some advert ends up jumping under your finger. Absolutely love that.

[omremnofgd]

Im watching this in December 2020 you were at 20k followers wow you are at 124k .... Congratulations. Imma come back a year from now and see how you are doing.

[ivucica]

Clickable:

0:51 Why Subscribers don't matter
1:34 How types of views affect revenue
4:18 Looking at how much other creators and I made
4:20 Background Info Before We Start
5:00 My YouTube Analytics and Revenue
8:22 Looking at Some Other Creators
12:34 Using what we learned to guess how much PewDiePie has made
13:22 Back to the rest of the video
14:56 What YouTubers DON'T tell you in these videos

[MGISGlobalStats]

I'm weary of videos with these 'clickbaity' titles because they tend to get dragged out but this one was very helpful, to-the-point and informative. Thanks!

[stephenfowler]

Lol 😂 how I became a millionaire by talking about becoming a millionaire.

[pamzaragoza-quinones]

"it was my hobby, and I love it" same! i finally started my youtube channel this month and I'm enjoying so much of the process :) love the video!

[ittaiak]

Your content is always amazingly high quality. I love it.

[___echo___]

Oh god, I watch one of these videos and I get ads on "how to get rich quick" already

[budbeamer]

I abhor advertising, infact the majority of advertisers on YouTube make me steer away from their products.

[relevation]

Ive never bought anything i saw in an ad, in fact ive bought different brands of basic goods if i remembered them interrupting my life with a stupid ad.

[itschrishuerta]

Can’t wait for the “How much money my Tesla video made me” video.

[Flutoid]

wow this is actually more than I expected smaller channels would make

[skd]

It's hard to tell. For example, due to the nature of my videos, some get the yellow dollar sign (not suitable for ads, but you still get revenue from YouTube premium). As you said, some videos get more CPM than others and it's impossible to tell exactly how much a YouTube makes. Maybe I will make a video of how much I earn/month :)

[ozzstars_cars]

Finally a clear and precise video which describes exactly what CPM is and how to figure it out. I have been making automotive repair videos for years and never fully understood it until today. Thank you Jimmy!