- We spoke to top YouTube creators Kevin David, Paul Kousky, and Alyssa Kulani who broke down how they earned over $20,000 from a single YouTube video.
- YouTube's Partner Program lets creators earn money by monetizing their channels with video ads.
- These ads generate a certain amount of money depending on factors like a video's watch time, length, and viewer demographic.
- Sign up for Business Insider's influencer newsletter, Influencer Dashboard, to get more stories like this in your inbox.
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How much money a creator on YouTube will earn from a single video varies depending on a number of factors. And getting a lot of views - even millions of them - doesn't always guarantee a huge payday.
On YouTube, creators who are a part of the Partner Program (they must have 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours to apply) can earn money by monetizing their channels with video ads. These ads are filtered by Google.
Some videos that contain swearing, copyrighted music, or controversial material, can be flagged by YouTube and demonetized, earning hardly any money for the creator (or none at all). One of YouTube's biggest stars, David Dobrik, recently said in an interview that he earned only around $2,000 a month from Google ads, despite weekly videos gaining an average 10 million views.
But sometimes a single video can earn a massive amount of money - to the tune of over $90,000.
We spoke to three YouTube creators - Kevin David, Paul Kousky, and Alyssa Kulani - who broke down how they each earned over $20,000 from a single YouTube video.
1. Picking an audience that's attractive to advertisers.
Kevin David, a YouTube influencer and entrepreneur with 600,000 subscribers, told Business Insider that he'd made as much as $50,000 in Google AdSense revenue from a single YouTube video with 1 million views.
David told Business Insider that his how-to guide for using Facebook ads, with 1.9 million views, made just under $50,000 in Google AdSense revenue. His "Shopify Tutorial for Beginners" video, which required minimal production because he filmed it using the screen-record feature on his laptop, had made over $40,000.
His videos earn more money because of the type of content he produces: detailed how-to videos (like how to make money online or sell products on Amazon) and e-commerce tutorials. He has a higher CPM rate (cost per thousand views) than an average YouTube creator because advertisers are willing to pay more for this type of content.
Read the full post here: A YouTube creator explains how he made nearly $50,000 in ad revenue from one video, without millions of subscribers
2. Making universal content ... like Nerf gun videos.
Paul Kousky runs the YouTube channel PDK Films, which now has 10 million subscribers. He films videos about Nerf guns for YouTube and broke down for Business Insider how he earned $97,000 in AdSense revenue from a video with 150 million views.
He earns a majority of his YouTube revenue from Google's AdSense program and said the subject of his videos have helped his channel grow.
"What I've seen with my videos is the ones that go viral are global hits," he said. "Because everyone knows what a Nerf gun is."
Since his video went viral worldwide, it pulled in views from countries with lower CPM rates. When Kousky first uploaded the video, he said it had about 50% US viewers, which is his target demographic. After it went viral, the US audience dropped and is now only about 5%. If a majority of his viewers had been from the US, then he would have earned even more money, he said.
Read the full post here: How much money a YouTube video with 150 million views makes, according to a top creator
3. A bit of luck and algorithm magic can help.
Alyssa Kulani, a Canadian YouTube creator who has 676,000 subscribers, broke down for Business Insider how she made $23,000 in ad revenue from a single YouTube video.
Kulani, 20, said the nearly $30,000 she earned in ad revenue last January prompted her to quit her job and pursue YouTube full time.
YouTube's algorithm picked up and recommended the video, which she posted in October 2018 titled, "Telling my best friend I like him…*PRANK*." This made the video go viral and gain 4 million views, which lead to her highest paycheck from Google: $29,300. Of that amount, $23,811 was from the viral prank video, according to a screenshot viewed by Business Insider.
"I don't really know how it works, but I've been lucky," Kulani said about her career on YouTube. "But I do have a feeling this won't last forever."
Her CPM rate is relatively high (between $5 and $10) because she doesn't use profanity or songs that are copyrighted.
Read the full post here: A 20-year-old YouTube creator explains how she earned $23,000 in ad revenue from a single video
For more on how to become a successful influencer, according to YouTube and Instagram stars, check out these Business Insider Prime posts:
- A TikTok star with over 880,000 followers explains the ways she earns money and how much she makes: The 22-year-old college student Salina, known as "Salinakilla" online, began uploading videos to TikTok about four months ago and now has over 880,000 followers. She broke down how she earns money through the app.
- How much money a YouTube video with 1 million views makes, according to 4 creators: Business Insider spoke with four YouTube creators - Marina Mogilko, Kevin David, Austen Alexander, and Shelby Church - about how much each of them earned from videos with 1 million views.
- An Instagram influencer with 166,000 followers breaks down how much money she earns from a sponsored post: Katy Bellotte, a YouTube creator and Instagram influencer, broke down how much she earns per sponsored Instagram post.