How Much Money I Made as a YouTuber & Entrepreneur (2022)

How Much Money Do YouTubers Make?

In this video, Ali Abdaal breaks down his 12 different streams of income across the last six years of being a YouTuber. He explains how most YouTubers make money through Google's AdSense program and how RPM (revenue per thousand views) varies depending on niche and country.

YouTube AdSense

• Google's AdSense is how most YouTubers make money.

• An advertiser pays Google to display an ad, and YouTube gets a cut of that payment.

• The revenue per thousand views (RPM) varies depending on niche and country.

• Ali's RPM has varied over time, with spikes driven by financial-themed content.

Affiliate Marketing

• Affiliate marketing involves promoting products and earning a commission for each sale made through your unique link.

• Ali recommends only promoting products you genuinely believe in.

Online Courses

• Creating online courses can be a lucrative income stream for YouTubers.

• Ali shares his experience creating and selling online courses.

Sponsorships

• Sponsorships involve partnering with brands to promote their products or services in exchange for payment.

• Ali discusses his approach to sponsorships and how he decides which ones to accept.

Merchandise Sales

• Selling merchandise can be a great way to monetize your YouTube channel.

• Ali shares his experience with selling merchandise and the challenges he faced.

Speaking Engagements

• Speaking engagements can be a lucrative income stream for YouTubers who are experts in their field.

• Ali discusses his experience with speaking engagements and how he got started.

Book Sales

• Writing a book can be a great way to monetize your expertise as a YouTuber.

• Ali shares his experience writing and publishing books.

Patreon

• Patreon is a platform that allows fans to support creators by making monthly contributions.

• Ali discusses his experience with Patreon and how it has helped him create more content.

Consulting

• Consulting involves providing expert advice to clients for a fee.

• Ali shares his experience with consulting and how he balances it with other income streams.

Investments

• Investing can be an effective way to generate passive income as a YouTuber.

• Ali discusses his approach to investing and the lessons he's learned along the way.

Real Estate

• Real estate investing can also be an effective way to generate passive income as a YouTuber.

• Ali shares his experience with real estate investing and the challenges he's faced.

Software Products

• Creating and selling software products can be a lucrative income stream for YouTubers.

• Ali discusses his experience with creating and selling software products.

Monetizing a YouTube Channel

In this section, the speaker talks about their experience with monetizing their YouTube channel and how it has grown over the years.

Monetization in 2017

• The speaker made a total of $2.27 from the YouTube AdSense program in 2017.

• This was mostly because they were not yet monetized at that time.

Growth in Subscribers and Revenue

• In 2018, after becoming monetized, the channel made $16,459 in AdSense revenue.

• By the end of 2019, the channel had grown to 487,000 subscribers and made $42,385 in AdSense revenue.

• In 2020, during the pandemic when more people were online, the channel exploded and grew to 1.32 million subscribers. They made a total of $129,262 in AdSense revenue that year.

• In 2021, with a full year as a full-time YouTuber under their belt, they managed to publish 86 videos and grew to 2.5 million subscribers while making $464,552 in AdSense revenue.

Current Status

• As of 2022, the channel has grown to over 3.6 million subscribers and has earned around $653k from YouTube AdSense.

• Videos about finance and websites tend to have more advertisers bidding on them which can lead to higher revenue for those types of videos.

Amazon Associates Program

In this section, the speaker discusses how they use Amazon's affiliate program called Amazon Associates to earn money off of their YouTube content.

What is Amazon Associates?

• Amazon Associates is an affiliate program where YouTubers can sign up for an account on Amazon and share links to Amazon product pages.

• If someone clicks on the link and makes a purchase, the YouTuber earns a commission.

How it Works

• The speaker shares links to products they recommend in their YouTube videos.

• If someone clicks on the link and buys the product, the speaker earns a commission from Amazon.

• This is an indirect way of monetizing their YouTube content.

Course Creation

In this section, the speaker talks about how they create courses as another way of monetizing their YouTube content.

Why Create Courses?

• Creating courses allows for more control over the content and revenue streams.

• It also allows for more in-depth teaching on specific topics that may not be covered in YouTube videos.

How to Create Courses

• The speaker uses Teachable to create and host their courses.

• They start by creating an outline of what they want to teach and then record video lessons.

• They also offer additional resources such as PDFs, quizzes, and assignments to enhance the learning experience.

Sponsorships

In this section, the speaker discusses sponsorships as another way of monetizing their YouTube content.

What are Sponsorships?

• Sponsorships are when a company pays a YouTuber to promote their product or service in a video.

How it Works

• The company will reach out to the YouTuber with an offer for sponsorship.

• The YouTuber will then negotiate terms such as payment amount, length of promotion, etc.

• Once agreed upon, the YouTuber will create a video promoting the product or service.

Making Money on YouTube: Affiliate Income

In this section, the speaker discusses how YouTubers can make money through affiliate income. He explains what affiliate income is and how it works, using Amazon Associates as an example. He also talks about alternative affiliate programs and how they can be negotiated.

Amazon Associates

• YouTubers can make money through Amazon Associates by including affiliate links in their video descriptions.

• The percentage earned from these links is usually small (around 1-2%), but it can add up over time.

• The speaker shares his own experience with Amazon Associates, showing how his earnings increased over the years.

• The speaker gives an example of a video that went viral and generated a significant amount of income through Amazon Associates.

Alternative Affiliate Programs

• YouTubers can also monetize through alternative affiliate programs, which are negotiated directly with companies.

• The speaker shares his own experience with different companies he has deals with for various products or services.

• Examples include Epidemic Sound for background music and Ghost for website hosting.

• These deals are not traditional sponsorships where a company pays you to present an ad in the video. Instead, if someone buys a product/service through your link, you earn a percentage of the sale price.

• The percentage earned from these links can be higher than those from Amazon Associates if you have a good relationship with the company.

Benefits of Affiliate Income

• One benefit of affiliate income is that you don't need a certain audience size to start making money from it.

• It's important to note that affiliate income is not a get-rich-quick scheme and requires effort and strategy to be successful.

Making Money on YouTube: How Much I Earn From Ads, Affiliates, and Sponsors

In this section, the speaker talks about how he started using affiliate links from day one on his channel. He explains how much he earned from affiliate income in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021. The speaker also discusses the advantages of affiliate income over sponsorships.

Affiliate Income

• In 2017 and 2018, the speaker made nothing from affiliate income except Amazon Associates.

• In 2019, the speaker made $37,561 from affiliate income mostly through promoting a paper-like screen protector for iPad.

• This amount was almost equal to what he was earning as a full-time doctor in the UK's National Health Service.

• In 2020 and 2021, the speaker earned $162,859 and $178,315 respectively from affiliate income.

• Affiliate deals are non-audacious and very natural.

YouTube Sponsorships

• Sponsorships can be a far bigger source of income than YouTube AdSense itself for bigger YouTubers.

• Creators are incentivized to take on sponsorship deals because companies pay them money to say something.

• The level of integrity varies among creators when it comes to sponsorships.

• The speaker only promotes products that he uses himself.

Total Revenue

• The total revenue for this year is $933,127 (as of recording).

Valuing Sponsorships

In this section, the speaker discusses how sponsorships are valued in the industry and the factors that go into determining their worth.

Factors Affecting Sponsorship Value

• The amount of money YouTubers or creators get paid for sponsorships is quite opaque in the industry.

• One way of valuing sponsorships is through CPM (cost per mille), which is around 15 dollars per thousand views on average.

• Some companies base their sponsorship offers on brand awareness and association rather than CPM.

• Other companies value their sponsorship offers based on conversions, where they track data behind the scenes to determine how many people clicked on a special link.

Negotiating Sponsorship Deals

• Negotiations involve playing around with views, brand awareness, conversions, and other factors to determine sponsorship value.

• Agencies can come in handy when negotiating deals as they have experience in valuing sponsorships.

Speaker's Experience with Sponsorships

• The speaker's channel was worth zero dollars from sponsored content in 2017 but made $7,609 from sponsorships in 2018 when they had around 80k subscribers.

• In 2021, the speaker made $440k from sponsorships while this year (2022), they made approximately $598k.

• Conversion rates between GBP and USD affect these numbers since most viewers are not from the UK.

Overview of Income Streams

In this section, Ali Abdal discusses the different income streams he has and how much revenue each one generates.

Podcast Income Stream

• Ali Abdal has two podcasts: Not Overthinking and Deep Dive.

• The Deep Dive podcast is more serious and interviews entrepreneurs, academics, authors, creators, and other inspiring people.

• The podcast started at zero about 12 months ago and has grown to something like 150,000 subscribers on YouTube which is pretty cool.

• They get some money from YouTube ads because the podcast is a video podcast on YouTube. They also have sponsorships on the podcast that function exactly the same as YouTube sponsorships.

Revenue for Podcasts

• In 2017 and 2018 they made zero dollars from podcasts.

• In 2019 they made $400 from sponsorships for Not Overthinking.

• In 2020 they made $7,400 in sponsorships before deciding not to have sponsorships on Not Overthinking anymore because it applied too much stress and pressure to publish consistently.

• In 2021 Deep Dive with Ali Abdal started making money. That year the podcast made $29,258 but was still losing money due to salaries of employees working on it.

• This year (2022), the podcast has grown an absolutely huge amount. It's in the top one percent of podcasts shared globally according to Spotify unwrapped. The total cumulative revenue for all five income streams considered is $1,531,871 so far.

Making Money as a Creator

In this section, the speaker talks about how he makes money as a creator through various revenue streams.

Email Newsletter Sponsorships

• The speaker sends an email newsletter every week to around 200,000 people with his thoughts for the week and recommendations on books, podcasts, music or articles.

• The email newsletter is sponsored by companies who want to target a large audience or a smaller but more targeted audience.

• The speaker made $97,739 off of sponsorships on the email newsletter in 2022.

Social Media Platforms

• Many creators make money through Instagram and TikTok.

• The speaker has not made much money through these platforms yet but plans to do more sponsorships and affiliate deals in 2023.

• In 2022, the speaker made $37,061 through Instagram and TikTok sponsorships.

YouTube Adsense Revenue

• The speaker makes most of his income from YouTube Adsense revenue which is based on views and clicks on ads displayed on his videos.

• He also gets paid for sponsored content that he creates for brands.

Online Courses

• The speaker sells online courses related to productivity and time management which are popular among his audience.

• He also offers coaching services related to these topics.

Affiliate Marketing

• The speaker promotes products that he uses and likes through affiliate marketing links which earn him a commission when someone buys the product using his link.

Book Sales

• The speaker has written several books which are available for sale on Amazon.

• He earns royalties from book sales.

Speaking Engagements

• The speaker gets paid for speaking engagements at events or conferences where he shares his expertise on productivity and time management.

Making Money as a Creator on Social Media

In this section, the speaker discusses the differences in income streams between social media platforms and how much time is invested in creating content for each platform.

Sponsorships

• Sponsorships on Instagram and TikTok are more profitable than YouTube due to the amount of time invested.

• YouTube is better for longevity and monetization in the long run.

Merchandise

• Merchandise sales were an experiment that was not particularly profitable due to low margins on physical products.

• The team is working on a new physical product brand focused on tech items such as keyboards and bags.

Digital Products

• Creators can make money by selling digital products such as PDFs or courses.

• An example given is Grace Beverly who made over 10 million pounds from selling PDFs of fitness plans.

Cumulative Revenue

• The cumulative revenue from all income streams so far is one million eight hundred twenty thousand one hundred thirty-three dollars.

Selling a Website Theme and Skillshare Courses

In this section, the speaker talks about how they made money by selling a website theme and teaching courses on Skillshare.

Selling a Website Theme

• The speaker's team designed their own theme for their Ghost website.

• People liked it and asked to buy it, so they decided to sell it.

• They made $462 from selling the theme in one year.

Teaching on Skillshare

• The speaker has around 12-13 classes exclusively on Skillshare.

• Viewers with a Skillshare subscription can watch as much content as they want for around $10/month.

• Teachers earn money based on streaming royalties - a small amount of money per minute of watch time.

• In 2019, the speaker made their first online course on Skillshare about editing videos in Final Cut Pro. It took them one day to film and two days for a freelancer to edit.

• Since then, that course has been making several thousand dollars every month completely passively.

• In 2019, the speaker made $8,470 through teaching on Skillshare.

• In 2020, they made $449,295 through teaching on Skillshare.

• In 2021, they made $859,106 through teaching on Skillshare.

The speaker also mentions that they have a great relationship with Skillshare and often do sponsorships with them where they can plug their own classes. They provide a link for viewers to sign up for a free trial of Skillshare in the video description.

Skillshare and Online Course Hosting Platforms

In this section, the speaker talks about two ways of selling online courses: Skillshare and hosting them yourself using a platform like Podia or Teachable.

Skillshare

• Skillshare is a good place to learn something specific.

• Users can sign up for a free trial and then cancel it if they want.

• It's free for users to access, which is great for students who can't afford to pay for classes.

• Revenue is generated through watch time royalties.

Online Course Hosting Platforms

• You get your own website where people can directly pay you some amount of money to sign up for your online course.

• The speaker mentions several platforms such as Podia, Teachable, Kajabi, and Sam Card.

• Two courses are mentioned: the Create-a-Prenuer course (priced at around $800) and Camera Confidence course (priced at $149).

• The Create-a-Prenuer course has three modules: workflow, cash flow, outflow. It teaches creators how to optimize their systems and structures to think of their creative thing more like a business.

The Importance of Self-Hosted Courses

In this section, the speaker discusses the importance of creating and hosting self-hosted courses instead of relying on third-party platforms.

Creating Self-Hosted Courses

• Skillshare's monetization strategy change caused a 50% hit to revenue overnight.

• Over-reliance on third-party platforms can lead to loss of revenue and control over assets.

• Hosting self-hosted courses allows for diversification and control over products.

Revenue from Self-Hosted Courses

• No money was made from self-hosted courses in 2017-2021.

• In 2021, $179,026 was made from selling two self-hosted courses with minimal marketing efforts.

Cohort-Based Course Sources

In this section, the speaker discusses their experience with cohort-based courses and how it has impacted their revenue.

Part-Time YouTuber Academy

• The Part-Time YouTuber Academy is a live online course that runs for four to six weeks with hundreds of students per cohort.

• Seven cohorts have been run so far, with over 2,000 students enrolled in total.

Revenue from Cohort-Based Courses

• In 2020, $282,414 was made in top-line revenue from one cohort of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy.

• In 2021, $2 million was made from three cohorts of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy.

• The team had to hire a whole team for each cohort, and there were significant costs associated with running them.

Lessons Learned

• Raising prices beyond a comfortable amount can lead to negative consequences.

Part-Time YouTuber Academy Revenue Overview

In this section, the speaker discusses the revenue generated by the Part-Time YouTuber Academy in 2022 and compares it to previous years. They also talk about their sales and marketing strategies and lessons learned.

Revenue Comparison

• The Part-Time YouTuber Academy made $1,759,238 in 2022.

• This is a decrease compared to last year's revenue.

• Despite not focusing on sales and marketing, they still managed to generate a reasonable amount of revenue.

Sales and Marketing Strategies

• The speaker admits that they did a bad job with sales and marketing overall.

• They made fewer videos teaching people how to be creators that plugged the course in 2022.

• As a result, they had fewer people coming into the top of the page.

• The speaker believes that running cohort-based courses like this one is not recommended as it requires a lot of work and effort.

Lessons Learned

• Increasing prices beyond a certain point was probably a bad idea.

• The course ended up completely taking over the business which was not what the speaker wanted.

• There are questions about whether or not they should continue with this format for future courses.

Overall Revenue and Costs

In this section, the speaker discusses the revenue and costs of their business from 2017 to 2022.

Revenue

• In 2017, the total revenue was zero.

• In 2018, the total revenue was $24,615.

• In 2019, the total revenue was $130,091.

• In 2020, the total revenue was $1.213 million.

• In 2021, the total revenue was $4.051 million.

• As of now in 2022, cumulative total is $4.6 million.

Costs

• In 2017, the total cost was around $5156.

• In 2018, the total cost was $13,349.

• In 2020, the total cost was $256,740.

• As of now in 2022,the total cost is around $2.527 million.

Profit

• The profit for each year can be calculated by subtracting costs from revenue for that year.

Business Dip in Profit

This section discusses how there has been a dip in profit for their business in recent years.

Profit Trend

• The speaker notes that they have experienced a dip in profit for their business recently.