How to Make Money on YouTube: A Startup Guide to Earning Money from YouTube Content
YouTube as a Career Option
YouTubers are today’s rock stars. Among popular professions, few attract as much attention as YouTube content creators. With big-name channels boasting tens of millions of subscribers, it’s no surprise many children now aspire to become YouTubers. Large players in the space, such as Mr. Beast, the Stokes Twins, and PewDiePie, earn millions from ad revenue, sponsorship deals, and product lines, turning what many once saw as a fun and silly pastime into legitimate businesses with the potential to create generational levels of wealth. But the main question for many is: how to make money on YouTube?
The YouTube Partner Program (YPP): The Gateway to Monetization
Like any venture worth pursuing, building a sustainable YouTube platform takes time, and very few creators start out making a living on their first batch of videos. That’s not to say that creating a sustainable income through YouTube is impossible, though.
In comes the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). The YPP allows creators to earn money through YouTube in various ways through shorts, livestreams, and standard long-form content. After a channel reaches the required milestone, it can apply for the program.
YouTube Milestones for Monetization & What to Aim For
To apply for the YPP, a channel needs to meet the following criteria:
- 500 subscribers
- Three valid uploads within the last 90 days
- At least 3,000 watch hours within the past 12 months, or three million views on Shorts in the past 90 days
Meeting these requirements lets you access Channel Memberships, YouTube Shopping, Super Chat, Super Stickers, and Super Thanks.
However, ad revenue and YouTube Premium earnings require additional milestones:
- Your channel must have at least 1,000 subscribers
- Either 4,000 watch hours in the last 12 months or 10 million views on Shorts in the last 90 days
You will also need to have an active Google AdSense account for the channel you want to monetize, as well as be in good standing with YouTube.
Revenue Streams on YouTube
Once a creator is in the YPP, they can expect to earn money from their channel in a few different ways:
- Revenue sharing from pre-roll or mid-roll ads on videos or ads between YouTube Shorts
- Revenue sharing from YouTube Music and YouTube Premium subscriptions
- Funds from the community and channel membership features, such as Super Chat and Super Thanks
- YouTube Shopping for promoting and selling your products to viewers
- Advance from Sound Royalties on Google AdSense income. Current YouTubers who want to explore their options for YouTube financing to help grow their channel, click here: https://soundroyalties.com/youtubefinancing
While YPP is YouTube’s main way many creators are paid, it’s not the only option. Creators can maximize earnings through other avenues outside of the platform. To learn more about different revenue streams for YouTube Creators, check out our blog on the topic: 6 Proven Ways to Make Money on YouTube Without Ads – Sound Royalties.
Challenges & Risks with Earning Money on a YouTube Channel
Running a YouTube channel is a business and comes with its own risks. Violating YouTube’s policies can lead to demonetization or loss of ad privileges, especially for content involving profanity, harassment, misinformation, or graphic material that advertisers avoid.
Revenue fluctuations can make it difficult for some creators to make consistent earnings from month to month. Demand for ads, seasonality, and even the geography of viewers can all be contributing factors to fluctuating revenue for content creators.
Algorithm & policy changes are widely discussed among the creator community as things that can make or break a YouTube channel. Like any social platform, changes in its rules and policies can directly affect creators in what they can and can’t say and how they operate in the space. The algorithm is often described as “what YouTube itself promotes to users across the platform”, which can be beneficial or hurtful, depending on the type of content a channel produces.
Time & cost of a YouTube channel are also factors to consider. While the barrier to entry to YouTube is low, there is a commitment one makes when starting a channel with the goal of monetization. Planning, recording, editing, and optimizing videos after publishing can be considered a full-time job in and of itself. Scaling the channel by hiring contractors and editors can help reduce the time commitment, but it also invites more overhead costs, as is the case in any other business.
Realistic Earnings on YouTube: What to Expect
There isn’t a flat rate someone can expect to make on any given YouTube video. What a creator makes will depend on a variety of factors, including the type of videos you make, how often you post, whether you’re making long-form content or YouTube Shorts, what country your channel is based in, what country your viewers are in, video length, watch time, and so on, but the key is in ad views. In short, your payout will reflect how many viewers watch the ads on your videos in their entirety (that means no skips on ads or ad blockers).
Key Metrics to Know for YouTube Monetization
CPM (Cost Per Mille) is the cost advertisers will pay for 1,000 ad impressions on YouTube. Given that YouTube operates on a revenue-sharing model, this amount is given as a percentage to the creator. It’s important to note that CPM rates can fluctuate and are also dependent on the country you live in. Countries such as the United States and Canada tend to pay out more than other countries.
RPM (Revenue Per Mille) is the metric that tells you how much you earn for every 1,000 ad views your video receives. This will reflect how much you actually earn and encompass multiple revenue streams through YouTube.
CPC (Cost Per Click) is the amount an advertiser pays YouTube every time a viewer clicks on the ad shown on your video. This earned revenue is then passed on in part to the content creator.
What Someone Can Earn on YouTube
Hootsuite reported in 2025 that YouTube ads have an average view rate between 49-68%, lending a typical channel a CPM anywhere from $5 to $15. While not too seemingly impressive on its own, for channels that consistently draw in over 1 million views per upload, this can add up overtime. Not to mention that consistency on YouTube is key for growing and building a fan base, leading to an increase in revenue as well.
Finding a Profitable Niche on YouTube
The internet is full of personalities looking to make it big within the creator economy. YouTube knows this, and so do advertisers on the platform. That’s why, depending on the type of content your channel makes, your payout could be very different from another creator.
Different niches on YouTube will have variable CPMs and CPCs, meaning advertisers might opt to send their dollars into videos they believe will draw more attention to their products and services.
According to Hootsuite, the most profitable niches for videos on YouTube for 2024 by CPM were:
- Making Money Online: $13.52
- Digital Marketing: $12.52
- Personal Finance: $12.00
- Education: $9.89
- Technology, cars, and gadgets: $7.31
- ASMR: $3.50
- Lifestyle: $3.47
- Fashion: $3.13
- Beauty: $3.00
- Motivation: $2.50
- Cooking: $2.50
- Travel: $2.00
- Fitness: $1.60
- Gaming: $1.40
- Comedy: $1.00
All these examples are what advertisers are paying, with YouTubers receiving a percentage of the ad’s CPM. For people pursuing content creation as a career, these numbers strongly indicate where money flows in the creator space.
Conclusion & Next Steps
There is no doubt that YouTube can be an incredibly lucrative career for people who want to pursue it, and through the YouTube Partnership Program, creators have a means to grow their revenue as well as their audiences.
Even outside of YouTube, there are several ways that content creators can monetize their work, with new methods popping up all the time. For YouTube creators earning more then $3k/monthly in AdSense income, Sound Royalties can be a great option for accessing upfront income to help grow their brand and channels. Click here to learn more: YouTube Financing | YouTube Content Creators Income.
For anyone who wants to pursue YouTube as a career, get started by first making videos and uploading them to the platform. Just as much as YouTube channels have the potential to be a business, they’re also a creative venture.
FAQ Section
Can I make money without joining the Partner Program?
Yes, there are various ways to make money from your video content outside of being a partner, including crowdfunding, video licensing, and merchandise, to name a few. Even established content creators will often use methods outside of YouTube’s proprietary systems to earn money and continue growing their channels.
Does YouTube pay more for Shorts or long-form videos?
On average, Shorts will earn less than traditional long-form videos per view, because payout from YouTube is based on how many times ads are watched (See details on YouTube RPM above).
The trade-off is that YouTube Shorts can typically be made much quicker than longer videos. Depending on the creator, Shorts can serve as a more viable option for making money than opting to create traditional video content on the platform.
How long does it take to start making money on YouTube?
Once the required milestones have been hit, YouTube channels can start making money almost immediately. Outside of YouTube, however, creators have other options to make money in the methods shown above, such as through affiliate marketing, merchandise, crowdfunding, etc.
How does a Sound Royalties advance work for YouTubers?
YouTubers who earn a certain amount through AdSense can apply for a cash advance from Sound Royalties. Creators interested in Sound Royalties’ YouTube Financing Program can click here to learn more: https://soundroyalties.com/youtubefinancing/