How Much Do YouTubers Get Paid, Really?

Posted on by Kara

YouTube has become a vehicle for creating stars. But how much Do YouTubers get paid?

The very top earners on Youtube are pulling in millions a year. PewDiePie, the channel of a Swedish video gamer, made $15 million in 2016. Lilly Singh made $7.5 million.

Money comes to these creators in a few different ways. Sponsored videos are videos that they make after being paid by a company to talk about a product or service. Companies can also run ads on popular YouTube channels, which means both Youtube and the person whose channel it is get a cut of the money.

Ads on YouTube

In the case of the latter, here’s how that works. YouTubers link their accounts with Google Adsense, a program that runs ads on their content. YouTube charges companies if a viewer watches 30 seconds or more of the ad. About 15% of viewers watch the required amount of ads for a charge to incur.

Of that charge, YouTubers make 68% of the ad revenue.  The charge can range, but the typical cost is $.18 per view.

So, if you have millions of people who are watching 30 seconds or more of an add, that money can add up. And that’s exactly what the top names in YouTube have. Pew Die Pie has 59,458,399 subscribers as of January 2018. His videos routinely view counts in the 20 million range.

So if you have a video that has 1 million views and 15% of  your viewers watch the ad, and you make $.18 off those people, you’re looking at earnings of $27,000. 

Sponsored Videos

Sponsored videos are a little more difficult to pin down, in terms of how much a YouTuber makes off of them. Each video is custom made, so each one will have it’s own contract and payment. Each YouTuber can also charge what they want to individually.

It’s similar to content creation and marketing on Instagram. You work directly with the YouTuber and strike a deal. Some deals will be flat fees for videos, while others may be affiliate deals, where the YouTuber is paid a percentage of the products purchased by their viewers.

How much you can charge will depend on your viewer and subscriber numbers, what kind of video you’re making, and what kind of company you’re working with. YouTubers are pretty tight lipped about what they make, so it’s hard to find solid numbers on what they charge.

If you’re a marketer looking to advertise on a YouTube channel, consider your brand needs first. Are you trying to get in front of as many people as possible or looking for direct conversions? Your needs will determine if you want to go with ads on a popular channel, or it you want to have a custom video created.

10,000 Views Now Required

After YouTube opened its platform up to anyone to create a video account, the site ran into some problems. Copycat accounts were posting content they didn’t own and profiting off other people’s materials. To help combat this, YouTube now has a rule that videos must have 10,000 lifetime views on their video before it can be monetized.

For YouTubers, charging flat fees for videos is a way to get a certain amount of money each month. However, there is the potential for tens of thousands of dollars to be made from one video with ads. Ultimately, both advertisers and creators have unique needs.

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