YouTubers are the self-made celebrities of today: people who have earned an audience by creating content geared toward teaching, entertaining, reviewing, and being awesome on the web. Learn how you too can build an audience and cash in on YouTube today.
YouTube stars are today’s self-made celebrities—people who have earned an audience by creating video content geared toward entertaining, reviewing, teaching, and being awesome online.
If you enjoy success on YouTube, there are also many creative ways to make money—even if that may not have been your reason for starting your channel.
Your audience might unlock your YouTube channel’s earning potential, as is often the case with Instagram influencers or bloggers, but it’s the creation of multiple revenue streams, through side hustles or businesses, that helps you make money.
How to make money on YouTube
Join the YouTube Partner Program
Sell products or merchandise
Crowdfund your next creative project
Let your audience support you through “fan funding”
License your content to the media
Work with brands as an influencer
Become an affiliate marketer
1. Join the YouTube Partner Program
The first revenue stream you’ll likely explore is ads. Whether you want to earn money on YouTube without creating videos or as a content creator, joining the YouTube Partner Program (YPP) and setting up monetization is a vital step.
You’ll have to agree to follow all of YouTube’s monetization policies and live in a country or region where the YPP is available. Then, you can apply for monetization once you:
Hit 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours over the past year, or,
Hit 1,000 subscribers with 10 million valid public Shorts views within the past 90 days
Here’s how to enable monetization on YouTube:
Sign in to the YouTube account you want to monetize
Click the icon for your account in the top right corner
Click YouTube Studio
In the left menu, select Earn
Read and agree to the YouTuber Partner Program terms and eligibility requirements
Create a new Google AdSense account or connect an existing one to your channel
Set your monetization preferences
Once that’s done, head back to the dashboard and click the Analytics tab on the left side. From there, you’ll need to choose Revenue from the tabs at the top, then scroll down to the chart Monthly Estimated Revenue to get an idea of your predicted YouTube revenue.
YouTube Premium is a paid membership program that lets fans watch and support their favorite content creators without ads. For creators, not much changes, as they’ll get paid for content consumed by non-members on YouTube, along with content on YouTube Premium.
Creators are paid for YouTube Premium based on how much members watch their content. Consider revenue earned from YouTube Premium subscribers as a secondary revenue stream in addition to what you’re already earning through ads.
While it’s easy to set up, earning money through advertising as a YouTube Partner is far from the most lucrative revenue stream you can create for yourself.
Why you should look beyond ads for revenue
YouTube has been demonetizing content it doesn’t deem advertiser friendly since 2012 via an automated process. It was originally done without warning and without the content creator’s knowledge.
Now, creators are notified when their content is flagged and can contest any time they feel a video was mistakenly excluded from YouTube’s advertising network.
Advertising might be a common means of generating passive income for creators, but the trade-off is that YouTube’s parent company, Google, keeps 45% of ad revenue from standard YouTube videos and 55% from YouTube Shorts.
2. Sell products or merchandise
You can sell different products to make money through your YouTube channel. Selling merch—t-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, snapbacks, you name it—has benefits beyond revenue.
Merchandise increases your exposure by putting your online brand and personality out into the offline world, and deepens the relationship between you and your fans as they literally “buy” into what you’re doing. Creator Roman Atwood sells a variety of merchandise in his store under the Smile More brand.
3. Crowdfund your next creative project
When money is all that stands between an idea and its execution, crowdfunding is a good way to make it happen.
Whether you need help buying better equipment, hiring actors, or covering other production costs, you can call upon your own audience and the crowdfunding community to pitch in, if your idea is compelling enough.
Many successful crowdfunded creative projects tend to offer a sneak peak or “trailer” that gets people excited, so consider shooting a video explaining your project or offering a taste of what it’ll be like, such as this popular Kickstarter for Kung Fury, a short film paying homage to 1980s action movies.
The homepage for the Kung Fury crowdfunding campaign
Popular crowdfunding sites with a proven track record of campaigns from YouTubers include:
Kickstarter. One of the most well-known crowdfunding sites, great for funding cool products and creative projects. Be sure to set an attainable funding goal because you’ll only secure it if you actually meet the goal you set.
Indiegogo. A Kickstarter alternative that offers more flexible funding options.
4. Let your audience support you through “fan funding”
Similar to crowdfunding a project, you can also set up “fan funding” streams to source donations from your audience.
As a creator, you’re contributing your voice to the internet without forcing your audience to pay for admission. So, if you’re offering good content, your audience might be inclined to support you on an ongoing basis.
Many fan-funding platforms offer creators another place for people to discover their content and a way to engage their most loyal audience and reward them for their support.
Wait But Why creates more long-form written content than YouTube videos but is a great example of receiving support from the Patreon community.
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