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Making Money On YouTube
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Making Money On YouTube

I wrote this calculator to help me work out how long it would be until I started to make money on YouTube. Before you can start making money on YouTube you need to have 1,000 subscribers and over 4,000 watch hours per year. Some people may reach these targets very quickly, but if you're like me, it will take some time to reach the targets, perhaps even years. Each of us have to make the decision as to whether or not the time and effort involved in YouTube is worth it.

NOTE: Contribution by Shorts is now included in revenue and total subscribers, but not for getting monetised. Whilst it is possible for some people to make money from Shorts, and even get monetised through Shorts, in general Shorts is expected to only make a small contribution to a person's earnings.

The values for this calculator come from screens on YouTube in the desktop version of YouTube Studio.

Analytics
Subscribers for the 28 days and Total Subscribers come from the Analytics screen.

Analytics -> Content -> Videos
Views and Average View Duration

Earn (whilst not monetised)
. Public Watch Hours

Note: Public watch hours is no longer shown once you become monetised. If you want to calculate public watch hours once monetised, set the time period to 365 days and go to the Analytics->Content->Videos screen. Convert the average view duration to seconds, multiply by the views and then divide by 3,600 to get the watch time for the year. It should be noted this information isn't needed by the calculator once monetised.

Results
The results for this calculator will let you know how many days it will be to reach the 1,000 subscribers (if you haven't already) and the 4,000 hours (if you haven't already). The estimated revenue for long form videos and shorts is provided, as well as a total estimated revenue for a year.

The estimated revenue figure is a hard one to know. I've heard of revenue being in the 10s of cents per thousand views to up to nearly $30 for Australia. Before getting monetised, I used $5 per 1,000 as an estimate and now after being monetised, this value for my audience, I've found was a very good estimate. For Shorts the first month of being monetised indicates a revenue of 6 cents per 1,000 views is a good number to use.

Views to get a subscriber
The final result is the Views to get a subscriber. It's a measurement I found useful to see how my channel compared to other YouTubers. Generally, if you're getting one subscriber per 1,000 views, I consider that doing well. My channel was performing worse so it would take me longer to get the 1,000 subscribers, an important number if you wish to make money from YouTube. Some channels amazingly get one subscriber for a few hundred views and even a subscriber per 10s of views. They are the channels that will grow quickly. Although I do have to wonder if they're buying subscribers which I don't think is a good idea on YouTube.

It's very easy for people to say YouTube for them isn't just about making money. For me YouTube has enabled me to share my Red Light Speed Camera videos for my Speed Camera Locations site for no cost, so that's a factor I need to keep in mind. However, once I specifically aimed to get monetised and make money from YouTube, I have to be mindful my time is limited and if I'm just feeding the YouTube machine and not getting a fair return, then I need to move on and look for other ways to generate revenue.

To be clear, I have only recently been monetised on YouTube, but before then I found that by creating this calculator, the calculator helped me, and I hope it helps others who are in a similar situation. Best of luck on your YouTube journey.

NOTE: This calculator was originally created before YouTube released Shorts. The calculator has now been updated to include Shorts views. However, Shorts are only included from the point of view of getting 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch time hours of long form video. The calculator is not suitable for those wishing to use Shorts to get monetised, something I doubt I could ever achieve.

Disclaimer

The Making Money On YouTube calculator comes with no warranty expressed or implied. The Making Money On YouTube calculator is only for informational purposes and is not guaranteed to be error free. The information on this page is not intended to be advice.

 
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