How Do People actually Make Money on YouTube?

Making money from YouTube used to be as simple as uploading great content, garnering millions of views, and earning a share of advertising revenue.

Now, content creators have access to a number ways to monetize their content. In addition to advertising, this can include corporate sponsorships from a major brand, fan funding or merchandise sales.

Google Ads

The first step to making money on YouTube is to join the YouTube Partner program. Partnership gives content creators access to special tools, such as the ability to monetize their videos via Google Adsense.

For qualification, content creators must have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of accumulated watch time over the prior 12-month period.

YouTube monetizes videos via pre-roll, display and other advertising formats. Advertisers pay based on clicks and impressions. YouTube gives the content creator 55% of this revenue and takes 45% for itself. Content creators must adhere to advertising guidelines. Content that contains foul language, adult content, violence and other subjects will not have ads placed against them.