How much money can you make putting videos on Youtube?

I've updated this post from yesterday as I think it was a little lacking.  I've been a little clearer towards the end of the article now, I hope this helps as I found it quite difficult to find this information when I was looking into whether or not to place ads on my Youtube videos to make some extra cash.

How much money can you make from posting videos on Youtube?

First of all, make sure you subscribe to my Youtube channel here!  That's key in making money, get subscribers, so help a guy out right? www.Youtube.com/ChristianMoviesUK 

This was such a difficult question to find an answer to.  I guess there are so many variables, different advertisers pay different amounts, different types of video might appeal to different types of user who are more or less inclined to click on ads meaning you'll get less clicks per 1000 views.

I set up my videos to monetise and I haven't found any information which suggests I should keep the payment amount and schedule secret, I don't think I was invited into the secret Youtube club where they tell you how much you're going to earn from advertising on your videos as long as you don't tell anyone else!

So I'll tell you what it looks like so far on mine.  And a lot of this is based on assumptions and rough guesstimates!

Basically, I get about 4 pence, £0.04, every time somebody clicks on the advert on one of my Youtube videos.  Yippee!  Actually, I thought it would be even less than that.  I'm sure there are setting you can select which put limits on how ads are displayed which may mean you'd get less.

Anyway, based on the percentage of people who are clicking my ads on Youtube, the prediction they offer me is that I am likely to earn around £3.45 per 1000 video views, I have a click-through rate of just over 8%.  I don't know if that's good or not.

10,000 views = £34.50
100,000 views = £345.00
1,000,000 views = £3,450.00
10,000,000 views = £34,500.00
100,000,000 views = £345,000.00
300,000,000 views = £1,035,000.00  Think Gotye, Gangnam Style...Yay, I'm a Youtube Millionaire!

So, if you wanted to make a living from Youtube and you had my level of CTR and £0.04 per click, then in order to get a passable young geezer's wage of let's say £20k a year that would mean you would need half a million clicks per year.  At a rate of just over 8% that means you would need roughly six million video views per year.

So that's the answer right there, all very rough but you can work the rest out yourself.  If you start getting a vid with 300 million views, things start to look rather tasty.

My vids are getting between 10-60 views per day on average (not quite Beyonce Single Ladies) so let's call it an average of 35 per day.  I have four main videos doings this, so I'm seeing about 140 views per day.  I'm getting a bit more than that really, but it's always far more comfortable to do a conservative estimate for me, that way I'm more likely to be pleasantly surprised!

So on a 30 day month I'm getting 4200 views. 8.2% of those 4200 Youtube video views makes it likely I will get around 344 click throughs on my ads. 344 clicks x £0.04 = £13.76 pcm. Wow, I'm on my way!

Since I'm getting that with four main videos, and I'd need at least 100 times that to scrape by as anything like a career choice, then I'll need another 400 videos.  Those videos took about a week each to make, so we're looking at a good four or five years working for very little before I could start to relax, and of course there's no saying that all videos will maintain a level of popularity.

BUT, and this is the big fun part, if you are putting your heart into something and producing a level of quality (which people certainly appreciate, quality over quantity any day!)  then it seems likely that out of those four hundred videos you will achieve several which are far more successful than the sorts of low numbers I'm talking about.  I think that's where it gets quite exciting, as you have a hope of hitting the big time and you're independent.  You can make a movie or a song and do really well with no record deal or Hollywood agent, all you need to rely on is your own talent and of course, God's will!

So it's very possible to make a living off Youtube, especially if your videos are popular.  But it would need to be a concerted long-term effort, requiring skill, talent and hard work, like any career.  Go for it!