How much $ do y’all make from your YouTube channels?

stuart in mn said:

docwyte said:

Interesting that that woodworker makes more money from click thru affliations (Amazon product links) than the actual YouTube ads.  He sure did well in 2020, 6 figure income is a pretty awesome "side hustle", although at the end of the video he did pretty say that to keep it up it's a second job.  So maybe not so much of a side hustle anymore, but if you're getting 6 figures from it, it's worth the effort.

The point is, it's a lot of work to make that much.

Alex from LegitStreetCars mentioned that for a long time, he had his regular job and then another full-time job doing YouTube until he earned enough from YouTube, merch and affiliate links to replace the income from his day job.

There is a reason that there is a high burnout rate for people who don't just treat YouTube as a hobby.

This is a cool thread. I just started a channel and am definitely doing it for the hobby aspect of it. But still, I would like to grow it in a modest way and eventually monetize it for monthly beer money.

For those of you that have monetized your channels, do you have any tips or tricks for increasing the number of subscribers and views?

Not as much as from Only Fans...

FatMongo said:

This is a cool thread. I just started a channel and am definitely doing it for the hobby aspect of it. But still, I would like to grow it in a modest way and eventually monetize it for monthly beer money.

For those of you that have monetized your channels, do you have any tips or tricks for increasing the number of subscribers and views?

Get into a routine if you can. Are you posting weekly, twice a month, once a month? Promote your channel and each video wherever you can, Facebook/Twitter/Instagram are all useful. Ask your friends to subscribe. I did a Facebook post on my birthday last year that was "all I want this year is for you to subscribe, and it's free" and that got us past the magic 1k mark in a matter of 45 minutes. 

The views will come. Don't do clickbait-y titles but play around with what format works for more clicks. 

Remember that you don't have to be perfect. I have built my entire channel with an iPhone, GoPro, and iMovie. Have decent-to-good lighting and great sound. People will complain if they can't hear you, assuming you are talking. Past that, it's fine if things are a little rough around the edges.

Adjacent to YT money: I have a small side business making pottery, complete with an Instagram account with very few followers. Like 300-ish? After a few Reels getting 7k+ views, they invited me to join the monetization program and sent me $100. I suspect it's a bait and switch sort of thing and won't see any significant monies anytime soon...but still happy to get a Benjamin for effectively nothing. 

Good info here. I'm with most, which is to say, I hate video editing. 

Youtube Channel is at 79 subscribers so far. I only have one "good" video, that is almost 2 years old, but apparently it's somewhat interesting because it has gotten 10k views and in the hundreds of watch time hours, which is kinda shocking to me. Channel link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoBgD_Y1BzFvkUeMIyGLl3g

Now, since I hate editing so much I have been posting on TikTok for I think around a year now. The short format makes it so I can just put some clips together with music, or just talk for a minute showing the current update, etc, etc. Certainly more effort and editing could be done, but it's much easier to make content there for me at least. I'm currently at 508 followers there, which is awesome. The algorithm is very interesting on TikTok though. Most of my more recent videos have had less than 500 views, but then I have one video that got 118k views, one at 40k, and one at 16k, on some of the most random videos too. 

@goofballsracing on TikTok

As for TikTok monetization, I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but I think you have to have 10k followers and so much watch time before you can make any money. 

I've heard a lot that a good approach to affiliate marketing can go a long way to helping bring in money, but I haven't had the patience/luck to get very far there. It helps to have an audience. 

EDIT:

I went and looked at my amazon associates page to see what my stuff was for 2021 and yeah, it's not much. Though technically I made a dollar just from reffering one person to one sale on a $36 item, so with more volume, it could be really good. 

Clicks: 67

Ordered Items: 9

Shipped Items:1

Returned Items: 0

Conversion: 13.43%

Shipped Items Revenue: $35.99

Total Earnings: $1.08

Just "made" my channel today! 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyozt3EJ-jbHvIucOU3dFPQ

1st video made, suffered through trying to figure out Lightworks. I think I have a lot left to learn.

I have a follow up. 

I have a 2nd channel for Warhammer 40K stuff (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY1lZ_4Q8FOEq5APVr4KbtA). It has 6-7 videos on it, and only 2 that are longer than a few minutes. Those 2 are in the 1,000's of views and increasing steadily as well as pulling in subscribers. It is easily outperforming my decade-plus old main car channel with 1660 subscribers. If I put 1/10th the effort into that channel that I do the car one, I would probably have a decent side income from it.

Editing does suck. I have been using Shot Cut and am starting to get better at it. Here is the most polished video I've been able to produce since I started my channel:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=G0QNjq76MnM

In reply to FatMongo :

Nice channel intro video! You should pin that on your channel page. The videos that do the best will likely be a single task how to. I liked your head pull video, but maybe trim it down a little. The algorithm likes videos like drag racers like numbers, in the 9's. (9 minutes, 19 minutes, etc) Digging it so far!

Javelin said:

In reply to FatMongo :

Nice channel intro video! You should pin that on your channel page. The videos that do the best will likely be a single task how to. I liked your head pull video, but maybe trim it down a little. The algorithm likes videos like drag racers like numbers, in the 9's. (9 minutes, 19 minutes, etc) Digging it so far!

Appreciate the input. You being a fellow Audi phile can relate to what some of my videos are about.

The one tool video Ive done has gotten hundreds of views so far so it does seem the formula for a good video is short, informative, and easy to follow.

Giving away a cool tool on my channel to get some subscribers...

Take a peek, subscribe, and comment if you would like to win!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa3tfui449E

Are you guys getting good hits on giveaways?

I don't promote my channel on any forums or social media channels; it's cheesy to me. I've had companies reach out to me asking if I'd do a video for a giveaway, but I've turned them down as I'll get an average of 0.5 comments per video. Seems pointless to have a company ship out product when my engagement is so low. How are you guys getting organic engagement?

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good mic to use?  I'm going to start a channel that'll be all screen captures from CAM software, but I'd like to do a good sounding voice over. 

Thanks!

So at 149 subscribers I am not eligible for money making, and I must be in the minority because I actually enjoy editing...

I have found my 'videos to music' seem to do worlds better than any videos I make that involve me talking or doing something, tho I think the demographic of wanting to see someone work on a modified Intrepid is very small until I can get it onto an actual track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYQE-5hqFis 

A more recent 'video to music' from this past summer. Everything is recorded on a GoPro Hero3 or Hero4 with an external microphone (lapel style) and edited in Adobe Premiere 11

Making money on YouTube does seem to be tricky. As well as quite variable to the point where it's hard to predict. I have some interest in doing it, so I have made note of a few creators I follow and how they manage to make a living at it.  A lot of the smaller channels (say, under 100K subs, but sometimes a lot more) have video sponsors.  Many are on Patreon.

One video creator I follow said they actually make quite a bit more money on monetized Facebook (and Instagram, I guess) video shorts (about 1 min) than they do from YouTube videos adsense.

Burnout among creators is real. At least until they get into a groove, maybe, or get big enough where they can hire an outside editor.

Only slightly less than my spotify artist money, so $0.

https://www.youtube.com/teamziptie

In reply to ddavidv :

Share a link and I will join.  Maybe someday I will be motivated enough to do this.

The FM YT channel has enough reach now that there are some people who don't realize we're a performance shop :) It's now pulling in about $700/mo, which is a nice bonus for something we use as a promotional and branding tool. We have about 44k subscribers.

Most of the income comes from a fairly deep catalog. We've been posting at least one video a week for what, five years? Our three most popular videos in the last month made $23-$26 each. 

The load on our marketing guy is enough that we're hiring a video guy to handle the big video projects like install videos. The live weekly videos are still the bulk of our content and earnings and are also the lowest effort. But the install videos are inportant for other reasons, they just wouldn't be worthwhile without the product sales they support. 

I'm well below monetization, but man what does well feels so random sometimes. I try and get new uploads kickstarted on socials and forums where I know there is organic interest. However all the real view are when it get picked up in the browse function. I had one short do 15k views in a day and then nothing. I'm not in it for the money though. Still its nice to see some engagement on occasion. I should do some install videos, etc. I know that will get a lot more traction than just track videos. The level of planning and effort are just a little much.

My kids said I should have monetized, but I didn't.  I have around 2k subscribers.  One video has over 250k views and another around 100k, but most get 10-15k.  I have no idea what that would be in dollars.  I haven't uploaded in a while.  The work:return ratio hasn't made YouTube a priority.

I'm at a big Miata event this weekend talking to Miata owners nonstop. Every single person who has come up to talk to me has thanked me for our videos. Every. Single. One. The use of the YT channel as an overall promotional tool is working.

I also did a tech talk on forced induction development and we live-streamed it. More content for the library...

porschenut said:

In reply to ddavidv :

Share a link and I will join.  Maybe someday I will be motivated enough to do this.

https://www.youtube.com/@mongrelmotorsports

The older ones aren't...great. I make all of mine using just a cell phone and Video Editor software. There are a couple instances where I've used a GoPro but mine is unreliable for recording sound. I usually only use it for helmet cam stuff.

I make $100-$200 per month. I don't do it for the money, but it's a nice bonus income to pay for some car parts. If someone gets some knowledge or entertainment out of it, yay for everyone. As I think I said previously, mine is not a how-to channel; it's a sharing what I have done channel.

Has anyone studied what day of the week and time of day pull in the most viewers for live streams?

I don't have enough people yet to actually monetize my channel (<500 subscribers), however, but I've gotten two (hopefully the third soon!) POs for 3-5 day training sessions out of mine from people I otherwise would not have reached, so, around $12,000 this year?

All I do with my channel is when I see an interesting part or program that someone is having trouble on either Mastercam forums or CNC/Mastercam facebook groups I make a video describing how to do that part.

My highest views (~1.5k) are on conversational videos where I offer the original poster a ~30 minute free session where I teach them how to do X.

Also, "how to use/do" for my 1998 Fanuc Robodrill (CNC) videos seem to do well as they're out there longer.