How Much Does YouTube Pay Per Subscriber? (2024)

Thinking of starting a YouTube channel? A lot of vloggers, gamers, and streamers have turned to YouTube to upload their content in order to start generating revenue from it.

Once you have a certain number of subscribers and your videos are regularly generating views, it becomes easier and easier to use the platform to make a living for yourself.

As fulltime YouTubers are on the rise, one question that gets asked a lot is “How much does YouTube pay per subscriber?” It can be surprising.

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So How Much Does YouTube Pay Per Subscriber?

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The quick answer is NOTHING. YouTube pays based on your video quality, engagement and viewership.

Your subscriber count doesn’t factor in initially, but obviously having a more subscribers means your videos will more likely be pushed out in the algorithim and to existing fans first.

Simply put, YouTube pays their subscribers per view rather than per subscriber. This makes YouTube a more even playing field as the smaller channels can still generate ad income irregardless of their subscriber count.

YouTube uses a method called CPM or “Cost Per Mille” which is a marketing term for cost per 1,000 views or in some cases impressions.

View a CPM Calculator to fine tune your specific financials.

Typically the CPM for YouTuber can range from 20 cents to $10 per 1,000 views. But typically an average channel will get about $1.50 – $3 per 1,000 views. You can view more here on why the prices fluctuate so much.

Another thing to keep in mind is that a simple click on the video does not earn the YouTuber as much as someone watching the entire video.

This is because YouTube has a system where they count the number of minutes your viewers have consumed in total, rather than the number of clicks itself. This is yet another incentive for you to create high quality videos, more minutes watched equals more income. 

Lets take this hypothetical channel for example

• Tech review channel
• Has 200,000 subscribers
• Has 150 videos in library 
• Monetises through Adsense and Amazon affiliate network
• Average video is 7 minutes
• Releases new content every week
• Each video gets about 50,000 views
• Reviews products in the $50 – $200 range

As this channel already has existing subscribers who love this creators content. They jump onto it as soon as it releases. This is hugely valuable for this YouTuber as people won’t have to search for it organically. But this will happen in time.

As for the Adsense earnings, say this YouTuber has a CPM of $3. This equates to $3 x 50,000 views/1,000 = $150 per video.  Again, some videos might gain a lot of traction and get 1 million views, this can blow that number up to $1,000. But, this is solely from the views on the video. Extra income from affiliate marketing will be discussed in the following sections.

Also in this example, the CPM can rise and drop depending on the engagement of the viewers. If people are watching the video all the way till the end, or at least 80% of the video. Then this number could be even higher or lower. As mentioned earlier, your earnings are a direct result of the total minutes your viewers have watched, not just clicks.

Adsense – $150 per video

When it comes to Amazon, this can in some cases be a lot more lucrative depending on the type of content. Luckily for this YouTuber, they are reviewing very popular consumer related products.

Out of these 2,500 people, 5% of them purchased the product which equates to 125 sales of a $100 product. Amazon pays anywhere from 1% – 10% depending in the product type. But typically tech products get 4% referral commission.

So 125 sales x $100 = $12,500 which the YouTuber will get 4% of which is $500!

Amazon affiliate earnings – $500 per video

When earnings are added up from both revenue streams, it equals $650 per video. So if you wanted to work out the value of each subscriber, it would be:

$650/50,000 = 0.013 cents per per subscriber per video.

On a yearly basis if this YouTuber was to create 52 videos. Each subscriber would be worth 0.676 cents.

Hopefully this video has helped you gain a better understanding of how much YouTube pays per subscriber or, rather, how much each subscriber is worth to a content creator. You can only imagine how much YouTubers with millions of subscribers can earn!

You can view the cameras that YouTubers use here!

So How Much Does YouTube Pay Per Subscriber? What Kind of Income Can you Generate?

YouTube can be an interesting way to not only generate extra income, but keep your viewers informed or entertained with a topic you’re passionate about.

Once you’ve gained enough subscribers (1000) and your videos are getting viewed regularly, you can even make this a full-time job!

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There are a lot of YouTubers who have quit their day jobs to devote their lives to making content on YouTube. We hope this article has given you an idea of how much you can expect to earn from YouTube. If you’re interested in similar topics, please feel free to check out our other articles!