How much does youtube actually pay? my expierence

[Lapeer20m]

For those interested in how much youtube ad revenue actually pays....here is my experience over the past 3 months.

during this period, i've had just shy of 850K views and my estimated revenue is $203.13

I'm a little bummed as my understanding before i signed up is that 1m views = about $1,000

Youtube doesn't pay based on views, rather they pay based on peoples interaction with the ads, but online forums seem to suggest that 1m views for $1k is typical.

I didn't buy a mavic so that i would get rich off youtube but i do think it would be pretty awesome if youtube eventually pays me enough money to cover the cost of the Mavic.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Not sure what you present but you need to have some content that drives viewers to be loyal to your site, post links to others and all those things that not only boost views but cause advertiser visits by the viewers. IOW you have to shill a little bit for the advertisers.

AFAICT YouTube do not reveal much about the algorithms that decide what content gets advertising and what you need to do to get more. I believe this was discussed between YT and prominent YouTubers last month in NY.

Casey Neistat was at that meeting and gave (according to himself) a pretty good rant at YT. Not sure which of his recent vids goes into that.

 

[Slayerstwin]

It's 1 million subscribers it's about subscribers if I'm not mistaken

 

[Oyibo VFX]

I don't monetize my vids. Have not enough viewers and members either. But.... I'm lucky. Have 2 Mavics and ordered a full option Inspire 2 with X5S and 6 extra batteries. And.... just for the fun of it. Don't need to make a living out of it. It's because I like it, like my camera's and my motorbikes.
I have a very well paid job so I really couldn't care less

 

[adiru]

For those interested in how much youtube ad revenue actually pays....here is my experience over the past 3 months.

during this period, i've had just shy of 850K views and my estimated revenue is $203.13

I'm a little bummed as my understanding before i signed up is that 1m views = about $1,000

Youtube doesn't pay based on views, rather they pay based on peoples interaction with the ads, but online forums seem to suggest that 1m views for $1k is typical.

I didn't buy a mavic so that i would get rich off youtube but i do think it would be pretty awesome if youtube eventually pays me enough money to cover the cost of the Mavic.

IMO

It is a double edge sword. Newspaper used to make money because they were the gatekeepers. With advent of Internet and blogs and forums, the one to many ratio was diluted, hence no one is making money by adwords anymore and newspaper can't survive either.

Take photography, DSLR lowered the barriers to entry, and with digital replacing film, and full frame CMOS sensors snapping 11fps (mirrorless even faster now) anyone can experiment and get pro shots... This is why photography is not a viable profession to make money anymore... cause everyone can get a top DSLR and become a pro in no time.

Same with the Mavic, which popularized aerial drone photography and videography.... when its so easy for anyone to take good looking aerial shots and videos, the dilution means no one other than Casey Nesitst will be able to actually monetize anything anymore

 

[royalhghnss]

Ad revenue depends on lots of things:

Video length

Do you have midroll ads or not

Views

Viewer Engagement with those ads

For instance I have a video with 1.1 million views, it only earned me $400, but it's a short 1 minute vid. My typical vids are 30ish minutes. This month i'm tracking at just over 500k views, and $1350 in ad revenue through YT.

Number of subs doesn't matter other than more subs generally equals more views.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

It's 1 million subscribers it's about subscribers if I'm not mistaken

Subscriber number is all but useless. You need content. You need that content to generate advertiser links. You need viewers to go those links. Viewers is a start (so Subscribers help) - getting advertiser clicks is what pays.

But, YT of late have been monitoring content for things offensive to advertisers so that's been hurting content makers. Per some sources that's not so bad IF YT would at least tell content makers what the rejection criteria is.

 

[Ddperdue]

IMO
cause everyone can get a top DSLR and become a pro in no time.

This is a completely inaccurate statement! Pro gear does not a pro make. It takes time, talent, and effort to get good at anything. Unfortunately, you can't buy any of those.

 

[BlakPhoenix]

Here's quite a good breakdown of how the whole process works:

 

[Oyibo VFX]

IMO

It is a double edge sword. Newspaper used to make money because they were the gatekeepers. With advent of Internet and blogs and forums, the one to many ratio was diluted, hence no one is making money by adwords anymore and newspaper can't survive either.

Take photography, DSLR lowered the barriers to entry, and with digital replacing film, and full frame CMOS sensors snapping 11fps (mirrorless even faster now) anyone can experiment and get pro shots... This is why photography is not a viable profession to make money anymore... cause everyone can get a top DSLR and become a pro in no time.

Same with the Mavic, which popularized aerial drone photography and videography.... when its so easy for anyone to take good looking aerial shots and videos, the dilution means no one other than Casey Nesitst will be able to actually monetize anything anymore

It makes a lot of sense what you say. But not every person that knows how to push a button on a camera is a photographer....

 

[AlanTheBeast]

It makes a lot of sense what you say. But not every person that knows how to push a button on a camera is a photographer....

True. That said, the lowered barriers to entry and learning by instant feedback with digital have let a flood of people into the market. Coupled to internet advertising the marketing cost for a new photog is very low.

Not all are talented at it, but enough are and can make money while making the traditional path pros miserable.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

Here's quite a good breakdown of how the whole process works:

Enjoyed that. However it did not get into recent policy changes at YouTube about particular negatives that turn away advertisers. This is was the subject of a closed door meeting in NY a few weeks ago between YT and many top content producers.

 

[AlanTheBeast]

I don't monetize my vids. Have not enough viewers and members either. But.... I'm lucky. Have 2 Mavics and ordered a full option Inspire 2 with X5S and 6 extra batteries. And.... just for the fun of it. Don't need to make a living out of it. It's because I like it, like my camera's and my motorbikes.
I have a very well paid job so I really couldn't care less

Colour me envious.

 

[tcope]

First, very few people make decent money on YT (not even Google themselves). Ad revenue is paid _only_ when someone watches an entire ad or a good portion of it, period. The amount YT pays the content creator is a percentage of what the aqd revenue is. This changes based on the type of ad. What ad's you draw depeneds on your contant (tags, to a certain degree) and how "ad friendly" your video is. Make a video about sex and expect to get no ads. Make an ad about mortgages and your CPM rate might be $6.00 instead of something like $1.00. Where subscribers, thunbs up and amount of videos you post comes in is YT pushing your video's into people's feeds. If you post videos often, hey are rated highly and you have a lot of subs, your videos are going to be "recommended" by YT. That gets you more views (well, that and a clickbait thumbnail).

If you have been posting for 3 months and made $200, consider yourself doing well.

If someone is making money off YT they most likely are being paid by someone to make/post the video. For example, a merchant pays you to review their product. That is where the money is. If you can show that you have a high volume of views and/or subs, you are more likely to attract those advertisers.

It's not uncommon to spend 3 or 4 hours even just editing a video and only make a dollar or two from monetization.

Personally, I think YT is an advertisers wet dream. Many people are forced to watch 5 seconds of the ad before they can skip it. A _lot_ can be said in 5 second (certainly brand recognition). If the person skips the ad, they don't pay a single penny for the ad. On TV, they pay and don't even know if the person saw any of the ad... and they pay a _lot_ more.

 

[Kilrah]

It makes a lot of sense what you say. But not every person that knows how to push a button on a camera is a photographer....

No, but they'll still take jobs away from you by advertising themselves at one third of a decent rate to people who don't know better and are just happy to save a buck when offered to.

 

[Kilrah]

Personally, I think YT is an advertisers wet dream. Many people are forced to watch 5 seconds of the ad before they can skip it. A _lot_ can be said in 5 second (certainly brand recognition). If the person skips the ad, they don't pay a single penny for the ad. On TV, they pay and don't even know if the person saw any of the ad... and they pay a _lot_ more.

Spot on. Except it seems many of them are too dumb to understand it, since maybe 80% of the ads I see do not make use of it. They just post the same spot as on TV or such and at the 5-second mark nothing has yet happened, sometimes you barely even know what brand it's about... facepalm.
The 2nd category is 10-sec non-skippable ones, already a bit better but personally after the 5 seconds my mind is fully into "stupid **** thing I can't skip" mode and absolutely not paying attention to the ad anymore so still not as good as a correctly purpose-made ad that both gets the essential stuff in those 5 secs and hopefully manages to trick you into letting it run a bit longer. I've seen some, but it's very rare.

 

[HueJorgan]

I don't monetize my vids. Have not enough viewers and members either. But.... I'm lucky. Have 2 Mavics and ordered a full option Inspire 2 with X5S and 6 extra batteries. And.... just for the fun of it. Don't need to make a living out of it. It's because I like it, like my camera's and my motorbikes.
I have a very well paid job so I really couldn't care less

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