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How Much Money Do The Top Grossing YouTube Partners Make?

92 points by fezzl 15y ago

samarudge 15y ago
/sigh/ This is completely inaccurate based off incorrect assumptions and statistics. Though not a youtube partner myself, I work with quite a few. This article has been dismissed by nearly all of the people it mentions
- cadab 15y ago
  Any links to back up what your saying?
  - dzlobin 15y ago
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/business/media/06blip.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/business/media/06blip.html...
  - samarudge 15y ago
    Not of the top of my head, if you look back far enough through @PhillyD's twitter feed you'll probably see him ranting about how he doesn't make anywhere near that much.
    - dzlobin 15y ago
      I think he meant he doesn't pay himself that much. Last I heard, he was paying himself a salary and ~6 or so other people that are working on a company he is launching.
      - AlexC04 15y ago
        I remember watching that video. It was a while back when they first launched the "moderator" features on youtube. Wish I could hunt for it now, I think it was under his "vloggity" account. At the time he was also talking a lot about launching a scripted media company for youtube and stuff. Mentioned that he makes a LOT for his affiliate stuff. Think for example that he ran a "netflix club" where once a week he would review a different movie on netflix and discuss it with his viewers. Any of his viewers could us a "phillyD" signup code and get a free month of netflix. I don't know what the netflix payout is - but - on 1 million views per video. Say the NF payout is $5 a 1% conversion pays $50k per week which would be $200k in the month that he ran the series. And how much do they get from Sony the week they talk about giving away a new camera? The week they promote a Qbids auction? The week the makeup girls give away a bag of "rimmell"?
- dzlobin 15y ago
  Yup, they are missing a zero at the end of most of these.
- josefresco 15y ago
  Dismissed as high or low? With all due respect to your YT friends, most people will lie to you about how much they make in an attempt to make you either think they make more or less than they actually do.
  - xal 15y ago
    Way too low. The starcraft commentary community alone splits more then a million between the popular casters.
    - dzlobin 15y ago
      Much more than a million.
  - samarudge 15y ago
    Both, some partners have external syndication or promotion deals. A lot of partners are now using services like Blip.tv and Revision3 alongside Youtube. Other's sell products, do advertising and other things on the side, all because they are popular on Youtube, but not related to their viewcount (Rhett & Link is a good example, they now have a successful TV show). Some have lower CPC/CPV values due to their audience and content. Some don't even use adds. This report was put together under the logic of "The average CPV is $0.001 so every 1k views = $1", rather than doing any actual research
  - ChaseB 15y ago
    I can give you a real number. A friend of mine runs http://youtube.com/moviebuzz http://youtube.com/moviebuzz. He's making $8-10K a month. He only has 144K subscribers. Not too bad for a 22 year old working 1 day a week. He says the big guys, like DeFanco, are bringing in well over $100K a month.
    - bennesvig 15y ago
      I knew he probably did well, but wow.
- revorad 15y ago
  Can you share some accurate numbers?
  - Urgo 15y ago
    See my post above for the full explanation but http://SocialBlade.com/youtube http://SocialBlade.com/youtube has more or less accurate ranges.
Urgo 15y ago
The linked story is from a year ago. I actually run a YouTube statistics site called SocialBlade which one of the things it provides is estimated earnings of everyone, be them partners or not meaning if they do become a partner they can see how much they could make. It's based on some data from this story and also feedback from many many partners so its more or less accurate. I am currently as of this post using an estimated cpm of 0.75 to 8.0 (ads have gone up dramatically in september). The cpm that partners will see vary greatly depending on what types of ads they use (prerolls pay way more for example) and where their viewers are (us pays way more then canada for example) but this range seems to be on par for most people. Regarding what people are saying about partners dismissing the linked story, that was true, but they dismissed it because they said they made 3x more then it back in aug 2010. Check out my site if you want to see updated estimations :) http://SocialBlade.com/youtube http://SocialBlade.com/youtube
- revorad 15y ago
  Thanks, that's a useful site. An order of magnitude range for the earnings estimates is quite large. Can you not narrow that down using ad type data?
  - Urgo 15y ago
    That's not a bad idea. Possibly in the future I'll see if I can incorporate this into the estimates but remember its also again based largely on the location of ones viewers. If you're from the US and your viewing audience is 99% from Canada you'll have a lower payout then the opposite. Same is even more dramatic with other countries. That type of data I'm not able to get. [Edit] As a general rule of thumb though, the higher up partners are generally making closer to the higher range, and the lower end ones are making closer to the lower end of the range.
    - shabble 15y ago
      Adding some kind of confidence bound or estimated probability distribution might make more sense of the huge ranges. You're already computing the 'height' of partners, so you could potentially incorporate that into the model. Something like "$100 - $1000, best-guess $500 ± 200"
mcphilip 15y ago
Philip DeFranco did an AMA on reddit a few months ago[1]. In answer to how much he makes: My companies make some nice revenue. I pay myself 60-100k though. Most of the money is reinvested. Thats the first time I've even kind of answered that question[2] [1]http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gb05p/iama_professional_youtuber_whatever_that_means/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gb05p/iama_professiona... [2]http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gb05p/iama_professional_youtuber_whatever_that_means/c1m86kq http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gb05p/iama_professiona...
vlad99 15y ago
http://www.youtube.com/user/bugmafia http://www.youtube.com/user/bugmafia This channel makes $200 / day aka $6000 per month.
Evernoob 15y ago
I'm surprised freddiew is not on that list, since he has a massive subscriber base, has tv and film celebrities lining up to participate in his videos and does youtube on a full-time basis. Surely he makes more than $100k.
Zimahl 15y ago
> I’d say that for someone right out of college, or even pre-college (like Fred), making $100,000 or more a year is not too shabby. Not too shabby? What world are we living in? That's insane money for someone like Fred who is making a video every so often with close to zero production value. That's money for nothing and your chicks for free.
- sahillavingia 15y ago
  He was being sarcastic.
rokhayakebe 15y ago
Extremely low CPM.
jarin 15y ago
I'll be honest, I'm pretty disappointed that Day[9] isn't on there.
- iron_ball 15y ago
  If he had been, he wouldn't have needed a donation drive to pay for college.
sambeau 15y ago
1.8 subscribers isn't much to crow about

92 points by fezzl 15y ago

/sigh/ This is completely inaccurate based off incorrect assumptions and statistics. Though not a youtube partner myself, I work with quite a few. This article has been dismissed by nearly all of the people it mentions

cadab 15y ago
Any links to back up what your saying?
- dzlobin 15y ago
  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/business/media/06blip.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/06/business/media/06blip.html...
- samarudge 15y ago
  Not of the top of my head, if you look back far enough through @PhillyD's twitter feed you'll probably see him ranting about how he doesn't make anywhere near that much.
  - dzlobin 15y ago
    I think he meant he doesn't pay himself that much. Last I heard, he was paying himself a salary and ~6 or so other people that are working on a company he is launching.
    - AlexC04 15y ago
      I remember watching that video. It was a while back when they first launched the "moderator" features on youtube. Wish I could hunt for it now, I think it was under his "vloggity" account. At the time he was also talking a lot about launching a scripted media company for youtube and stuff. Mentioned that he makes a LOT for his affiliate stuff. Think for example that he ran a "netflix club" where once a week he would review a different movie on netflix and discuss it with his viewers. Any of his viewers could us a "phillyD" signup code and get a free month of netflix. I don't know what the netflix payout is - but - on 1 million views per video. Say the NF payout is $5 a 1% conversion pays $50k per week which would be $200k in the month that he ran the series. And how much do they get from Sony the week they talk about giving away a new camera? The week they promote a Qbids auction? The week the makeup girls give away a bag of "rimmell"?
dzlobin 15y ago
Yup, they are missing a zero at the end of most of these.
josefresco 15y ago
Dismissed as high or low? With all due respect to your YT friends, most people will lie to you about how much they make in an attempt to make you either think they make more or less than they actually do.
- xal 15y ago
  Way too low. The starcraft commentary community alone splits more then a million between the popular casters.
  - dzlobin 15y ago
    Much more than a million.
- samarudge 15y ago
  Both, some partners have external syndication or promotion deals. A lot of partners are now using services like Blip.tv and Revision3 alongside Youtube. Other's sell products, do advertising and other things on the side, all because they are popular on Youtube, but not related to their viewcount (Rhett & Link is a good example, they now have a successful TV show). Some have lower CPC/CPV values due to their audience and content. Some don't even use adds. This report was put together under the logic of "The average CPV is $0.001 so every 1k views = $1", rather than doing any actual research
- ChaseB 15y ago
  I can give you a real number. A friend of mine runs http://youtube.com/moviebuzz http://youtube.com/moviebuzz. He's making $8-10K a month. He only has 144K subscribers. Not too bad for a 22 year old working 1 day a week. He says the big guys, like DeFanco, are bringing in well over $100K a month.
  - bennesvig 15y ago
    I knew he probably did well, but wow.
revorad 15y ago
Can you share some accurate numbers?
- Urgo 15y ago
  See my post above for the full explanation but http://SocialBlade.com/youtube http://SocialBlade.com/youtube has more or less accurate ranges.

Urgo 15y ago

The linked story is from a year ago. I actually run a YouTube statistics site called SocialBlade which one of the things it provides is estimated earnings of everyone, be them partners or not meaning if they do become a partner they can see how much they could make. It's based on some data from this story and also feedback from many many partners so its more or less accurate. I am currently as of this post using an estimated cpm of 0.75 to 8.0 (ads have gone up dramatically in september). The cpm that partners will see vary greatly depending on what types of ads they use (prerolls pay way more for example) and where their viewers are (us pays way more then canada for example) but this range seems to be on par for most people. Regarding what people are saying about partners dismissing the linked story, that was true, but they dismissed it because they said they made 3x more then it back in aug 2010. Check out my site if you want to see updated estimations :) http://SocialBlade.com/youtube http://SocialBlade.com/youtube

revorad 15y ago
Thanks, that's a useful site. An order of magnitude range for the earnings estimates is quite large. Can you not narrow that down using ad type data?
- Urgo 15y ago
  That's not a bad idea. Possibly in the future I'll see if I can incorporate this into the estimates but remember its also again based largely on the location of ones viewers. If you're from the US and your viewing audience is 99% from Canada you'll have a lower payout then the opposite. Same is even more dramatic with other countries. That type of data I'm not able to get. [Edit] As a general rule of thumb though, the higher up partners are generally making closer to the higher range, and the lower end ones are making closer to the lower end of the range.
  - shabble 15y ago
    Adding some kind of confidence bound or estimated probability distribution might make more sense of the huge ranges. You're already computing the 'height' of partners, so you could potentially incorporate that into the model. Something like "$100 - $1000, best-guess $500 ± 200"

mcphilip 15y ago

Philip DeFranco did an AMA on reddit a few months ago[1]. In answer to how much he makes: My companies make some nice revenue. I pay myself 60-100k though. Most of the money is reinvested. Thats the first time I've even kind of answered that question[2] [1]http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gb05p/iama_professional_youtuber_whatever_that_means/ http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gb05p/iama_professiona... [2]http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gb05p/iama_professional_youtuber_whatever_that_means/c1m86kq http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gb05p/iama_professiona...

vlad99 15y ago

http://www.youtube.com/user/bugmafia http://www.youtube.com/user/bugmafia This channel makes $200 / day aka $6000 per month.

Evernoob 15y ago

I'm surprised freddiew is not on that list, since he has a massive subscriber base, has tv and film celebrities lining up to participate in his videos and does youtube on a full-time basis. Surely he makes more than $100k.

Zimahl 15y ago

> I’d say that for someone right out of college, or even pre-college (like Fred), making $100,000 or more a year is not too shabby. Not too shabby? What world are we living in? That's insane money for someone like Fred who is making a video every so often with close to zero production value. That's money for nothing and your chicks for free.

sahillavingia 15y ago
He was being sarcastic.

rokhayakebe 15y ago

Extremely low CPM.

jarin 15y ago

I'll be honest, I'm pretty disappointed that Day[9] isn't on there.

iron_ball 15y ago
If he had been, he wouldn't have needed a donation drive to pay for college.

sambeau 15y ago

1.8 subscribers isn't much to crow about