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Amanda Perelli and Sydney Bradley
Updated
- YouTube's Partner Program allows influencers to earn money off their channels.
- Google places these ads and pays a creator a rate based on factors like a video's watch time.
- Insider spoke with YouTube creators about how much each of them earned.
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This is the latest installment ofInsider's YouTube money logs, where creators break down how much they earn.
How much money a YouTube creator makes for a viral video with 1 million views can vary wildly — but it's usually quite a payday.
The rate the influencer gets from Google's AdSense program depends on a number of factors, from the place in the video where viewers normally drop off to the type of advertisers the video attracts. Many creators have ad-placement strategies for earning the most money possible.
Some videos that contain swearing or copyrighted music can be flagged by YouTube and demonetized, earning hardly any money for the creator (or none at all).
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Insider spoke with three YouTube influencers with vastly different channels about how much they earned from videos with 1 million (or more) views.
This post has been updated to include additional creators.
Here's what they said:
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SemideCoco — about $3,400 (1.1 million views)
Semide is an ASMR creator who had about 150,000 YouTube subscribers when she spoke to Insider in December 2020. She goes by SemideCoco online and does not use her last name for privacy reasons.
Semide has two videos with over 1 million views on YouTube and a few others just below that mark. Typically, these videos will earn between $2,500 to $4,000 in ad revenue, she said in December 2020.
One of Semide's most popular videos had about 1.1 million views and had earned about $3,470, according to a screenshot of her dashboard viewed by Insider.
ASMR creators usually place ads only at the beginning of videos.
"Never in the middle and never at the end, which reduces the revenue potential," Semide said. No one wants to be interrupted by a loud ad in the middle of their sleep-inducing trance.
But while there are fewer spots where ASMR creators can place ads, there are also unique perks for their revenue potential, such as long watch times and repeat viewers.
"The great thing is with ASMR, if people really like a video, they're going to keep wanting to come back to it," she said.
Read the full post (from December 2020): YouTube ASMR videos have surged this year as people look to relieve anxiety and fall asleep. Here's how one creator grew to 150,000 subscribers and how much she earns.
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Jade Darmawangsa – about $3,600 (1.2 million views)
Jade Darmawangsa is a YouTube creator and entrepreneur who had about 381,000 subscribers when she spoke with Insider in May 2020.
Her video titled "How to grow on Instagram" had earned about $3,600, from 1.2 million views, when Insider viewed a screenshot of her dashboard in May 2020.
Darmawangsa launched her YouTube channel in 2015. In 2018, YouTube featured her for 24 hours on its worldwide trending page as a "Creator on The Rise," which helped raise her profile.
Today, she helps other social-media influencers and young creators build channels and businesses online.
Her average CPM rate — or how much money her videos earn per thousand ad views — was between $8 and $15, she said in March 2020.
"The reason for the higher CPM is due to my audience demographic and niche," she said. "My content is largely business related, therefore it attracts advertisers with larger budget."
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Shelby Church — between $2,000 and $30,000
For Shelby Church, a YouTuber who had about 1.6 million subscribers when she spoke with Insider in 2020, videos with about 1 million views had earned her between $2,000 and $30,000 depending on the video subject, she told Insider in January 2020.
Her video about Amazon FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) had an unusually high CPM rate, she told Insider in January 2020. The video had earned her about $30,000 in AdSense revenue from 1.8 million views (at the time).
Church has dozens of videos with over 1 million views. But she typically earns most of her revenue from sponsored posts, rather than from AdSense on YouTube, she said. Church mainly films tech-review videos, with topics like which iPhone is worth the cost, or the features of her Tesla Model 3.
Read the full post (from January 2020): How much money YouTube paid a creator with 1.4 million subscribers during 2019
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