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How to make money on YouTube in 2021 (and how much I earn)

2020-09-09 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 13:29 · watch on YouTube

Topic: YouTube, writing online and creators · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: His own numbers, Sponsor segment present, His medical past

Ali explains how YouTube pays creators (the Partner Program threshold, ads, and three factors: watch time, the CPM set by a video's topic, and sponsors), then opens his analytics: about £90,000 in three years and £11,618 in the last 28 days, three times his junior doctor salary.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Intro: how much YouTubers make and how this episode of oversharing breaks it down

  • ★★★ To make money on YouTube, Ali says, a creator first joins the YouTube Partner Program, which now needs at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of total watch time; once approved, they can turn on ads. — 00:00:29 · YouTube

00:00:37 — Logistics: the YouTube Partner Program, ads, and his first year before and after monetising

  • ★★ YouTube sells the ad slots on creators' videos to advertisers through its Google Ads program, so advertisers pay to show their ads on different types of content. — 00:00:58 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali started his YouTube channel around June 2017 and made 77 videos before he turned on monetization. — 00:00:58 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali waited to monetise because making five or ten dollars a month was not worth annoying his audience with ads; at $500 a month it would be worth it. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ From June 2017 to April 2018, before monetising, Ali's channel had 340,000 views and 8,300 subscribers and made £1.96 in total. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ In the six months after turning on monetization, April to September 2018, Ali made £6,106.42 from YouTube. — 00:02:05 · YouTube
  • ★★★ Ali says three factors decide how much a creator earns on YouTube, and the most important of them is watch time. — 00:02:05 · YouTube
  • ★★ Watch time matters for revenue, Ali says, because the longer people watch a creator's videos, the more chances they have to see ads. — 00:02:05

00:02:18 — Watch time: retention graphs, the desk setup and iPad videos, mid-roll ads above 10 and now 8 minutes

  • ★★ Nobody knows exactly how the YouTube algorithm works, Ali says, but YouTube's creator team has hinted that much of it rests on watch time: videos that keep people watching and on YouTube longer get recommended more. — 00:02:35 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali's audience retention graphs show that only about one in four or one in five viewers watch his videos to the end, with a significant drop right at the start. (hedged) — 00:03:04
  • ★★ Ali's video How I Type Really Fast went viral, so many of its viewers do not know him and are not subscribed, which is why its retention graphs look abysmal despite its many views. — 00:03:33
  • ★★★ Ali's desk setup video made about £1,700 from 1.4 million views and 75,000 hours of watch time, while his Which iPad Should You Buy video made £2,246 from 1.3 million views and 124,000 hours: more money from fewer views. — 00:04:02
  • ★★ A few years ago YouTube allowed mid-roll ads only on videos over 10 minutes long, so many YouTubers artificially stretched their videos past 10 minutes. — 00:04:31 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali's YouTuber friend and colleague Shelby Church broke down her YouTube earnings and found that her videos over 10 minutes earn over three times as much revenue as those under 10 minutes. — 00:04:31 · YouTube
  • ★★ In the last couple of months, Ali says, YouTube changed the rule so that a video now only needs to be eight minutes long to carry mid-roll ads. — 00:05:21 · YouTube
  • ★★ After YouTube lowered the mid-roll threshold, Ali expects creators to be less keen to stretch videos past 10 minutes and more keen to stretch them past eight. (hedged) — 00:05:21 · YouTube
  • ★★★ The second factor in a creator's earnings, Ali says, is the type of content, which sets the CPM (cost per mille): mostly what advertisers are willing to pay to target that kind of video. — 00:05:21

00:05:40 — CPM: advertisers' rates by topic, YouTube's cut and RPM

  • ★★ Advertisers on a video about fantasy books, such as book publishers, probably have little money, Ali says, while those on finance, real estate or credit card videos have loads to burn, so those videos get higher CPMs. (hedged) — 00:05:51
  • ★★★ For most YouTubers the CPM is around $3 to $7 per 1,000 views, Ali says, but the right video topic can push it to about $30 or $40; most of his own videos are in the £3 to £7 range. — 00:06:20
  • ★★ Shelby Church's video on making money with Amazon's Fulfilled by Amazon program, a prime target for advertisers selling money-making courses, had a playback-based CPM of $35.60, more than 10 times what she would make on another topic. — 00:06:20 · Amazon
  • ★★ The CPM does not all go to the creator, Ali says: YouTube tends to take a 45% cut, and from a $10 CPM a creator gets only $6.50. — 00:06:49 · YouTube
    • a number in question (doubtful): "$6.50" — check against the recording
  • ★★ YouTube recently introduced a metric called RPM (revenue per mille), which Ali says is a more accurate idea of what the creator takes home. — 00:06:49 · YouTube
  • ★★★ The third major factor in what creators make, Ali says, is sponsors: in a sponsored video the creator makes a spiel for the sponsor at some point. — 00:07:18

00:07:27 — Sponsors: an example sponsor read for Brilliant

  • ★★ Most sponsor contracts forbid saying how much the sponsor pays, so Ali cannot say what Brilliant paid him for the sponsored plug in this video. — 00:08:17 · Brilliant

00:08:30 — Sponsors: contracts and the sums paid per sponsored video

  • ★★ Casey Neistat, Ali says, makes between $10,000 and over $100,000 per sponsored video, by his own account. — 00:08:46
  • ★★ A lot of huge YouTubers, Ali says, make more than $100,000 per sponsored video. — 00:08:46
  • ★★ Ali made basically nothing from YouTube until he turned on monetization on 17 April 2018. (hedged) — 00:09:15 · YouTube

00:09:18 — Inside his YouTube Studio: lifetime revenue from 2017 to August 2020 and the last 28 days

  • ★★ After monetising, nine months and 77 videos into YouTube, Ali made between £5 and £15 a day from ads, which felt like winning at life because it paid for a takeaway every day. — 00:09:45 · YouTube
  • ★★★ In June 2018 Ali posted his video on taking notes on his iPad at medical school, and his daily YouTube revenue jumped from about £5 to sometimes £40 to £60 a day. — 00:10:10 · YouTube
  • ★★ Making about £50 a day, around £1,500 a month, from YouTube in mid-2018 felt like cheating to Ali: real money, not a few pennies. — 00:10:39 · YouTube
  • ★★ For about 12 months after mid-2018 Ali's ad revenue hovered at a few dozen pounds a day; through 2019 it rose, with some days over £100. — 00:10:39
  • ★★★ Ali's YouTube revenue has risen exponentially over the last six months, since the COVID-19 lockdown started. — 00:11:19 · COVID-19, YouTube
  • ★★ Ali says the lockdown was good for his YouTube channel because suddenly many more people were sitting down to watch videos. — 00:11:19 · COVID-19, YouTube
  • ★★ Ali's YouTube ad revenue reached £578 on Friday 3 July 2020 and £711.11 on Sunday 23 August 2020. — 00:11:19 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali's YouTube revenue grew slowly and steadily and then suddenly, only in the last six months, which he likens to a video game character who starts at level one and reaches the end game. — 00:11:48 · YouTube
  • ★★★ Ali's estimated YouTube revenue was £11,618 in the last 28 days and about £90,000 over the channel's three-year lifetime, so the last month made up about 10 to 12% of it. — 00:12:18 · YouTube
  • ★★ Ali's CPM over the last 28 days is £5.50 but his RPM only £1.68, because many viewers use ad blockers, YouTube takes a cut and other factors. — 00:12:47 · YouTube
  • ★★★ Ali's junior doctor salary was about £3,000 a month before tax; his pre-tax YouTube ad revenue of the last 28 days is three and a bit times that. — 00:12:47 · YouTube

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Asked how YouTube pays creators when Premium subscribers see no ads, Ali says creators get a proportion of the viewer's Premium subscription fee. — creator comment · YouTube
  • ★ Asked whether watching his videos at 2x speed affects watch time, Ali thinks 2x speed may hurt watch time. (hedged) — creator comment
  • ★★ Asked whether YouTube takes 45% of the £11,618 he made in the last 28 days, Ali says that figure is what he himself is making. — creator comment · YouTube
  • ★★ Answering a viewer who did not subscribe for videos on how much he makes, Ali says his previous video on his income inspired more than 20 people to start YouTube channels and Skillshare classes, judging by their messages. — creator comment · YouTube
  • ★★ Asked whether making money from blogs is worth the time, Ali says he is working on it. — creator comment
  • ★ Asked about a South Africa poster in his room, Ali says he lived in Lesotho for five years when he was younger. — creator comment
  • ★ Ali Abdaal (channel): Asked where his YouTube gold play button is, the channel says it has not arrived yet. — creator comment · YouTube

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: CPM · watch time · YouTube · YouTube Partner Program

Also: People: Casey Neistat · Shelby Church

Organizations: Amazon · Brilliant

Concepts: audience retention · COVID-19 · mid-roll ads · RPM

Products: Google Ads · YouTube Studio

Only in the description or credits: Lesotho · YouTube Premium

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