8 ways to earn money with Youtube 

 

Do you know that you can earn money with Youtube with your ability to create video contents. It may sounds like a dream scenario for many (young) people.

Of course, making cool content and earning a living with it is great! And even if Youtube is your hobby, it’s always nice if it just gives you a nice extra.

 

 In this blog post we therefore discuss 9 ways in which you can earn money with Youtube. 

 

At the end we also discuss an important part that you should take into account if you really want to earn money with youtube.

 

We will be discussing the following ways to earn money with youtube.

1. Ads on Youtube: When you talk about earning money with Youtube, this is what many people think of first: playing ads on your videos.

You used to be able to earn money this way from the first video you put online. Now you need a little more patience.

Before you can turn on ads, you must first become a member of the Youtube partner program. For that you need to have at least 1,000 subscribers, and in the last 12 months your videos must have been watched at least 4,000 hours.

You will find all conditions here . Have you met those conditions and are you a member of the affiliate program?

Then you still have to sign up with Google Adsense . You can then determine per video on your channel whether you want to play ads or not. It is therefore not the case that you immediately have advertisements on all your videos, as soon as you give Youtube the possibility to play advertisements about your content.

Also keep in mind that your content must be suitable for advertisers. Youtube has become stricter about this in recent years. You might want to avoid swear words if you don’t want to scare off advertisers… You can read more about it in Youtube’s community guidelines .

 

All in all, you have to meet a number of conditions and set everything up properly to earn money in this way, but once you’ve gone through that process, you basically don’t have to worry about it anymore.

You often do not earn much with this method. In the video below I tell you how much we earn with our channel:

If you really can’t figure out how to turn on your ads on Youtube, let us know below!

 

2. Create Sponsored Videos: Instead of paying YouTube to play an ad with your video, a sponsored video puts you in direct contact with an advertiser, promoting his or her product or service.

You may be sent a product for free to try out, which you then make a video about.

You only get stuff and no money. You may also be paid to make the video yourself and name the company or product in It.

 

In both cases, you must indicate in your video that it is sponsored content.

You can find all the guidelines here on the google support forum. When YouTube puts ads on your video, they determine how much money you earn.

With sponsored videos you are in control. Depending on how many viewers you have, and how well the target group matches the target group that the advertiser wants to reach, you can make price agreements.

 

This can amount to tens of thousands of dollars per video, if you have a really big channel. For smaller Youtubers it is of course smaller amounts.

 

Keep in mind that this way of advertising must match your viewer. If he feels like you’re selling your soul to the devil for a few cents, then you’re dealing with an angry audience and that’s of no use to anyone.

 

Not even the advertiser. We will soon explain how to approach such a collaboration around a sponsored video on our Youtube channel.

 

3. Affiliate Links: It is not only possible to free up space in your video for advertisements and promotions.

You can also earn money with the text under  your video through affiliate links.

How does an affiliate link work? Suppose you, as a filmmaker, like to buy your cameras online at store X.

In the description of your video you can state which equipment you use to film, with links to the different products in online stores.

Such as, for example, those cameras in store X. If you do not do this with a normal link but with an affiliate link, a cookie is placed as soon as someone clicks on that link.

The webshop then knows that a customer has come via your website (or in this case from your Youtube channel).

If that customer buys something in that store, for example that camera, you get a percentage of what the customer has paid.

Basically this is how affiliate linking works. We also have affiliate links under our videos. You can create these affiliate links via various platforms.

Check out these 7+ best affiliate marketing software for beginners

There is no complete clarity about Youtube’s position on affiliate links. Some say it’s against the guidelines, but turns a blind eye to it as long as it doesn’t get too spammy. The fact is that many major Youtubers also use affiliate links under their videos. But there are also stories of Youtubers whose account would be closed by the affiliate links.

What exactly is behind that, I dare not say! Do your research on this yourself and don’t let your choice of whether or not to use affiliates depend on this article.

 

3. Merchandise Your own t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, pillows, pens, shower curtains, socks or you name it: Once you have fans who like to show that they are watching your channel, this can be a nice way to earn some extra money. This works especially well with Youtube celebrities and gamers.

With tutorial channels like ours, it is less obvious to use merchandise. Although we would of course find bags with our logo and a cool slogan very cool! Suggestions are welcome down here An online platform that is integrated with Youtube is Teespring.

But you can certainly also use other platforms for this. 

 

5. Sell a product or service yourself: Above we talked about freeing up advertising space for others. But why not sell your own products or services on Youtube? You can use Youtube as a signboard for your company.

We actually do that too. By making video making tutorials for free, we attract a lot of people who (want to) make videos themselves.

Do viewers become fans and feel the need to learn more than we tell in the free tutorials and here on the website? Then we will see them in one of our online courses. Moreover, many more organizations and companies find us who want to have a video made.

Now considerably more work comes from customers who are not in our existing network.

So they find us through our videos and through our blogs. So you can sell your services as a filmmaker via Youtube. But also coaching sessions, homemade jewelry or clothing, central heating boilers or your services as a gardener.

 

Everything is possible! If you want to earn money with Youtube in this way, it is useful to work the other way around.

So don’t start a channel first and then think about what you can offer. If all goes well, you already have a company with a product or service, where you can create matching content.

Don’t make your videos too complicated if you want to earn from Youtube in this way! The more efficiently you can work, the more time you have for your core business. 

 

6. Donations / patreon: Getting money for your content directly without the intervention of advertisers, and even without offering an extra service or product, is also an option. Via a platform like Patreon , viewers voluntarily donate an amount for your content.

 

It is a kind of crowdfunding, but for Youtube content. And also on Patreon you have counter-performances that you deliver. For example, you can choose to let people get in touch with you more easily if they support you financially.

Or they get extra content that normal followers don’t see. A Youtube couple I once met for my other channel TravelGretl has a Patreon account. If you would like to see an example . Keep in mind that no matter how well you mean it, Patreon can also get angry.

A well-known Canadian Youtuber who makes a lot of travel videos in Southeast Asia asked some time ago for money for (so it seemed) expensive hotels.

That did not sit well with viewers who mainly came from a less prosperous country. He quickly took the video in which he called for money to be donated offline. That said, there are plenty of people who make a decent amount of money per month on Patreon or similar platforms. 

 

7. Sell stock material: Do you create beautiful images that others could also use in their videos? Then you can consider putting some shots online on a stock website.

If your video is sold, you can get a nice amount for it. Especially if you know how to sell multiple clips.

Some well-known websites are Shutterstock or, Pond5 . There are some ifs and buts to this story. Of course you have to provide good quality content and be sure that your material is free of third party rights.

So filming a person on the street and putting it on Shutterstock commercially without permission is not possible. But also think of the rights of artists, etc.

Find out carefully what is royalty-free and what is not! Also, not every platform pays you the same amount.

Sometimes you get a fixed amount and sometimes you can decide it yourself. In any case, you will have to determine for yourself what your images are worth.

Is that more than what you get from stock websites? Then it might not be worth putting everything there.

Because yes, I have to say that too. Uploading everything on such a website, correcting tags, you name it: that also takes time.

 

8. Becoming Famous Enough: If you manage to become a celebrity or an expert with your YouTube channel, you may also be asked to appear on other programs for a fee.

This happens regularly with the big names. But even if you are smaller you can use your Youtube fame.

If you are an expert in travel, you can speak at travel fairs and meetings, for example, You can wait for people to come up to you and ask you for this kind of snack.

You can also start approaching parties yourself, possibly with the intervention of a manager.

Conclusion on how to earn money with YouTube

And last but not least.

The big question that is always asked is how much money do you really make with Youtube. And how easy is it?! It is impossible to say exactly how much you earn with a channel.

That depends on many factors. But we can say that it is not fast and easy.

If you want to be working on YouTube full-time, keep in mind that you will also have to invest a lot.

In the beginning, a lot of time in making new videos, attracting an audience and maintaining contact with this audience.

Later maybe in better equipment and people to help you keep your channel going. Filming, editing, coming up with new ideas takes a lot of time.

And the bad thing is: you never know if that time will pay for itself. Making YouTube videos and living from them is always a gamble.

If you want to get more insight into how a YouTube journey can go, be sure to watch this video below, Highly recommended! Whether you just want to get some extras with Youtube, or if you want to earn your living with it, good luck with making videos!

If you have any questions, you can drop a comment and if you need a course on this also let us know in the comment section.