Just When Do You Start Earning Money from YouTube?

When you hear of top YouTube stars like MrBeast, Jake Paul, and Markiplier, you get inspired to start creating content on YouTube. If you've spent time making videos without making money from YouTube, it's easy to get worried as to why that is so.

But in all honesty, making money on YouTube is a bit tough. You don't just start uploading videos and earn money. You'll have to meet certain requirements to start generating revenue from your videos. This is assuming you want to start getting recurring monthly payments from YouTube.

Even if you want to explore other revenue channels, growing an engaged audience requires hard work and patience.

So, when do you start earning money from YouTube? What resources are necessary to make money from YouTube? Any tips to get your YouTube audience to support your goal of making money from the platform?

Get ready to find out. This comprehensive guide has all the answers on how and when to make money on YouTube.

So, Really, When Do You Start Earning Money from YouTube?

A YouTube marketing expert will tell you that you start to make money on YouTube when you join YouTube's Partner Program (more on this later). If you meet the eligibility criteria to become a YouTube partner and are accepted into the program, this opens you up to several revenue sources, including ad revenue, channel memberships, and more.

So, what do you need to join the partner program?

• You'll need at least 1,000 subscribers.
• You should have amassed 4,000 hours of watch time in the past year or 10 million public Shorts views in the last 90 days.
• There should be no active community guideline strikes on your YouTube channel. Something like hate speech can get you a strike.
• You must strictly adhere to YouTube's monetization policies.
• Your country of residence must be one where the partner program is available.
• You must have an active Google AdSense account. If you don't have an existing account, you can create one in YouTube Studio

If you qualify, you can apply to join the program, and as soon as you're accepted, you can start earning from YouTube.

How Do YouTube Content Creators Make Money on YouTube?

The major revenue stream for YouTubers is ad revenue. You earn money when video ads play before, during, or after your video. Also, many people got rich on YouTube without uploading videos.

But to start earning ad revenue (when you meet the Partner Program's eligibility criteria), you'll need to enable monetization on your YouTube account. Follow these steps:

1. Go to your account and log in.
2. It's located at the top right of your watch page. Tap it and click YouTube studio.
3. From the left menu, select Other Features, then choose Monetization.
4. Read the Partner Program Terms and agree.
5. Link your AdSense account and set your monetization preferences.

With these five simple steps, you have activated monetization on your videos. If you want to get an idea of how much you can earn monthly, continue with the following steps:

6. Go back to your dashboard (in the Studio's interface) and open the Analytics tab.
7. Then choose Revenue and select Monthly Estimated Revenue. You'll see the chart Monthly Estimated Revenue; as the name implies, it shows you your monthly estimated revenue.

You should know that several factors affect your YouTube earnings. So, a fellow video creator who started around the same time as you might earn more than you are (or vice versa). That's because your niche, video length, location, and type of ads affect how much you earn.

For example, health and business niches reportedly pay more than other niches like politics. However, according to the Influencer marketing hub, an average YouTube channel can make around $18 per 1000 ad views. So, the earnings should be pretty close across niches.

As you grow your YouTube channel, you increase your earning potential regardless of your niche and other factors.

How Many Subscribers Do I Need to Earn on YouTube?

To become one of the YouTube partners, having a minimum of 1,000 subscribers is a criterion. So, we can say that you need a minimum of 1,000 subscribers to make money on YouTube, specifically from ads and other partner programs' revenue streams.

Here's something you should know; your subscriber count doesn't connote more money. What really matters is the number of ad views on your videos. This means that even when you try to get more subscribers after joining the partner program, you only make money if you get ad views. Most importantly, you meet the subscriber count requirement to earn revenue on YouTube.

Usually, your subscriber count and your ad views are directly linked. Gaining more subscribers should generate more views. But it doesn't happen by magic. For your subscriber count to increase, you'll need to create engaging video content where you can strategically place your ads to get more views.

What's the YouTube Partner Program?

YouTube Partner Program was created to help content creators on YouTube make money from their videos and gain access to exclusive resources to grow their YouTube channels. Joining the YouTube Partner Program is straightforward, and we already covered the steps earlier in this post.

Other than the various income streams you get by becoming a partner, you get access to YouTube's Creator Support teams, and you can also monetize short videos on the Shorts feed.

How Does Ad Revenue Work on YouTube?

When advertisers pay to place an ad on YouTube videos, YouTube takes a 45% cut and gives 55% of the revenue to the content creator.

The money the advertiser pays per 1000 ad impressions is known as CPM (cost per mile). The CPM varies from niche to niche. Then when YouTube takes its cut from CPM, what's left is the RPM (revenue per mile). A YouTuber's RPM is the money they earn per 1000 ad impressions after the revenue share.

Based on your RPM, YouTube pays you every month from ads placed in your videos or between short videos in the Shorts feed.

Other Ways to Make Money with Your YouTube Videos

Outside of YouTube ads, creating videos for YouTube can earn you cool bucks without stress. Let's check out your potential multiple revenue streams below:

YouTube Premium Subscribers

If you want a second revenue stream on YouTube, enabling YouTube Premium is a great idea. YouTube Premium gives viewers an ad-free experience when they watch YouTube videos for a monthly fee. When Premium subscribers watch your videos, YouTube pays you a share of the monthly fee.

Channel Memberships

Channel membership is another monetization feature of the YouTube Partner Program. This feature allows viewers to pay monthly fees in exchange for exclusive perks such as badges, behind-the-scenes content, or any other members-only perk. When you set up channel memberships for your channel, especially with a dedicated fanbase, it can be a good additional income stream.

Fan Funding

Fan funding is a way for creators to make money from YouTube when viewers make one-time or recurring donations to support their YouTube channels. If this idea sounds good to you, you can use external platforms like Patreon to collect donations.

Monetizable YouTube Features (Like Super Chat)

Did you know that there are some YouTube features that you can monetize when you join the partner program? For example, when you go on live streams, your viewers can pay to pin a comment in the live chat. This feature is called Super Chat. It's a super easy way to earn some extra money from YouTube.

Affiliate Program(s)

Joining an affiliate program is like getting a brand deal to sell a company's product and earn a commission for each sale. You can decide to search for affiliate programs, join the ones that suit your YouTube brand, and promote the products with your monetized videos to earn additional income per sale.

Selling Your Own Products

Selling your own line of merchandise is another lucrative way to make money from YouTube. Many YouTubers make millions of dollars from this every month. You too can start making money from this. You can sell branded t-shirts, caps, whatever you feel like you can sell. Create an online storefront with an existing e-commerce platform, promote your products in your videos, and urge your viewers to patronize you.

Tips to Grow Your YouTube Channel Quickly

Your YouTube channel seems to be growing slowly and you need to meet the 1,000 subscribers and other specific requirements to join the partner program. How do you accelerate your channel growth? Here are two things you can do:

Leverage Video Descriptions

Your video description does two things for you. It tells the algorithm what the video is about, and if you include important keywords, it helps your video rank higher in search results. Secondly, your descriptions tell viewers what the video is about. So, if you can craft a good and optimized video description, it can help both your target audience and the YouTube algorithm to understand your video.

Go Live Frequently

Going live every often is an effective way to interact and connect with your viewers. So, the communication becomes two-sided and you're able to build a tightly knitted community that can support your channel and recommend you to others.