No matter what your interest or passion is, there’s an audience for your content on YouTube. Not only is that audience waiting to be engaged and entertained, but there are also considerable opportunities to earn substantial revenue from your YouTube channel.
Those opportunities come from YouTube’s built-in monetization capabilities and also from your audience of viewers via merchandise sales and affiliate program links. Oh, and don’t forget that brand deals are also on the table.
The growth of YouTube shows no real-world signs of slowing down. And if your content has something unique and informative to offer, there are several income streams you can take advantage of. No matter how competitive your genre is.
Right now, there are plenty of creators who are monetizing their content on YouTube and making a real living from it.
Throw COVID-19 and global economic uncertainty into the mix, and that’s a very enticing and sought-after option for those who want to take control of their own careers.
So, let’s focus on five ways you can monetize your YouTube content. But don’t forget, at the end of the day the amount of strategic and creative effort you pour into YouTube determines how much money you’ll make on the platform.
1. Apply to the YouTube Partner Program & Earn AdSense Revenue
Most YouTubers look forward to the potentially life-changing moment when they’re accepted into the YouTube Partner Program. It’s one of the first monetization checkpoints in the creator journey, and once you unlock it, you can start making money via ads that are run against your content.
To unlock this YouTube feature, you need to satisfy four strict requirements:
- A minimum of 1,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel.
- Generating at least 4,000 Watch Time hours on your channel in the last 12 months.
- Complying with YouTube’s policies and guidelines.
- Setting up an AdSense account.
Once you meet the above criteria, and YouTube accepts your application after auditing your channel, you can enable the ability to run ads. You’ll earn money every time someone watches an ad on your video or clicks on an advertisement within your video.
As you post more videos, gain more subscribers, and increase your YouTube Watch Time, your advertising revenue from the platform should increase. Just keep in mind that YouTube uses advertising to fund their side of the business too. For all the ad dollars you generate, YouTube will take a 45% cut.
Having said that, the real high-earners are still raking in vast amounts per video, based on estimated CPMs, views, and subscriber numbers. According to the 2020 YouTube League, the following channels may be pulling in this kind of AdSense revenue for each video they publish:
- Vlad and Nikita – $312,312
- Dude Perfect – $301,262
- Like Nastya Vlog – $258,493
- TheOdd1sOut – $168,022
- Lele Pons – $157,746
- Liza Koshy – $133,035
- Kids Diana Show – $126,938
- Collins Key – $120,937
- Toys And Little Gaby – $89,319
- James Charles – $79,847
Of course, every one of these channels is pretty well established and is dominating its own genre on the platform, which is why the creators are benefitting from such extraordinary numbers.
But every channel accepted into the YouTube Partner Program has the chance to earn something from ads, even if that amount doesn’t reach the dizzying heights of Dude Perfect’s income. The platform pays out around $7.5 billion a year to influencers and media companies who monetize their content, and you could take home a piece of that pie too.
While AdSense remains the main revenue source for most YouTube channels, it certainly isn’t the only one. April 2020 saw around 80,000 channels earning income from alternative sources, an increase of 20% up in March 2020. YouTube’s chief product officer Neal Mohan confirmed earlier this year that:
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