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How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

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Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#41

Post by CM30 »

sebazzz wrote: post #16
hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #7

I started a YouTube channel at the end of 2017 and published on YouTube on a regular basis for a bit over a year. My best year was about $1,500. I've made $4,600 since I started the channel. At the channel's peak, I was trying to publish a DIY video where I would build something two or three times a month. I started the channel because I enjoy making stuff and thought I would be able to do more of it and maybe get pa…

> Making videos taking time away from actually making stuff and making the projects take 10X longer. So I stopped. Isn't that why a lot of YouTubers (or content creators, whatever the name is), hire a videographer to do that work for them?

They do, but you need a large following and a decent amount of money for this to be affordable in the first place. I paid someone I know to edit some of my videos for a while, and even at a fairly low price, I would end up spending as much money on the editing as the video paid out to begin with. Same with thumbnails, a lot of big creators get someone else to make them, but the prices there are quite steep too. I used the same thumbnail designer as a few of my favourite 100K subs YouTubers, and it was like $200-300 a thumbnail.

So it's probably like, $1-2K per video if you want someone else to take care of the editing and thumbnail design aspects. Hence you'll likely have to do this stuff yourself for the few hundred thousand or so subs, at least if you don't have FAANG/trust fund money on the side.

Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#42

Post by amelius »

Ekaros wrote: post #30
amelius wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's idiotic about this market is that you can't set your own price.

How would you set your own price? Just not showing content when there isn't enough adds available surely would drive away watchers. And the advertisers are already bidding. Certain types of content get higher pay.

Imagine you are inside a store that has magazines. The magazines are all free, because they are filled with lots of advertisements. Then someone says "It's crazy that these magazines can't set their own prices". And someone else says "How would you do that, nobody would pick up the magazines".

Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#43

Post by vasco »

evrimoztamur wrote: post #13

I checked his YouTube account to see the kind of content he was producing and honestly, not really impressed. None of these have educational value per se and look (at a thumbnail glance) like opinion vlogs. For someone who's making a full-time living out of this sort of work, I suggest checking out https://fasterthanli.me/ who writes long-form technical articles on Rust, and provides similarly educational and enjoyab…

I don't think getting into producing educational content is a viable strategy if someone is starting now and their goal is to have a good living. Specially on youtube where you also have to give away some of your privacy to the internet.

Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#44

Post by nicksiscoe »

This is entirely anecdotal, but reading the comments here it feels like compensation for the bottom 50% of creators has gone down in the last 5-ish years

I ran a Minecraft YouTube channel in high school in 2014 (I thought I was too late to get big on YouTube and shut it down in 2016!) and made $500 a month with 2,500 subscribers. I happened to have one video that got a few hundred thousand views, which helped

Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#45

Post by mwidell »

nicksiscoe wrote: post #44

This is entirely anecdotal, but reading the comments here it feels like compensation for the bottom 50% of creators has gone down in the last 5-ish years I ran a Minecraft YouTube channel in high school in 2014 (I thought I was too late to get big on YouTube and shut it down in 2016!) and made $500 a month with 2,500 subscribers. I happened to have one video that got a few hundred thousand views, which helped

Yes, the event where everything went to shit is called the Adpocalypse: https://youtube.fandom.com/wiki/YouTube_Adpocalypse

Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#46

Post by bryanrasmussen »

andai wrote: post #5

How does half of $2K (over 2 years!) go to taxes? Doesn't that put you in the bracket where the government gives you money?

if you're in Denmark it would be easy to get to the point where half would go to taxes, also some countries can have different rates on what is your primary income and what is income earned from secondary sources that are taxed higher. However in the case of having a business that is generating taxable revenue you are probably also buying things at times you can deduct, so it's probably not as dire as all that - although depending on how things are you might not want to deduct more than you actually earn from your secondary source of income.

Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#47

Post by Ekaros »

amelius wrote: post #42
Ekaros wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would you set your own price? Just not showing content when there isn't enough adds available surely would drive away watchers. And the advertisers are already bidding. Certain types of content get higher pay.

Imagine you are inside a store that has magazines. The magazines are all free, because they are filled with lots of advertisements. Then someone says "It's crazy that these magazines can't set their own prices". And someone else says "How would you do that, nobody would pick up the magazines".

The magazine might be free. But it might set the prices for adds so high that it don't get filled. Or actually make money. And some VC keeps throwing money at it as surely at some point they will corner the market and make money.

And the video makers and article writers can already contact advertisers and ask for whatever price they want.

Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#49

Post by zamnos »

vasco wrote: post #43
evrimoztamur wrote: post #13

I checked his YouTube account to see the kind of content he was producing and honestly, not really impressed. None of these have educational value per se and look (at a thumbnail glance) like opinion vlogs. For someone who's making a full-time living out of this sort of work, I suggest checking out https://fasterthanli.me/ who writes long-form technical articles on Rust, and provides similarly educational and enjoyab…

I don't think getting into producing educational content is a viable strategy if someone is starting now and their goal is to have a good living. Specially on youtube where you also have to give away some of your privacy to the internet.

For recorded media (ie not streaming on Twitch) you control what you upload, so there's very little exposure you don't want, other than giving your details to YouTube so they can pay you. If that's too much exposure for you then becoming a YouTube star may not be for you.

Eg What do the people that run Kurzgesagt look like? I have no idea, because almost all their content is animated. Other YouTube stars choose to share some things, like what they look like, but most don't give away enough serial to be stalked, and with good reason!

If you get to Mr. Beast level of recognizability, then you have a whole slew of other problems, but you're not gonna get there, so I wouldn't worry about those problems just yet.

Re: How much can you earn creating content on Youtube?

#50

Post by _davebennett »

hahamrfunnyguy wrote: post #7

I started a YouTube channel at the end of 2017 and published on YouTube on a regular basis for a bit over a year. My best year was about $1,500. I've made $4,600 since I started the channel. At the channel's peak, I was trying to publish a DIY video where I would build something two or three times a month. I started the channel because I enjoy making stuff and thought I would be able to do more of it and maybe get pa…

I think DIY content is so hard to make. For me, it usually involves building stuff that I find interesting, but that is usually super niche and doesn’t appeal to a mainstream audience. Thus, less views which makes the whole time spent on making the video feel wasted compared to other projects I could be doing.

On the other hand, I could try to build projects that might be more mainstream for the better views, but then I’m spending time creating stuff I don’t want to make.

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