Always wondered how much you earn from YouTube? There are a lot of differences between YouTubers’ sources of income, since besides ads, you have a lot of other ways to make money with YouTube. In this blog, we’ll tell you how much money you make with YouTube ads on regular videos and shorts, affiliate marketing and sponsorship deals.
How much do you earn from YouTube videos?
How much you earn from YouTube videos themselves depends on several factors, with the type of video (normal or short), the number of views and the niche you are in determining a lot. And YouTube itself is still holding back some too. In this way, your channel can earn 2 euros per 1000 views, but also at least 20 euros. Let’s take a closer look at this.
The YouTube partner program
Let’s start with the fact that in the beginning YouTube videos don’t earn you anything at all. In fact, you must first sign the channel up for the YouTube partner program before you can put ads on your own videos.
To apply for the YouTube partner program, the channel must have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 viewers, and meet the platform’s community guidelines. This can take quite a while, but with the tips we wrote about in an earlier blog, I’m sure it should be fine. Did you get this? Then you can sign up for the YouTube partner program for free. This request takes about 4 business days, after which you can officially make money with your videos.
Once you are approved, you have the ability to place ads on your videos. This can be done both for the new videos, and videos already uploaded to the channel. Please note, YouTube reviews each video individually, does a video not match their guidelines? Then you can’t post ads on there.
How many ads you place is up to you. This is already the first factor that determines how much you earn from YouTube. For example, you can choose to place an ad just at the beginning or throughout the video. Do you do the latter, and does anyone watch the video? Then you earn more than someone who placed only 1 ad at the beginning. There is, however, a risk in the amount of ads you place. The more you post, the sooner a viewer clicks away from your video.
This affects not only your watch time, but also how often the YouTube algorithm shares your video. So make sure that the number of ads in your video are well distributed so that you keep the viewer’s attention for as long as possible.
The niche of your channel
The second factor that determines how much you earn with YouTube videos is the niche (the main topic) of your channel. Video advertisers get to decide which category to place their ad in, with some niches having more money left over than others.
For example, you can imagine that videos in the financial niche (think insurance advice) get a much higher ad budget than videos that are about fashion. This is because the profit an insurance company makes when a viewer clicks on their ad and decides to buy something is higher than someone buying a scarf from Zalando.
This is the top 10 best paid ad keywords:
- Insurance
- Loans
- Sale of houses
- Casino
- Credit Card
- Advocacy
- E-commerce
- SEO
- Online businesses
- Crypto
Does a keyword from above fit within your niche and videos? Then you are more likely to get a higher amount per 1,000 views. Of course, as a channel, you can’t control which company wants to place an ad on your account, but you can certainly control it by picking a good niche.
On the other hand, don’t be blinded by this list; there are more factors involved in picking a niche than just the amount of money per 1,000 views.
- Is there a lot of competition: if so, it will be much harder to get a lot of views.
- If you find the niche itself interesting: you are going to engage in this channel for quite a while, then it is helpful if you are interested in it.
- Is it easy to create content on this topic: are there many interesting topics within the niche to make videos about?
Research your niche thoroughly and make an informed decision. Stepping into a niche too quickly without any research can make your YouTube adventure very difficult.
The number of views on your video
How much do you earn with YouTube per view on a video? This is different for everyone, as it depends on your CPM. It does not consider 1 view, but 1,000 views.
Once your channel has been accepted into the YouTube partner program, you can see what your CPM is in the Creator Studio. The CPM is a statistic that shows how much money advertisers spend to show ads on YouTube. You see a number of different CPM data in the Creator Studio:
- CPM: The cost an advertiser pays for 1,000 ad impressions. Each time an ad is displayed, it counts as a display of an ad.
- Display-based CPM: the cost an advertiser pays for 1,000 video views where an ad is displayed.
Want a rough estimate? The average CPM on YouTube is between €2.21 and €9.35. This is based on a number of surveys of real income from multiple YouTubers from different countries.
Your CPM can go up and down during the year, so it is not always consistent. This is for a few different reasons:
- Time of year: in the winter months, more people watch YouTube and advertisers are willing to offer more money.
- The geographic region of viewers: are your viewers from countries with high wealth? Then advertisers are willing to bid more on this than countries with low wealth.
- Different ads: for an ad that cannot be skipped, you earn more than a 4-second ad that can be skipped.
As you can see, it is difficult to determine in advance how much you will earn from YouTube. There are so many factors involved! You can always research which channel has started recently, look at the number of views they are getting and calculate with the average CPM.
Share of profits to YouTube
In the end, you also have to cede some of your ad revenue to YouTube. Google Adsense (Google’s parent company) ultimately gives you as a content creator “only” 55% of ad revenue.
This also applies to YouTube shorts; of the portion that YouTube brings in for ads with your shorts, another 55% or so goes off. So in either case, don’t count yourself rich just yet.
YouTube subscribers
Advertising fees are not the only way to make money with your YouTube videos. Also, as a YouTuber, you have the option of selling memberships or using a Superchat or Superstickers. You can make these as cheap or expensive as you like.
Memberships are often between 1 and 10 euros per month, giving viewers access to exclusive benefits such as additional videos and loyalty rewards. As a channel owner, you earn 70% of total memberships, the other 30% you have to cede to YouTube.
As you have read, both the number of ads, niche, views and subscribers play into how much money you can make with YouTube ads.
YouTube shorts
Starting Feb. 1, 2023, you can also make money with YouTube shorts ads. At the end of each month, YouTube looks at the total ad revenue from shorts in your country. Then they look at the number of views of each creator. For example, if you have 5% of all views in the Netherlands with your shorts, then 5% of the shorts ad revenue is calculated.
This does not mean that you can have this 5% paid out. You will receive 45% on the final amount, with the remaining 65% going to YouTube itself.
Other methods of making money with YouTube
Advertising revenue is not the only way to make money from YouTube, you can also make a nice monthly salary from affiliate marketing and sponsorship deals.
Affiliate marketing
In affiliate marketing, you promote a company or a product in a video without owning the brand. In doing so, you place a link in your description provided by the company. Every time one of your viewers clicks on this link and makes a purchase, you receive a commission on it.
The average commission at webshops such as bol.com, amazon.co.uk and coolblue is 5%. So should one of your viewers find your review of the Airfryer XL very interesting, and end up making the €150 purchase, you will thus receive €7.50 on this.
Sponsorships
Brands like to work with YouTubers to increase brand awareness, trust or, of course, for more sales. When your target audience matches the company’s target audience, and you have built up a nice number of followers, you have a chance to win great collaborations.
A short 30-second sponsorship deal can already add up to €500, you have to consider if you link an entire video to the brand.
All in all, enough information to research for yourself how much money you make from YouTube. As stated earlier, we cannot give an average for everyone since so many different factors come into play.
Want to know more about YouTube? Try our secret tools! Then check out this blog where we explain how to get more followers.
