YouTuber ‘Toobz’ started uploading short commentary videos about internet trends in January 2017, and since then has amassed a modest following of a little over 5,500 subscribers. He also recently hit a YouTube milestone: one million views. Toobz took the opportunity to review exactly how much ad revenue those views have pulled in for him.
The answer is…not much.
Toobz made a roundup video totalling all his earnings, as well as dividing out the earnings for some of his individual videos. The video that earned the most cash for him was Crazy YouTuber Builds Homemade Jetpack, which had garnered 97,000 views at the time of his roundup (it’s up to 101,000 now). Those 97,000 views translated to $78.57 — or $0.81 per 1,000 views. However, Toobz’s least valuable video also ironically had far more views than Jetpack. Jack Jones TV Exposed had 261,000 views at the time of the roundup (and 272,000 now) and had earned $23.49, representing $0.09 per 1,000 views.
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The fact that a video with significantly more views had earned significantly less money likely comes down to one factor: demonetization. The thumbnail for Jack Jones showed one person appearing to hit another, which could have triggered demonetization for violence. It is worth noting that in a video from 2017, Toobz showed that Jack Jones, which then had 66,000 views, did appear to be monetized, showing the green monetization symbol — leading to Toobz to believe that YouTube had inaccurately reported its status on his dashboard.
Overall, Toobz’s videos have made him $389.07.
A study from the Offenburg University Of Applied Sciences found that 96.5% of YouTubers won’t earn enough from their videos to cross the U.S. poverty line. The study also indicated that once a YouTuber hits it big and enters the top 3% of creators who receive 90% of the site’s views, they still may only make an estimated $16,800. (Of course, the higher-tier in that 3% the creator is, the more they make.)
Toobz’s earnings aren’t an estimate, though — they’re a rare glimpse into how much money, down to the cent, a small-time YouTuber can make.
