The question about Youtube earnings is a pretty interesting topic, but today we will try to give you an objective and well-referenced answer.
What you need to know first is the fact that YouTubers get paid by Adsense and not YouTube. YouTube is monetized by Google Adsense.
Adsense is possibly the Google’s most valuable asset. Adsense is one one of the finest Google’s products of artificial intelligence. It cannot be cheated especially by spammers who want to use automated tools for generating fake traffic.
Adsense also has as a sophisticated way of generating ads and paying the publisher or content producer using a CPM formula.
Google says:
There’s no precise answer, because your earnings will depend on a number of factors.
Youtube is CPM based (Cost Per Mille) which stands for cost per 1,000 Impressions.
Note: CPM networks pay for every 1,000 YouTube ad impressions you get.
Let’s say a CPM is $1. It would means that they’re paying you $1 for every 1000 advertisement impressions you generate.
CPM can vary from $0.1 to $10, depending on the niche you’re using (video games, professions, music videos, entertainment…).
As of 2018, YouTube’s CPM is reported to be on average 3$, that means you get paid 3$ for every 1,000 views.
Let’s do the math now and calculate the average scenario of 1$ CPM:
- 1,000 views: $1
- 10,000 views: $10
- 100,000 views: $100
- 1,000,000 views: $1000
- 10,000,000 views: $10,000
- 100,000,000 views: $100,000
- 1,000,000,000 views: $1,000,000.
However, there are important factors to consider:
- Not all videos will show advertisements. Note that views is not equal to ad impressions. Adsense shows moderate advertisements to each user selectively, and in some cases sometimes there are no advertisers at all.
- A vast majority of people have ad-blocking extensions installed. That works against AdSense and that disables the advertisement, so the impression won’t be count (but that’s only on web browsers).
- More than a half of YouTube views come from mobile devices ( Statistics – YouTube). So there are no addons on mobile that can block advertisements.
Probably the TOP player on YouTube, Back in 2013 when PSY had reached 1,000,000,000 views he made 7,900,000.0$, his CPM was 7.9$ which is great!
So the main questions here are:
- “How much YouTube pays?”
- “Do YouTubers have to pay a fee?”
- “Is it profitable to be a YouTuber?”
Here are the answers:
“How Much YouTube Pays?”
YouTube (AdSense) will pay a YouTuber, on average, between $0.75 to $2.00 per 1 thousand (mille) views:
- 50k views: between $ 37.5 to $ 100
- 100k views: between $ 75 to $ 200
- 500k views: between $ 375 to $ 1000
- 1 Million views: between $750 to $ 2000
Bear in mind that since Adsense tries to make the best match between the advertisement and the video’s audience, other factors really impact the average of each channel:
- Niche (Games, humor, how-to, cars, beauty products, educational, cooking, music…)
- Language (English, Frensh, Spanish)
- Country (The US market is stronger than Brazil’s – so, a channel in Brazilian Portuguese almost always makes less money for the same number of views).
Also, everybody is paying attention to how YouTube Red – the paid subscription service – grows. It pays the same ratio: 55% to the content creator, and it is calculated over the amount of views every video receives from the service subscribers.
Interesting reading: Will People Pay for YouTube? After 1 Month, ‘Red’ Seems to Prove They Will.
Check the available locations of YouTube Red.
“Do YouTubers Have To Pay a Fee?
Nope. There are no fees for YouTubers to pay (besides taxes, of course): we are not penalized for success of course. YouTubers will receive their share equally: 55% of what AdSense gets from monetizing the views, it doesn’t matter if it’s for 50k views or 10M.
If a YouTuber chooses to get associated under a Multi-Channel Network (MCN), then everything could be different. MCN’s will do what Adsense would: monetize the views – and they have different conditions, share rates, etc.
“Is It Profitable To Be a YouTuber?”
Lots of YouTubers are making videos telling “the truth behind being a YouTuber” (search it), revealing how much money they get from AdSense and other deals; and how hard (or easy) it is to make ends meet, pay the bills and rent.
It all comes down to your idea and creativity to properly monetize your YouTube channel, but have in mind that if you play your cards right (and use smart Youtube automation programs), YouTube can be a great source of income for you.
