If you’ve just joined the league of YouTube creators and are wondering just how many subscribers you need to gain before becoming a YouTube millionaire, you’re not alone.

Many people who join YouTube to earn some passive income usually find themselves checking Google to learn how soon they’ll start to earn money from their YouTube channels. While your subscriber count doesn’t directly impact your YouTube income, it, however, is a very useful resource that influences how people interact with your channel.

Again, there are many other lucrative tactics that can earn you money on your channels. Whatever your monetization preferences may be, this article will show YouTube creators just how well YouTube can generate revenue and keep you earning money as your channel grows.

To make money on YouTube, one of the first steps is to join the YouTube Partner Program. However, there are certain criteria that you have to fulfill to be qualified to join YouTube’s Partner Program. One of them is that you need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year to be able to monetize your channel.

So, to start making money on YouTube, you need to have gained at least 1,000 subscribers. But it’s important to note that at this point, you may not earn enough to quit your regular job. You’ll need more subscribers to be able to generate more views and ad engagement which then translates to income. But, don’t be disappoint with these numbers if you just started your creating content for your channel, because there is always some ways to fix this, mine is to get quality YouTube subscribers to be rich, just saying!

In the coming sections of this article, we’ll explain other monetization methods you can use for your YouTube channel, and how exactly you can make money on YouTube via Google Adsense.

Just How Much Money Can You Make on YouTube?

It’s not possible to give a direct answer to this question because many factors determine how much you can earn as a YouTuber. Your subscriber count can give you a rough estimate of how much your channel engagement can earn you in terms of ad revenue, since the more subscribers you have, the more people you can show YouTube ads to.

But your real earnings on the YouTube Partner program come from the watch time and the number of views on your YouTube videos, and a few other factors like subscriptions to your channel and YouTube Premium.

Nevertheless, sometimes, you’ll find that the number of subscribers you have doesn’t often correspond with how many YouTube views your video has. The length of time people spend watching your videos also matters because it’s been observed that successful YouTubers typically receive higher ad revenue from Google Adsense when viewers watch their videos for up to 10 minutes or more. So, uploading longer videos may improve how much YouTube pays.

Let’s take a closer look at how much this successful YouTube channel makes on YouTube. The YouTube account is Ali Abdaal, a YouTuber who makes educational content and has over 3 million subscribers.

His most earnings come from his viral video “9 Passive Income Ideas” which was roughly 30 minutes long and gained him 9.8 million views with over 1.1 million watch hours. This one video earned him $191,258.16. However, another of his videos, “How I Type Really Fast“, with 8.2 million views and 487,000 watch hours only generated $25,143.17 in advertising revenue.

Despite the views count on both videos being almost similar, the earnings from the videos are vastly different. This just goes to show how difficult it may be to predict what your YouTube channel or a specific YouTube video can bring you in terms of ad revenue or earning money full-time. Multiple videos over time can bring you more income than waiting to have huge earnings from a single video that blows up.

How Do YouTubers Generate Income on YouTube?

If it’s almost impossible to predict how much you’d earn on YouTube based on how many YouTube subscribers you have, how then do other YouTubers make money on the platform?

Having a linked AdSense account to your YouTube channel is just one revenue stream out of the many available to you. Via the YouTube Partner Program, advertisers pay you for the different ads they serve in your videos, whether pre-roll or mid-roll ads. When viewers watch and click ads in your videos, YouTube pays money into your Adsense account which you can withdraw at the end of a month.

The more videos you have out there, the higher your earning potential is if you have met the YouTube Partner Program requirements (at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours.) But creating videos is not a guarantee that people will watch your videos, you must take steps to ensure they’re quality and consistent so that you can get the desired engagement and ad views that will boost your earnings.

You can make the YouTube algorithm work in your favor, and generate more income from a few other streams of revenue. These include sponsored videos, channel memberships, affiliate marketing, selling your merch, licensing your content, and much more.

We’ll discuss these revenue streams in-depth in the coming sections to help you make money fast on YouTube.

6 Other Revenue Streams for Generating Income on YouTube

There are many other monetization strategies that can help you to earn money on YouTube. Here are 6 of them to get your channel to become one of the YouTube success stories.

1. Try Affiliate Marketing

As an affiliate marketer, your job is to promote a brand’s product and refer people to buy it. When the company makes a sale from your referrals, you get a commission.

The best types of videos for an affiliate marketer are product tutorials, product reviews, and product round-up videos. If you do these types of videos right, you can earn a couple of thousand bucks monthly by including the affiliate link within your video description.

When you decide to start affiliate marketing on YouTube, a good practice is to disclose the partnerships in your videos. To get started, you can reach out to brands running affiliate programs like Amazon’s Affiliate network.

2. Generate Income Selling Digital Products

Instead of promoting a brand’s product and getting commissions, you can decide to sell your own merchandise. There are hundreds of things you can promote and sell on YouTube.

Depending on your preferred niche, you can decide to sell your own digital products like recipes or cookbooks, travel guides, repair manuals, nutrition plans, and many more. If you’d prefer physical products, coffee mugs, t-shirts, and hoodies are great options.

If you already have many subscribers, you need to study your audience to determine what will sell best considering their age range, location, gender, and interactions with your brand so far. Also, always include call-to-actions in your videos and add links to your online store in video descriptions.

3. Become a Brand Influencer

Influencer marketing has steadily gained momentum over the years, and brands are increasingly employing influencers to get more visibility.

An influencer is someone who has an engaged and loyal following. So when they advertise a brand, they are assured there will be positive outcomes in terms of acceptance of the brand’s products or services.

Making money on YouTube as an influencer is highly possible. According to WebFX, here’s a glimpse of how much YouTubers make on average from influencing;

• A YouTuber with 10,000 subscribers can get $200 per video
• A YouTuber with 100,000 subscribers can get $2,000 per video
• A YouTuber with 1,000,000 subscribers can get $20,000 per video

This translates to $20 per 1,000 subscribers, and of course, it can be a lot more. To succeed, ensure you only share sponsored videos from credible brands to avoid breaking the trust your subscribers have in you.

4. Try Fan Funding

Fan funding is also an effective way to generate revenue from your YouTube subscribers. If you offer valuable and quality content, you can easily motivate your audience to support you.

Two fan funding options on YouTube include:

• Channel Memberships

Channel memberships is a feature available to members of YouTube’s Partner Program, that allows members to charge a monthly fee for exclusive subscriber benefits to support their channel.

• Buy Me A Coffee

Buy Me A Coffee is another feature that most YouTubers use to encourage viewers to tip them in support of their channel. Even though it reads “Buy Me A Coffee,” people are actually donating money. It can be a one-time or recurring contribution, depending on the subscribers.

5. License and List Your Content

This option is a very lucrative way to make money on YouTube. Firstly, when you make a viral video on YouTube, you get so many views and more subscribers. If you activated ads, you could make some money that way. But it doesn’t end there.

You can easily license your viral videos in exchange for money or list them in marketplaces, like Trusted Media Brands, where they can be easily found and bought. As long as the video has mass appeal, you’ll be surprised at how much you can earn from doing this.

6. Set Up Channel Memberships

YouTube created the memberships feature to help creators provide exclusive content for their beloved fans and target audience. If you need to make money from other monetization strategies asides from ad revenue, you can include the memberships plan so your subscribers can sign up for the latest content not available to every other subscriber.

Offer them incentives, freebies, and new videos that have never before been seen by other subscribers to encourage them to pay for your content.

Making the Best of YouTube’s Partner Program — Tips for YouTube Success

If you’ve successfully amassed the required number of subscribers you need to join YouTube’s Partner Program, there are a few more steps to take to help you earn more from a video ad. The key is to increase the number of views your video receives. This is how to achieve this:

1. Boost Your Watch Time Hours

As a newbie creator, create new videos consistently to encourage more viewers to check out your channel. With more content to watch, you’ll be able to get your views metrics up and your watch time will also increase. Including video cards in your videos to promote other existing videos on your channel also helps.

2. Don’t Prioritize Quantity over Excellence

As much as you want to get your watch time and views up, it’s essential to create videos that maintain excellence and quality in video creation that compels people to watch. No matter how many videos you create, you’ll have only a few views if viewers realize that your content is subpar. YouTubers like Marques Brownlee and Joma Tech are able to keep their target audience coming back because of the quality and effort they put into their videos.

3. Include a Call to Action

Don’t take the “Subscribe now” and “Turn on notifications” calls-to-action for granted, because they work. If you’re focused on how many subscribers you need to grow your channel, here’s a free hack for you. Remind them to subscribe and turn on notifications so they get a trigger to watch a new video when it’s up.

4. Do Collabs With Other YouTubers

Everyone loves a good collab, check out Mr. Beast and PewDiePie’s collabs for instance. Collabs help both accounts increase their watch time because subscribers from each of the channels engage with the videos which ultimately boosts views.

5. Boost Your Posts on Other Channels

If you don’t already do so, you need to start promoting short clips of your content on other social media platforms where you have a good following, such as Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok. Encourage your followers to click the links to your YouTube content to watch the rest of the teasers.

More Tips for YouTube Success — Track Your YouTube Metrics

Tracking and analyzing your YouTube channel’s metrics is one of the most effective ways to determine your videos’ success. YouTube metrics provide insights into the performance of your video and how likely you are to increase your YouTube earnings through ads or other monetization methods.

Views, in particular, are an important metric because the amount of money you make is directly linked to your views count. Now here’s the tricky part; two YouTube channels with an equal number of video views may not get the same payout. Your revenue per 1000 views (RPM) determines how much you get, and it may differ from one niche to another.

Furthermore, there are three key ratios related to views that can help you track your YouTube channel’s performance. These include:

1. Comments-to-Views Ratio

The comments-to-views ratio is an important metric to track your video engagement. This is important because the more engagement you get, the more ad views you’re likely to get as well. In turn, you make more money. A good comments-to-views ratio is 0.5%. So, for every 1000 views, a successful comment count should be a minimum of 5.

2. Likes-to-Views Ratios

Likes-to-views ratio is an indicator of how popular your videos are. It’s very easy for viewers to like your videos. But they’ll do this if they find your content valuable and unique. This will tell you the type of content your audience likes to see. An average likes-to-views ratio is 4%, which is 40 likes for every 1000 views.

3. Subscribers-to-Views Ratio

The subscribers-to-views ratio indicates the fraction of your subscribers that watch your videos. The average subscribers-to-views ratio is 14%. Although, you can get less than the average ratio, and still make a lot of money. Even though your subscriber count has an impact on your video views, the content of your video and your audience also plays a role.

FAQS About Making Money on Your YouTube Channel

1. How Much Do Top YouTube Earners Make?

Top YouTube money-makers, like Justin Bieber and Jeffree Star, have made over $200 million from YouTube as of 2022. The very popular Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson) earns about $74k to $1.2 million per month. Others like Stevin John, Felix Kjellberg, Logan Paul, and Mark Fischbach have earned between $35 to $40 million on YouTube in the past year.

2. Where to Get the Best Ideas for YouTube Videos?

YouTube auto-features can give you some of the best ideas for your next content. It’s free and intuitive. You can also use tools like BuzzSumo and SemRush to get ideas.

3. How Can I Rank Higher on YouTube?

To rank higher on YouTube, you must focus on search engine optimization. This includes understanding your target audience, studying their search habits, interacting with viewers via comments, using relevant keywords, and optimizing your videos.

4. Can I Make Good Money Via The YouTube Partner Program?

After YouTube deducts its 45% cut, most partners make $0.30 to $2.50 CPM. Although, some big YouTubers make up to $10 CPM. Note that your content and location have an impact on how much you can earn.

5. How Many YouTube Views Earn Me $1000?

On average, $2 equates to 1,000 video views (CPM). So, you’ll need around half a million views to make $1000 in Adsense revenue. Keep in mind, though, that CPM varies.

6. How Much Does a YouTuber with 1 Million Subscribers Make?

A YouTuber with 1 million subscribers can make between $10,000 and $100,000 monthly. This figure depends, to a significant extent, on the content of their posts and their frequency of posting, not just the number of subscribers they have.