How many subscribers and views to make money on youtube

If you’re thinking about starting a YouTube channel, there are definitely a lot of things for you to think about. One question you’re probably asking is, how many YouTube views do you need to make money? 

You will hear a lot that “it depends”. It does depend, but that doesn’t help you very much, so I thought I’ll give you some of the facts based on real channels and statistics. Here’s the short answer… 

Most channels earn between $4 and $15 per 1000 views and YouTube requires you to earn at least $100 before they pay you. That means that if you have a channel that makes $10 per 1000 views, it would require 10,000 views for you to get paid by YouTube once you’re in the YouTube Partner Program.

Per YouTube video view, the majority of YouTubers earn between $0.004 and $0.015 cents from YouTube Ads once they have joined the Partner Program.

In order to get paid for ads on your videos, you need to be accepted into the YouTube Partner Program.

Table of Contents

• How do you get accepted into the YouTube Partner Program?
  • Why having multiple videos is better than having one video go viral.
  • 4 Tips to get into the YouTube Partner Program Quicker:
• How many subscribers do you need on YouTube to start getting paid?
• How much does YouTube pay for 1 million views?
• How much does a YouTuber with 100k subscribers make?
• How much money do you make on YouTube with 1 million subscribers?
• How much do YouTubers make per year?
• How does YouTube send you money?
• Do YouTubers Get Paid If You Skip Ads?

How do you get accepted into the YouTube Partner Program?

The requirements for the YouTube Partner Program are:

• Follow all the YouTube monetization policies.
• Live in a country/region where the YouTube Partner Program is available.
• Have more than 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months.
• Have more than 1,000 subscribers.
• Have a linked AdSense account.

Usually, when you achieve 1,000 subscribers, this is also enough to actually get you accepted into the YouTube Partner Program as well.

This is because the 4,000 hours of watch time in 12 months can be achieved as you reach this target if your videos aren’t extremely short and if your viewers watch a good portion of your videos.

Here’s a breakdown of how manageable this is:

4,000 hrs = 240,000 mins. In order to achieve 240,000 minutes in a year, if your videos are on average 8 minutes in length and you have a retention rate (percentage of your video that is watched) of around 50%. That means on average each view is worth 4 minutes.

So you would need 60,000 views to gain monetization (if you also reach 1,000 subscribers).

This doesn’t have to be one video. If you have 30 videos with 2,000 views each on average (with 4 min average watch time) then that will also get you to 240,000 minutes.

Why having multiple videos is better than having one video go viral.

• You can build an audience around your channel already as your viewers will be able to see a lot more of you. 
• Your channel can grow at a faster rate, as YouTube will suggest your other videos to people who have watched your content. This increases the likelihood they subscribe.
• The more videos you have the more opportunities your channel has of being found by potential subscribers.
• The more videos you have the more context YouTube has on what your channel is about. And the more context YouTube has, it can more accurately recommend your videos to people who will be more likely to watch your videos.

4 Tips to get into the YouTube Partner Program Quicker:

• Make videos around a specific topic and upload them consistently. Find something you’re interested in and then make videos around only that topic.
• Make sure your videos provide your viewers with answers and not questions.
• Create as many videos as you can in the first 60 days. It’s not about quality, this is where you create and see what people are interested in and you improve rapidly by creating more videos. Aim for 30 videos.
• Gear doesn’t matter unless it’s actually a part of the content of your video. I.e. a guitarist probably needs a guitar.

How many subscribers do you need on YouTube to start getting paid?

Ok, so the partner program requirements are nice to see, but what does that actually mean for you and how many subscribers do you actually need to start getting paid.

The minimum is 1,000 subscribers as that is part of the requirements, but the number of subscribers doesn’t actually affect how much you get paid. How much you earn is based on the number of views you receive and your channel/video RPM (the revenue you earn per 1,000 views). 

In simple terms, your RPM is based on who watches your videos and what type of videos you make. If the majority of your audience is in a country like the US, where companies invest more in advertising than many other countries, your revenue will be higher than in a country like India for example. 

The same can be said for a genre like Gaming vs Real Estate. Gaming channels have far greater competition, meaning the advertisers can pick and choose who they use, whereas Real Estate has a far more targeted demographic (higher income in general) and there are fewer real estate channels than there are gaming channels, meaning the advertisers have to pay more to get a placement. 

That’s a very basic explanation, with many more factors, but it should give you an idea of why channels earn different amounts even if they receive the same number of views.

So now how many subscribers do you need to start getting paid? Let’s take $100 per month, if you want to earn $400 per month and you have a common RPM of $5, that means you need to get 80,000 views every month (($400/$5 = 80)*1000).

But, enough hypotheticals, let’s look at some examples and statistics of YouTubers that actually made between $100-$2000 from YouTube ads and how many views that took.

• Catherine Manning: 50,000 views = $390.88 ($7.82 RPM)
• Tommy Bryson: 50,800 views = $1511.05 ($29.75 RPM)
• Backstage Income: 55,600 views = $621.26 ($11.17 RPM)
• Kimbro: 50,000 views = $116.70 ($2.33 RPM)
• Scott Schafer: 26,200 views = $378.71 (14.45 RPM)

What we can see is that subscriber count doesn’t have an effect on how much you earn. Your subscriber count can help you achieve more views though.

If you have an engaged subscriber base, when they watch and engage with your video, YouTube will take that as a sign of it being a good video and may then suggest it to viewers with similar interests or rank it highly as it is very relevant to a search term you are targeting.

This is how channels with small subscriber counts can have videos that get 50k, 100k, and even millions of views.

How much does YouTube pay for 1 million views?

From the research below, YouTube pays between $1,220 and $34,905 per 1 million views. This number varies widely depending on the RPM of the channel which correlates to the niche and the demographics of the channel audience.

Below you can see some real-world examples of different channels in different niches and see exactly how much YouTube pays for 1 million views. 

As you can see above, you can make anywhere between $1,220 and $34,904.99 with YouTube ads on a video that gets 1 million views.

P.s. the figure taken from Matt Brighton was from almost 1 million views on his channel and not from a single video. As he is based in the UK, I also converted the pounds figure (£9,117.40) to dollars at the exchange rate at the time of writing, for better comparison.

Find out how much money you can make on YouTube with my YouTube Money Calculator here.

How much does a YouTuber with 100k subscribers make?

We’ve had a look at how much money you can make with a million views, but that could fluctuate greatly if you get one video that takes off.

For a more stable look, let’s talk about subscribers again. When you have a solid subscriber base, then you can predict more accurately what the general performance of a video should be like. You as the creator know that a certain percentage of your subscribers engage and then if the video performs exceedingly well, that’s all just a bonus.

How much does a YouTuber with 100k subscribers make? Let’s look at some actual examples.

Generally speaking, YouTubers with around 100k subscribers are making between $1,802.83 and $13,169.57 per month on average from YouTube Advertising. You should also monetize your channel in different ways, and many channels do this and easily earn more than twice what they make in YouTube ads from Affiliate marketing, merchandise, products, etc.

P.s. In the table above, I have converted the views and revenue into a monthly average for better comparison.

How much money do you make on YouTube with 1 million subscribers?

Now that we’ve looked at some YouTubers earning a good living with around 100k subscribers, how much money do YouTubers with 1 million subscribers make from YouTube advertising?

Here’s a breakdown of how much 5 real YouTubers with around 1 million subscribers are making with YouTube ads on their videos:

*MattDoesFitness had about 2 million subscribers when he released this income report.

As you can see, YouTubers with around 1 million subscribers are making anywhere between $571.86 and $95,102.62 per month on average from YouTube Advertising. And many of these channels are easily earning more than twice what they make in YouTube ads from Affiliate marketing, merchandise, products, etc.

This should give you an idea of how much money some of the largest YouTube channels can make. 

How much do YouTubers make per year?

Now you’ve probably seen the articles on how much money some of the largest YouTubers make, like Jeffree Star, PewDiePie, David Dobrik, etc. These articles are pure guesses on how much money they make in the year.

Instead of guessing, let’s take a look at how much money YouTubers actually make per year with channels of different sizes. These figures include not only YouTube Ads, but also other streams of income like brand deals, affiliate marketing, and product sales that are linked to the creator’s videos.

This is how much YouTubers of different sizes earn per year:

As you can see, how much YouTubers make per year can range massively, with some channels with 11k subscribers earning $27k and other channels with 450k subscribers earning $2.8 million.

You will generally find that the YouTubers that earn the most are running their channel like a business, with a variety of different streams of monetization, many of which earn more than what they receive from Google Adsense.

P.s. Some of these figures are before taxes and other expenses have been deducted, so these aren’t all the final figures that these channels have made. Minus 30% for good measure.

How does YouTube send you money?

Once the minimum threshold of $100 has been reached in your Adsense account, YouTube will send the account balance to your bank account via wire transfer. The money that was accumulated in the previous month(s) will be sent around the 20th of the following month.

For example, if you made $50 in July & $75 in August, the $125 will be transferred to your bank account on the 20th of September. If you made $500 in September, it will be transferred to your bank account on the 20th of October (approximately).

You can only receive payments from YouTube via bank transfer. PayPal is not accepted.

Do YouTubers Get Paid If You Skip Ads?

No, if you skip an ad before 30 seconds, or if you skip an ad that is less than 30 seconds, then the YouTuber doesn’t earn anything from that ad (and the advertiser doesn’t pay).

The same goes if you are using ad-blocking software. If the advertisement doesn’t play, then the YouTuber doesn’t earn any advertising income from the view.

Some ads, like bumper ads, are very short at around 6 seconds, these cannot be skipped (unless using an ad-blocker), in which case your favorite creators will earn something from that ad view.

If you want to support your favorite YouTubers, the best thing you can do for free is to like, comment, and share their videos, and to let the ads on their videos run for at least 30 seconds.

This is something anyone can do and it’s completely free. While doing this once may not seem like a lot, if hundreds and thousands of viewers get involved, it can really make a massive difference, especially to small creators.

As you can see, there is a large discrepancy between how much you can earn on YouTube. Some channels only earn a couple of dollars per 1000 views, while others earn over $30 per 1000 views.

Now you know how much money YouTubers of different sizes are making and how many YouTube views you need to make money.