- Creators who are a part of YouTube’s Partner Program can monetize their videos with ads.
- YouTubers can make thousands of dollars each month from the program.
- A YouTuber with about 1 million subscribers made between $14,600 and $54,600 per month.
This is the latest installment of Insider’s YouTube money logs, where creators break down how much they earn.
Surpassing the 1 million subscriber mark on YouTube is a huge milestone, and, in practical terms, it often means a creator can earn a full-time living from the platform.
YouTube creators earn money a number of ways, but money from the ads that play in their videos usually constitutes a big chunk of their income. Finance Nate O’Brien made over $400,000 in a year when he had about 1 million subscribers. The YouTuber shared that he was earning between $14,600 and $54,600 per month.
Read a full breakdown of how much money O’Brien makes per month and his strategies
Another YouTuber, lifestyle creator Tiffany Ma, was earning up to $11,500 a month from ads on her videos, she previously told Insider in 2021.
Read about how much money Ma earns per month and how she grew her channel
To start earning money directly from YouTube, creators must have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year. Once they reach that threshold, they can apply for YouTube’s Partner Program, which allows them to start monetizing their channels through ads, subscriptions, and channel memberships. For every 1,000 ad views, advertisers pay a certain rate to YouTube. YouTube takes 45% of the revenue, and the creator gets the rest.
Two key metrics for earning money on YouTube are the CPM rate, or how much money advertisers pay YouTube per 1,000 ad views, and RPM rate, which is how much revenue a creator earns per every 1,000 video views after YouTube’s cut.
Some subjects, like personal finance and business, can boost a creator’s ad rate by attracting lucrative advertisers.
But while Ma’s lifestyle content makes less money, she’s perfected a strategy to maximize payout.
“To really optimize your audience, I think YouTubers should definitely put three to four ads within a video,” Ma said.
The money made directly from YouTube is a key pillar of many creators’ incomes.
Here are eight exclusive earnings breakdowns in which YouTubers with 1 million followers or more share exactly how much they earn from the platform:
