How to Make Money on YouTube: 10 Best Methods

The more time we spend on social media, the more we think, “I can create cool content too.” If you’ve been daydreaming about having your own YouTube channel, the good news is that YouTube is a viable way to make money online, even in 2024, when multiple platforms are competing for eyeballs.

The YouTube income creators can go well into the millions. Of course, that won’t be from the YouTube partner program alone, but lately, as a YouTube creator, there have been so many ways to build your income streams that you can earn money for years. This article will share how to make money on YouTube fast in 2024.

How to Make Money on YouTube as YouTube Creators

1. Make money selling digital products

One way to make money on YouTube is to sell digital products. The secret is to build a YouTube audience that’s sizable enough to sell your products to.

If you keep all your audience’s focus on your YouTube channel, monetizing them will take a lot of work. You need to move your YouTube subscribers to your website, where you can build an email list to sell products like software, a book, or even an audio recording of your music.

When building your website, you’ll want to avoid pricey monthly subscriptions like the one on Shopify to earn as much money as possible from your social media account. Instead, you’ll want to build your website on a platform like Payhip, which has a Free Forever account, allowing you to have a website selling digital products, like online courses, coaching services, membership sites, or digital downloads.

Creating your website is an asset where you can own your audience. A compelling digital product that moves your YouTube followers to your website is crucial for long-term success. For example, if you have a YouTube channel about entrepreneurship and being your boss, you might share a product, such as an ebook on quitting the rat race.

If you have a YouTube channel about fashion, you might offer virtual styling services. Your success will boil down to your ability to create digital products that make sense for your audience pool.

2. Make some extra cash as a YouTube Partner

The YouTube Partner Program is also known as YPP. Those with a YouTube account who meet the correct eligibility criteria can profit from video content.

A common question is how many views to make money on YouTube. To be eligible, you’ll need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 views in 12 months for long-form videos and 10,000,000 in 90 days for Shorts. You’ll want to read the privacy policy and terms of service to ensure you keep your eligibility once in the program.

Being a YouTube Partner is one of the easiest ways to make money from YouTube fast while growing your audience size. You don’t need a million subscribers to make money; you only need 1,000, which is relatively easy to achieve.

3. Earn money through affiliate marketing

YouTube creators can make money on their YouTube channel via affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is when you sell someone else’s product for a commission of the sale.

When you have a YouTube channel, you own an audience. Owning an audience allows you to present products to people who fit them well. And it’s an excellent way to earn money.

With affiliate marketing, the return on investment can be highly profitable if you already have an audience. Most affiliate marketers run ads to generate sales if they don’t have an existing audience. With a channel, creators can use Youtube monetization on their audience with little to no risk.

When choosing companies to promote via affiliate marketing, choose popular and established brands that offer a high commission percentage and don’t have any potential scandals that could put your brand at risk.

When creating content as an affiliate, you can integrate the product or tool into a general topic, make tutorial videos, or create a guide on using the product. Remember to aim to promote the product before customers have signed up, so think of a more top-of-funnel idea to promote the idea to ensure people are still in the shopping stage.

4. Make an income from sponsored videos

You can make a ton of money on YouTube from sponsored videos. One of the most significant ways of making money on YouTube is by earning money from brands.

You’ve built this sizable audience of loyal viewers, and brands want to tap into your audience to showcase their products. Now how to earn money on Youtube? If you have a niche YouTube channel, such as tech product reviews, brands selling tech products know you have a targeted audience, which will likely convert well when featured on your channel.

Creating a broad audience will help you grow a big channel, but your ability to convert may be less than that of a hyper-targeted YouTube channel around a niche. Content creators who convert viewers into sales for brands can use that performance to pitch other niche businesses about their ability to transform their users to help them land even more brand deals.

A company wants to make a return on their investment. They don’t want to break even by partnering with you. They want to generate enough demand and sales that their sponsorship of your video allows them to make a profit.

An alternative way to get sponsors could be to mention a brand from a YouTuber, such as “This video was sponsored by (brand name).” This works well if you’re doing a podcast and talking about the business industry.

For example, “This video was sponsored by MasterClass” while doing a video on the importance of education and learning. You want to tie your sponsorship to your audience or video content as closely as possible to help brands generate the revenue and profit they hired you for.

5. Increase YouTube money through merch sales

A popular way how to make money on YouTube is through merch sales. You build a personal brand when you have a YouTube channel where you talk in front of a camera (so not those faceless videos).

As the number of subscribers your channel has grows to 100,000 or even 1,000,000, you can launch a merch or any product, and your loyal followers will end up buying products from you.

Some YouTubers have sold books to their followers, sharing unique or life stories. Others have created merch, such as t-shirts with slogans or pictures, notebooks, pens, laptop stickers, tote bags, or mugs. You can use print-on-demand apps like Printify or Printful to dropship custom merch.

However, the margins on custom print-on-demand products tend to be tight, making it harder to generate tons of profit. Alternatively, using a platform like Payhip, you can design and order bulk inventory to sell to help you create more profitably profitable sales.

Ordering wholesale runs the risk of not selling through, yet the cost per product, if you do sell through, will allow you to make more money overall from your merch sales as a YouTuber. Content creators often launch merch lines via their website, as their growing fanbase will ask for it and purchase items.

6. License your YouTube channel content

There are so many ways to get started with licensing regarding YouTube content.

For example, have you ever watched a music video on TV? Television stations might ask musicians to license their music videos (often hosted for free on YouTube) to their studio so they’ll have the right to replay their videos for a fee.

If you create viral videos, such as blooper content, television stations will likely be willing to license YouTube clips from you if you’re the content creator.

Documentary producers might pay content creators to license video content, such as nature scapes, celebrity interviews, wildlife videos, historical events, etc. You’ll need to set up a contract and work out a financial agreement that allows you to monetize your videos in this way.

If you’re not selling products in videos, as your videos are the product themselves, licensing agreements could be a great additional revenue stream. You can add an email address on your YouTube channel, such as licensing@brandname.com, to let viewers know that licensing your content is possible so you attract more opportunities like that.

7. Offer memberships as a YouTube partner

If you have a YouTube account as a creator, you can increase your rates and revenue from YouTube by offering memberships to your viewers.

Fans of your channel will be able to Join your YouTube membership program for exclusive content. For example, a YouTuber might create accessible videos on fashionable outfits you can purchase and model.

If they wanted to earn additional money, they might make a membership program with a fashion course to teach people how to make their looks based on items in their closet to personalize their experience better.

Selling courses, creating unique content, or sharing content you want to avoid getting views are all good things to add to your membership. You typically develop shorts, and you use your membership for longer-form content. You can always add something exclusive to your channel membership to entice viewers to sign up for it, at least for a trial.

8. Make more money from YouTube Premium

Those monetizing their YouTube videos with ads can earn a secondary revenue stream via YouTube Premium. YouTube Premium is the monthly subscription YouTube viewers pay for to enjoy YouTube videos without ads.

YouTube Premium pays creators more than YouTube ads, provided that many Premium members watch your content, allowing you to earn a decent revenue stream from YouTube directly. Making money from YouTube Premium is outside your control, as it largely depends on how well YouTube promotes its Premium product to its customer base.

However, you have long-form videos with countless ads interrupting the experience. More viewers might pay for Premium to get a better social media experience.

For example, if you use YouTube to follow along with workout videos, getting interrupted by ads while trying to exercise would be super annoying. A fitness coach might get a lot of YouTube Premium members.

Alternatively, if you host a three-hour podcast on YouTube, most people want to avoid constantly being interrupted by ads while enjoying the conversation. They’ll likely pay for Premium, allowing you to earn more from Premium members.

9. Monetize live streams with Super Chat and Super Stickers

Those in the YouTube Partner Program can monetize their live streams with Super Chat and Super Stickers. For example, if a viewer of your live stream wants to have their comment pinned to the top or wants their comment to stand out, they’ll purchase Super Chat and Super Stickers to elevate their remarks.

Since they must pay for this feature, creators benefit from monetizing their live streams. When marketing your live streams, you’ll want to increase your viewer size tremendously to get the chat active, so there are more reasons for viewers to want to pin their comments or make their posts stand out. An excellent way to get a boost is to email the livestream to your list.

If you have a sizable audience or create a live stream based on something newsworthy in your life, you can promote the event to the media.

10. Allow Super Thanks on your YouTube profile

Super Thanks, previously known as Viewer applause, is another way to make money on YouTube. A Super Thanks is a way for viewers to show appreciation and gratitude to creators for their content.

It’s an animation you can share in a short or long video. The animation can be used only one time. Yet, it also comes with the ability to post a colorful and customizable comment in the comment section that’ll stand out among other comments prominently.

There are various Super Thanks price points, allowing creators to earn more from viewers depending on the credit they choose. The details can be found on the Thanks button below a video.

FAQ

Conclusion

These are some of the ways how to make money on youtube. Beyond the work you put into your YouTube channel, you’ll also need to build an audience outside the platform.

Building an audience via your website can allow you to create an email list and sell additional products, from books to t-shirts to courses. Hosting everything on YouTube risks your brand losing everything if you break the terms of service accidentally or unintentionally.

Your website will allow you to securely retain some of your audience’s information to build a brand that outlasts your YouTube days. To make your website, sign up for Payhip today.