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How many YouTube subscribers do you need to make money in 2023?

marzo 14, 2023

Are you curious about how many subscribers you need to make money on YouTube?

YouTubers generate income in several different ways, with ads being
The most popular.

In this post, we talk about how YouTubers make money before discussing how much
subscribers (and other factors) needed to generate revenue.

How do creators make money with YouTube?

While ads are the most obvious answer to this question, YouTubers make money in different ways.

Affiliate marketing, sponsorships, channel subscriptions, and third-party subscriptions are common methods.

To generate revenue from YouTube ads, you must join the YouTube Partner Program. YouTube requires members to have at least 1,000 subscribers, 4,000 watch hours, and no active communities against their YouTube account.

Once accepted, you’ll start generating revenue when viewers watch and click on the ads that play during your YouTube videos.

Smaller and larger video creators can use methods like affiliate marketing, branding, and subscriptions.

For affiliate marketing, all you have to do is sign up for affiliate programs for products your viewers can buy, then promote those products in your videos and leave your affiliate link in each video description.

You will receive a commission each time a viewer clicks on your affiliate link and completes a purchase.

Branded merchandise like t-shirts and hoodies are another common revenue strategy for YouTubers. Plus, it’s one you can use even if you don’t qualify for the YouTube Partner Program yet.

Most YouTube channels use print-on-demand services like Printful, Printify, and Teespring.

printed youtube

Subscriptions allow you to generate monthly income directly from your subscribers in exchange for additional content. Most YouTubers use Patreon and Twitch, but you can also use subscriptions to your own YouTube channel or one of these alternatives.

Finally, sponsorships allow you to receive global payments from brands in exchange for creating dedicated videos for your products or featuring their products in your videos.

There are a few other ways YouTubers make money, but these are the most common.

How much money can you earn with YouTube?

It’s a difficult question to answer because the amount you can earn from YouTube varies greatly and depends on a number of different factors.

Yes, the number of subscribers you have. can to give you an indication of how much money you can earn from YouTube. After all, the more subscribers you have, the more people you can promote new videos to.

However, what really pays the bills is watch time and the number of people who actually watch your videos.

Unfortunately, having more subscribers doesn’t necessarily correlate to more views, since most viewers find videos through YouTube’s algorithm.

That is, through the search bar and YouTube recommendations.

In terms of watch time, most YouTubers report that they receive higher AdSense payments for videos that are 10 minutes or longer, even when shorter videos receive more views. This is because advertisers pay for watch time.

But that still leaves the question, how much money can you make from YouTube?

Here are answers from two different YouTube creators.

youtube ali abdaal

The first is Ali Abdal, who runs a successful YouTube channel in the educational niche. Here are the performance metrics for his first five videos after his first viral video, 10 million views and 3 million subscribers.

  • 9 passive income ideas
    • Points of view: 9.8 million
    • Length: 30:01
    • Display time (hours): 1.1 million
    • Income: $191,258.16
  • How to invest for beginners
    • Points of view: 5.2 million
    • Length: 29:09
    • Display time: 766,300
    • Income: $87,200.08
  • How to build a website in 2022
    • Points of view: 866,300
    • Length: 22:01
    • Display time: 86,500
    • Income: $42,132.72
  • how do i write so fast
    • Points of view: 8.2 million
    • Length: 15:33
    • Display time: 487,400
    • Income: $25,143.17
  • How to take notes on the iPad Pro in the Faculty of Medicine
    • Points of view: 5.9 million
    • Length: 13:56
    • Display time: 393,100
    • Income: $24,479.80

You can see how difficult it is to predict how much money you can make on YouTube based on these metrics alone, especially when you look at Video 1 and Video 4.

They have a similar number of views, but video 1 generated almost eight times the ad revenue that video 4 did.

And here are some metrics from a smaller creator with less than 20,000 subscribers.

alexis eldredge

During Alexis Eldredge’s first month of monetizationit earned $552.71 for 101,000 views and 9,200 watch hours.

In the first six months of monetization, his channel generated $3,667.03 in ad revenue from 495,800 views and 54,300 watch hours.

How many subscribers do you need to make money on YouTube?

Because YouTube has specific partner program requirements, we know how many subscribers you need. begin make money on youtube

You need 1,000 subscribers to start earning YouTube ad revenue. YouTube will not allow you to monetize unless you have a minimum of 1000 subscribers and 4000 watch hours.

However, based on Ali and Alexis’ performance values, you probably won’t be making enough to replace the income from your day job right now.

This didn’t happen until a year after Ali’s monetization and two years after he started uploading videos regularly.

Knowing how many subscribers you need to make money on YouTube becomes much more difficult when you consider other monetization strategies, such as channel subscriptions and sponsorship deals.

How to get the most out of the YouTube Partner Program

The most effective way to increase the revenue your YouTube channel generates from ads is to upload longer videos.

You can see proof of this based on the performance metrics Ali has shared from his top five highest-earning videos.

Their top-earning videos are 30 minutes long, while their lowest-earning videos are barely over the recommended 10-minute limit.

YouTube ad revenue by watch time - Ali Abdaal

You can also experiment with inserting more mid-roll ads into longer videos. These are ads that play during videos, as opposed to the ones that already play at the beginning and end of each video.

YouTube automatically chooses the places for in-play ads, but you can add them manually.

Inserting them manually even helps you minimize the way ads interrupt your videos by audience.

Also, keep these basic facts about ad performance in mind:

  • More watch time = more ad revenue.
  • More views = more watch time.

So, once you start producing longer videos, in order to earn more ad revenue, you need to increase the number of views your channel receives.

Experiment with uploading more often so your subscribers get more videos to increase display time, but be careful.

You don’t want to prioritize quantity over quality, so only increase your video production if you can continue to deliver the same level of quality you have in your current upload schedule.

If you don’t include a simple reminder for viewers to «subscribe and turn on notifications» in your videos, try including one instead.

It may sound simple, but a simple call to action is sometimes all it takes to get viewers moving. Also, more subscribers means more potential new viewers for each video you release.

And don’t turn down the notifications. When viewers turn them on and have the YouTube app installed on their phones, they’ll get notifications whenever you post new videos.

youtube video boards

Here are some additional tips to increase your video views:

  • Collaborate with other YouTubers.
  • Create videos for current events in your niche.
  • Create short, short versions of your videos and upload them to Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.
  • Research your competition to see what popular topics they haven’t covered yet, as well as what topics they haven’t covered well.
  • Use video boards to promote similar videos.
  • Enable embedding so third parties can embed your videos on their own websites.

YouTube subscriber count is required for other monetization strategies

All you need is an active viewer to make money from affiliate marketing, channel subscriptions or products, so let’s talk about a more difficult monetization strategy: brand endorsements.

The truth is, it doesn’t matter how many YouTube subscribers you have. Brands want to know how many views their products can get, so they are more interested in how many views you get on your video.

Some sponsorship offers only include free products to use in your videos. This can be good for several reasons. For example, you can help fund product reviews that you couldn’t do before.

However, most figures floating around the web quote sponsorship rates between $10 and $50 per 1,000 views (CPM).

You can negotiate a higher CPM if the brand’s product directly matches your niche. For example, if the product is a small kitchen appliance and you are a food YouTuber vs. a lifestyle YouTuber.

So, long story short, you need at least 1,000 subscribers to generate ad revenue on YouTube, but you can start making money much sooner by increasing your view and engagement rates.

Frequently asked questions for YouTube subscribers

How much does a YouTuber earn with 1 million subscribers?

There is no set number because ad revenue depends on the number of views and watch hours you get, not the number of subscribers you have.

Once you’ve been accepted into the YouTube Partner Program, worry more about getting more views and engagement rates for each YouTube video and less about reaching a certain number of subscribers.

How many YouTube views does it take to earn $100?

Based on the top five grossing videos on Ali Abdaal’s YouTube channel, YouTube viewers earn an average of $0.18 per hour viewed.

So it takes around 556 hours of viewing to generate $100 in ad revenue.

Google AdSense pays for the number of ad views your videos generate, not the number of views you receive.

Because of this, watch hours have a much bigger impact on how much you can earn from YouTube ads than views.

final thoughts

It only takes one active viewer to get started with certain monetization channels like affiliate marketing.

YouTube ads are one of the best ways to make money on the platform, but you’ll need 1,000 subscribers to get started.

So that should be your goal. To help you out, use all the promotional methods we’ve discussed above and keep going. It takes time to build an audience on YouTube, but it’s worth it.

Do you want to read more? See other articles in this series:

  • How many TikTok followers do you need to make money?
  • How many Instagram followers do you need to make money?

If you found this post helpful, I recommend you check out these articles:

  • 13 ways to make money with a website (and how to get started)
  • 50+ Best Side Hustle Ideas – Legitimate Ways to Earn Extra Cash
  • How to Make Money on YouTube: 12 Proven Tactics
  • How to make money on Instagram: 9 ways to make a profit
  • The best ways to monetize your blog (and why most bloggers fail)