Introduction
If you want to make money on YouTube, you have to optimize your channel from A-Z.
First, make sure that you get at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time to join the YouTube Partner Program ASAP.
Next, make sure that your content is top-notch, so you get many views for your YouTube videos.
Optimizing your videos for shareability is another crucial success factor for the YouTube algorithm. You can also check out this article where I explain WHY people share videos and how you can use these mental triggers to your advantage.
Optimizing your video title and thumbnails will help you dramatically increase your video click-through rate.
Finally, you have to make sure that you have a YouTube monetization strategy that allows you to make money, even if you haven't been accepted into the YouTube Partner Program yet.
This article will show you exactly how you can do just that.
YouTube's Built-in Monetization Features
It's possible to make money on YouTube. It's just not going to happen overnight. I share the various options and the steps to set things in motion and monetize your channel quickly in my article.
YouTube offers you four different ways how you can monetize your YouTube channel.
- Join the YouTube partner program
- Enable Super Chats and Super Stickers for live-streaming and premieres
- Promote your own merchandise underneath your videos with a merch shelf
- Create your own community with channel memberships
- Boost your revenue with YouTube Super Thanks
YouTube Partner Program
The most popular way is to join the YouTube partner program. It allows you to earn a share of YouTube's ad revenue when viewers watch your content.
To join the program, you have to fulfill four criteria.
- Your channel and all of your videos have to follow all YouTube monetization policies.
- You have to live in a country or region where the YouTube Partner Program is available.
- You need to have more than 4000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months.
- Your YouTube channel needs to have at least 1000 subscribers.
- You have to connect your AdSense account with your YouTube channel.
Once you meet all requirements, you are ready to apply for the YouTube Partner Program.
Pro Tip: Set up email reminders on this page if you don't fulfill the subscribers and watch time requirement yet. YouTube will then send you a notification once you're ready to apply.
YouTube Super Chats & Super Stickers
Super Chat and Super Stickers are two additional ways to monetize your channel through the YouTube Partner Program.
These features allow your viewers to purchase colored chat messages in your live chat feed.
When they make a purchase, their profile picture will stay at the top of your chat feed for some time. The more someone spends, the longer their Super Chats or Super Stickers will remain at the top of the chat feed.
If you meet the eligibility requirements, you can turn on Super Chat & Super Stickers for your channel. You have to be 18 years or older, your channel has to be monetized, and you must live in one of the available countries.
Further, your videos cannot fall into any of these categories: age-restricted, unlisted, private, or made for kids.
YouTube Merchandise Shelf
Whether you're selling t-shirts, coffee mugs, or anything else with your logo on, branded merch is a great win for both you and your audience.
YouTube recently created a new way how you can promote your merchandise on your channel. Your merch shelf can be displayed next to each of your videos.
To enable this feature, your channel needs at least 10,000 subscribers, monetization has to be turned on, and you should have zero community guideline strikes.
The YouTube merch shelf can be connected to more than 190 merch shelf partners.
Memberships & Crowdfunding
Creating paid membership sites and communities is a great way to monetize your YouTube channel, even for small YouTube channels that are not allowed to join the YouTube partner program.
In exchange for a – usually small – monthly payment, they receive access to different membership perks such as additional content, behind-the-scenes access, and other membership perks.
If you're wondering what rewards and benefits you might offer your subscribers in exchange for their monthly financial contribution on Patreon, check out my recent article with over 360+ ideas and examples for awesome member-only benefits, rewards, and perks on Patreon.
Probably the most popular membership platform is called Patreon. I wrote an entire article on creating a successful Patreon account and how to make more money with gated premium content.
You can also check out my Patreon page if you're looking for a bit of inspiration.
YouTube recently launched an in-house competitor to Patreon called YouTube Channel Memberships. This feature comes with severe limitations regarding what kind of membership perks are allowed. You also have less access to the contact information of your members.
Another popular option when it comes to membership sites is called Liberapay.
YouTube Super Thanks
With YouTube's new Super Thanks feature, previously known as Applause, viewers can make once-off donations to their favorite content creator. This feature can be accessed via the "THANKS" button next to the like and dislike button below each video.
A new public comment will be automatically published below your video when viewers donate.
Viewers can buy four unique clapping animations. Each animation has a different price. The more someone pays, the fancier and more incredible the animation.
- $2.00
- $5.00
- $10.00
- $50.00
Users can buy Super Thanks as many times as they wish on the same video, subject to YouTube's purchase limits. You can spend up to USD 500 per day or USD 2,000 (or the equivalent in your local currency) per week on:
- Super Chats
- Super Stickers
- Super Thanks
- All 3 combined
70% of your Super Thanks revenue goes to your YouTube channel, and YouTube takes a 30% cut.
Micropayments & Donations
Another way you can make money with your YouTube channel is to ask your viewers for donations directly.
In most cases, you would ask for a one-off tip or donation. But it is also possible to set up monthly contributions.
PayPal me
The most popular platform to collect donations is PayPal. They offer a neat feature called PayPal Me that allows you to create your own unique, branded donation link.
Just embed your personal PayPal Me link in the video description of your videos, and you're good to go.
Ko-FI
You can also use Ko-fi to create a virtual tip jar for your YouTube channel. The basic idea of Ko-fi is that someone can buy you a coffee to show their appreciation of your content.
The initial price for one mug of delicious coffee has been set to $3, but you change it to any price you want. But don't go crazy. Your audience can always select a higher number of mugs that they wish to send your way if they want to.
You can check out my Ko-fi page to see what it looks like.
Buy me a coffee
Very similar idea to Ko-fi with a few key differences.
You can rename your beverage to whatever you want. Buy me a beer? No problem. But me a slice of pizza? You got it. You can also change the icon to any emoji in the book.
What you can't change is the price of one unit. It will always be $3. There are also three predefined buttons for desired quantities 1, 3, and 5. However, it is possible to manually enter a higher number into the text field if you want to.
Please look at my page for comparison and see which features you prefer.
Tipeee
Yet another solution is called Tipeee. It's a bit of a hybrid between a tipping jar and a membership site. Your viewers can choose to send you a one-off donation or if they want to commit to a monthly payment.
You can also share news and updates with your tippers on your Tipeee page, although the content types are limited compared to a platform such as Patreon.
Here is my Tipeee page if you want to look at the design.
Liberapay
Liberapay is an open project that doesn't take a cut of your payments, except for payment processing fees.
Donations entirely fund the platform on their page on Liberapay.
There are no built-in functionalities to create member-only content or contributor benefits and rewards.
Contributions on Liberapay are purely meant as donations with no strings attached. Payments are anonymous, and creators don't know exactly who is giving to them.
The design of creator pages is a little boring compared to other platforms.
By default, your user profiles will display the total amount someone is giving and receiving. Although, this can be turned off in the settings.
Donations are capped at £87.00 per week per donor to dampen undue influence by individual contributors.
This idea aims to motivate creators to seek out a broader base of small supporters rather than relying on a few wealthy donors (or even just one).
Getting a single fan to pay £87 per week (£377 per month) to support their favorite creator would be a very challenging goal to begin with.
If you should ever face the problem that someone wants to give you more free money than that, and you're happy to accept it, I recommend setting up an alternative payment outside Liberapay.
You can see Liberapay in action on my profile.
Other micro-payment apps
Share Your Videos on Odysee
Did you know that there are alternative platforms where you can host your videos?
One of these platforms is called Odysee.
To bring more content creators to their platform, they created the Odysee YouTube Partner Program. This should not be confused with Google's own YouTube Partner Program, which YouTube creators have to join to monetize their YouTube channel with ads.
The Odysee YouTube Partner Program allows YouTube creators to sync their YouTube channel with Odysee and automatically import all their videos.
This is super cool and allows you to create a complete backup of all your videos on a second platform and earn an extra income when people watch your content on Odysee.
If you want to give it a try, sign up via my link, and you'll get a free bonus of 15 LBC when you join.
Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies are another great tool to receive donations and tips from your YouTube audience.
All you need is a cryptocurrency wallet and an address for receiving funds.
If you aren't that technical, I recommend starting with an easy-to-use multi-currency app such as the Exodus Wallet. It's available for Windows, Mac OS X, Android, and iOS and supports more than 100+ cryptocurrencies.
Important: Make sure that you immediately create a paper backup of your wallet. If your computer ever gets lost, stolen, or breaks, you can always recover your funds on a new device.
Select a cryptocurrency of your choice and click on the "Receive" button. Then copy the address and share it in your video description.
If you're are looking for a more formal way to receive payments, you can also consider Bitpay and Coinbase.
Other Cool Ideas How to Monetize Your YouTube Channel
Ever thought that you could earn money by using a new web browser? Well, with Brave Browser, you can do precisely that.
Brave is a privacy-focused browser and will block ads and tracking scripts by default. Its incognito window uses the Tor network by default for perfect privacy.
But that's not even the best part. Brave users can earn BAT cryptocurrency tokens for viewing privacy-respecting ads with Brave Rewards.
These tokens can then be used to support their favorite creator, just by watching their videos or reading their articles.
To earn BAT tokens with your YouTube videos, download the Brave Browser. Then sign up as a creator and connect your YouTube account and website, and you're good to go.
BAT tokens are paid out once per month into your Uphold wallet, where you can convert them into different crypto- and regular currencies.
Selling Products & Services
The single BEST way to earn money with your YouTube channel is by promoting one of your products and services to your viewers.
Digital products
There are two primary types of digital products that you can create for your audience. Downloadable items and access.
Downloadable products
Here are a few ideas for your consideration.
- 3D models
- Albums
- Audio version
- Audiobooks
- Blue prints
- Calendar
- Case studies
- Cheat sheets
- Cliff Notes
- Color profiles
- Coupon
- Digital assets
- E-books
- Examples
- Exercise sheets
- Generator
- Guide
- Infographic
- Library
- Manifesto
- Mind Map
- PDF documents
- PDF version
- Photos
- Planner
- Podcast episodes
- Predictions
- Printable
- Prompts
- Quiz
- Recording
- Replay
- Report
- Resources list
- Roundup
- Sample chapters
- Save games
- Scripts
- Shopping list
- Slideshows
- Songs
- Spreadsheet
- State of the Industry
- Summary
- Swipe file
- Templates
- Toolkit
- Transcripts
- Travel itinerary
- Tutorial
- Vault
- Video tutorials
- Wallpaper
- Workbooks
- Worksheets
Accessible products
You can also give your audience access to certain things.
- Online courses
- Audio courses
- Events
- Webinars
- Workshops
- Masterclasses
- E-mail courses
- Exclusive Facebook group
- Members-only Slack or Discord channel
- Joining challenges
Digital Services
If you run a service-based business, YouTube is a great way to promote your services to your audience.
I recommend focusing on two types of services. Productized services and custom-made services.
Productized services are very similar to digital products. They standardize the scope of specific products and limit the number of possible adjustments and customizations by following predefined processes and systems.
I use two tools to sell and promote my digital services.
Thrivecart is my all-in-one solution for selling both digital products and services. One of my favorite features is its ability to create a sales funnel with up-sells and down-sells.
Here is an example of how this would work for a productized logo design service. Let's say you're selling a basic logo with one revision.
When a customer places an order, you can offer them an "upsell" to upgrade their order from one to unlimited revisions for an extra fee.
You can offer them a "down-sell" for three extra revisions if they don't want that.
This way, customers can choose what they want without the need to communicate back and forth with you.
Another top-rated service that you can promote on YouTube is consulting and coaching via Zoom or Skype.
I use the Book Like A Boss booking software for one-to-one coaching sessions. It syncs with my calendar and automatically blocks off all time slots where I already have other plans. I can create free and paid meetings and even schedule group events and classes.
Physical Products
YouTube is also a great place to sell physical products. All you need is to set up your online store.
There are thousands of apps that allow you to create your e-commerce store.
Shopify
My personal favorite is Shopify for five important reasons.
- You don't have to worry about server scaling, maintenance, and server security. Shopify will take care of this for you.
- They have their own payment gateway called Shopify Payments. This is great because you don't have to go through the hassle of setting up dedicated payment gateways with other providers such as Stripe or PayPal.
- They have their own Shopify app store with more than 4,000 apps. Whatever challenge you might be facing with your store, chances are good that there is an app that allows you to solve it.
- Shopify is the most popular hosted e-commerce platform. Because of that support is great. Both from Shopify itself and from the super active community.
- It's very user-friendly and quick to set up your products.
Crowdfunding
What if your product isn't ready yet? Can you use YouTube to raise money? Absolutely!
Many YouTubers have successfully raised money for their products with one of the following crowdfunding websites.
Affiliate Marketing
What if you don't have any products? No digital products or services, no physical products, and no great idea that would be worth raising money for?
Worry not. I have you covered! The solution to your problem is simple. You have to sell or promote other people's products.
This principle is commonly known as affiliate marketing.
There are countless digital and physical products that you can promote on your YouTube videos.
A good starting point is to join the Amazon Affiliate Program. It allows you to receive a commission on any product sold on Amazon. If you have an international audience, it's essential to know that you have to sign up for the Amazon partner program within each country to earn commissions on all global sales.
Partnerships, Sponsorships, Brand Deals & Influencer Marketing
Once your YouTube channel has grown in size, companies will often reach out to you with partnership or sponsorship proposals.
If you prefer a more structured approach and generally are looking for higher-quality partnerships, I recommend joining one of the many influencer networks.
Grapevine
To be eligible to apply for partnership offers on Grapevine, your YouTube channel has to have a minimum of 2,000 subscribers.
I recommend creating an account now, even if you don't yet qualify. Grapevine will connect with your YouTube channel and update you via email after passing the 2,000 subscriber mark.
Once you meet this requirement, your account will automatically be eligible for approval by the marketplace.
Famebit
Famebit is YouTube's own attempt at creating an in-house influencer marketplace. The concept focuses on a self-serving marketplace, where Famebit only earns money when you make money.
It's free to join, and if you collaborate through their platform, Famebit takes a 20% cut of each deal. The content creator pays 10%, and the participating brand pays the other 10%.
The requirements to join are a little more demanding and require you to have at least 5,000 YouTube subscribers.
It isn't possible to join with less, so just come back later once you've passed the threshold.
Channel pages
On the other hand, Channel Pages doesn't have a requirement for a minimal number of YouTube subscribers.
But, this is also its disadvantage. Because there are requirements, the overall "quality" of channels is very random, and because of that, it's challenging to stand out on their platform.
Events
Organizing paid events is an awesome way how you can earn money with your YouTube channel. These events can either occur in the real world or be completely virtual.
Real world events
Generally speaking, events have to appeal both to the heart and mind of someone for you to sell tickets. You can achieve this by making an event both entertaining and educational at the same time.
I created my real-world event series with the name VIVID TALKS and promoted it across my social media channel, and this approach worked amazing for me.
Here are a few event types to consider.
- Networking events plus keynote presentation
- Networking only events
- Mastermind events
- Masterclasses
- Workshops
Virtual events
You can earn money with virtual events.
Here are some of the most popular virtual event types.
- Virtual summit
- Webinars
- Zoom group calls
- Group coaching calls over the phone
Speaking
Getting paid to speak can often be combined with creating your own event. But it doesn't have to be.
If you want to get paid to speak, it really helps to have many subscribers, but it's not necessary.
You can also stand out with your topic plus personality. Suppose your YouTube channel focuses on a very attractive, en vogue topic or theme, and you have a charismatic personality to go along with it. In that case, you can get paid speaking engagements with fewer subscribers.
I recommend starting speaking for free first to create a video speaker reel. This allows the event manager to see you speak in action and makes it much more likely that someone will reach out to you.
Once you feel that you're ready, start applying for bigger conferences. You need one or two big names in your portfolio.
I recommend creating a speaker sheet in a PDF document containing your bio, audience stats, potential keynote topics, photos, and video links of past speaking events.
Licensing
If you create engaging, original content, you might be able to license it to others. This works incredibly well for viral videos and funny content.
One of the more popular platforms for content licensing is called Jukin Media. They pay content creators up to 50% of their revenue with your content.
Gifts
Last but not least, let's talk about gifts. Having a public, physical address lets your viewers send you anything from a friendly thank-you letter, presents, and gifts of any size and shape. Sometimes, viewers even send checks in the mail.
The downside, if you're using your home address, you might get unexpected visits from fans. If your channel is about gaming, you might get someone to swat you during your next live stream.
The solution? Pay for a PO box and enable mail forwarding to receive parcels.
Next Steps
There are plenty of opportunities to make money on YouTube for any serious YouTuber who wants to run their channel like a business.
I recommend focusing on your YouTube fundamentals to maximize your monetization potential.
Remember.
A good video title + video thumbnails help you increase your video click-through rate.
More clicks lead to more views for your YouTube videos.
Suppose you get your viewers to watch a significant portion of your videos. In that case, your video watch time increases, and people are more likely to engage by subscribing to your channel or sharing your videos on social media.
You can read my TubeBuddy review, where I walk you through my YouTube journey and explain how I went from 0 to 3000 subscribers.
