How Many Views On YouTube You Need to Get Paid – I Earn 5-Figures Per Month On my Channel

A man working from his computer at a coffee shop on his youtube channel

Are you wondering how many views you’ll need to get paid on YouTube? If so, you’re in the right place.

Today I have an awesome guest post from Ryan Scribner who earns $20,000+ per MONTH in just ad revenue from his YouTube channel!

Isn’t that crazy? I think it’s amazing that we can earn that kind of money on YouTube.

To understand how many views you’ll need to get paid on YouTube you must first understand YouTube’s earning rules.

YouTube Earning Requirements:

  • Minimum of 1,000 subscribers
  • 4,000 hours of viewing time in the past year
  • Before any ads appear, the videos will go through a standard process including automated or human reviews to see if it meets their guidelines (Ryan covers this in more detail below)

So you’ll need to put a lot of work in before you can even start to monetize your YouTube account, but it’s SO worth it if you do. Remember nothing worth having comes easy.

The beauty of what Ryan has been able to achieve is passive income. Once he creates a video he’s DONE and can sit back and enjoy the benefits of his hard work. Of course, he continues to come up with new content but he’s easily earning money from the videos he posted months ago. Talk about making money while you sleep!

To answer the question on how many views you’ll need to get paid on YouTube is not that easy to answer and there are more factors involved than you think, so Ryan is going to break it down to show us how many views to make a $100 per day on YouTube.

For those of you who don’t know me, I’m really into making money blogging and if you ever wondered how it all works you can check out one of my most popular articles How to Make Money Blogging Consistently, BUT YouTube is my next venture and that’s why I’m so happy to have Ryan here today to teach us all on how many views we need on YouTube to Get Paid.

If you’re looking for more ways to make money we have a list of 30 ways people are making money from home that you can start today, definitely a must-read.

So without further ado, let’s hear it from Ryan.


These days, becoming a famous YouTuber or an influencer is the dream for a lot of people both young and old. Ten years ago, if you asked kids what they wanted to do when they were older, a lot of them would say a movie star or a rock star.

Now, if you ask that same question, many would say an influencer or a YouTube star. YouTube has become a platform where virtually anyone with a camera and some creative ideas can build an audience of fans watching them from all over the world. The exciting part is, you can even make money in the process!

A lot of people are curious about how much money you can make as a YouTube creator. The answer is, it depends! However, I will be explaining why that is and giving some ballpark estimates in this article.

First of all, a bit more about myself. I have been doing YouTube videos for over 3 years now on my channel Ryan Scribner. Between this channel and my blog Investing Simple, I make a great living for myself and I am fully supported by my online business. I make videos about investing, personal finance and other money related topics.

How Much Money I Make On YouTube

It’s important to realize that there is more than one way to make money on YouTube. Most people think the only way is by earning ad revenue. Essentially, when you run ads on your channel, you get a cut of the money and Google takes the rest. There are actually multiple ways to make money on this platform, but that is above and beyond the scope of this article. For now, we are just going to talk ad revenue.

Each month, I am getting anywhere from 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 views on my channel which usually results in 10,000 to 20,000 new subscribers. I don’t get paid a specific amount of money based on the subscribers.

In the month of December 2019, I got 2,000,000 views which resulted in 17,800 new subscribers and $23,409.41 in ad revenue. That ad revenue figure is what I take home. By most standards, that is a lot of money! If you do the math, that is around $755 a day from ad revenue.

A chart showing how many youtube subscribers and how much is earned from channel over the month of December

Here’s the thing though, not everyone is making this much money on YouTube. There are a lot of factors that have an impact on how much money you make. I believe I have one of the highest-paid channels in terms of views on YouTube. This is because I am creating advertiser-friendly content in a highly sought after niche. Now, let’s get into the different factors that affect how much money you make (related to ad revenue only).

1. Advertiser Friendly Content

The first and biggest factor is whether or not your content is advertiser-friendly. Essentially, this answers the question of whether or not a large brand would be happy with showing an ad before your channel. As much as we all love watching David Dobrik on YouTube, if you look at his videos you will find that most of them do not have any ads on them. This is because his content is not advertiser-friendly. Videos with profanity, violence, danger, sensitive topics, drug use, and other related characteristics are often labeled as “not advertiser-friendly” by the algorithm.

My channel, on the other hand, is about as advertiser-friendly as you can be. I am clean cut, I do not use any bad language and I talk about money and investing. There are no flamethrowers or stunts in my videos. So, when you are trying to determine how much a channel is making, you have to consider whether or not the content is advertiser-friendly. If it is not, they could be making very little to no ad revenue.

2. Niche

The next factor to consider is what niche the channel is in. Advertisers bid on ad placements with Google and based on the niche these ad rates differ. The most common metric used to explain this is CPM, which is how much your channel earns per 1,000 views. When your niche has a high demand for ad space, the CPM will be higher. If demand is low, the CPM will be lower. Thus, each niche has a different CPM based on the demand for the ad space. It’s a big no-no for channels to share their exact CPM, but I will give you a ballpark estimate!

Gaming CPM Estimate: $2-$3

Gaming channels tend to have low CPM’s, and this is for a few reasons. First of all, there are literally THOUSANDS of these channels out there. If advertisers want to run ads on gaming content, they have millions of videos to choose from making the demand low. Second of all, the type of audience watching this channel is young people. And if there is one thing we know about young people it is that they don’t have a lot of money to spend. This is not a highly sought after niche for advertisers.

Makeup/Beauty CPM Estimate: $5-$7

Makeup and personal beauty channels tend to have lower CPMs, but slightly higher than gaming. The good news is, people who watch makeup videos are often buyers of those type of products, making this audience more desirable for advertisers. (Side note here, I am getting these figures from creators who have shared their earnings on YouTube. You can simply divide their earnings by their views to get a ballpark estimate of CPM.)

Money/Finance CPM Estimate: $13-$17

As mentioned earlier, these finance channels tend to have very high CPMs because of the audience. People watching these videos have money to spend or invest, making them a desirable audience for advertisers. There are also far fewer people doing this type of channel compared to those doing beauty, gaming or something like that. I have seen some channels in more specific niches, like e-commerce for example, which a CPM as high as $30!

3. Mid-roll Ads

The third factor is whether or not your content is short or long. The reason this matters is because YouTube allows you to run mid-roll ads on your channel. Just like with television, you can put a commercial break in your content. In order to place a mid-roll ad, your video has to be over 10 minutes long. If it is shorter than that, you will just get an ad at the beginning of the video (if the content is advertiser-friendly).

If you are watching a 30-minute video on YouTube, it is not uncommon to see 3 or 4 ads in that video. Each time the ad plays, the creator has the potential to earn some money from it. So as a result, creators who make longer videos tend to make more money thanks to these mid-roll ads.

How Many Views To Earn $100 A Day

Now that we have all of this background information covered, I can now give you an educated guess as to how many views you need to earn $100 a day on YouTube. For some reason, this “$100 a day” number is a goal many people have with online businesses. So, assuming your content is advertiser-friendly, here’s a rough idea of how many views you need per month based on the niche.

If you have a gaming channel, you would likely need 1,500,000 views a month to make $100 a day with your YouTube channel. That means you would need about 50,000 views a day on your channel, earning a CPM of $2.

If you have a beauty channel, you would likely need 600,000 views a month to make the coveted $100 a day. That breaks down to 20,000 views per day earning a $5 CPM.

Finally, if you have a finance channel, you would only need about 230,000 views each month to make $100 a day from your channel. If you earned a CPM of $13, you would need about 7,600 views each day to hit that number.

Again, let me just restate these are educated estimates based on my own personal earnings and research I have done on other channels. Ad rates could change at any time based on the demand for the ad space, market conditions, and so many other factors.

That being said, if your goal is to make a lot of money with your channel, the best thing to consider is whether or not your content is advertiser-friendly. You might want to consider making longer content as well, as this can allow you to run multiple mid-roll ads.

At the end of the day, your goal with your channel should be to have fun and create content you enjoy. If you can make some money in the process, that is just an added bonus. If you simply go out looking to make money, you might end up creating content in a niche that doesn’t actually interest you. I’ve been creating content about money and investing for over 3 years, but I am very passionate about these topics so I really enjoy it. You should make sure you feel the same way about the content you create!

If you’re ready to start your YouTube channel make sure you read this guide on how to get started with little-known secrets to success on YouTube.


A man in a light blue button up smiling, posing for a picture

Ryan Scribner is a full-time YouTuber and blogger who talks about investing, personal finance and different money making ideas. After starting his channel back in 2016, he decided to quit his job as a utility worker and go full time with an online business. Now, he teaches others how to build online businesses around what they are passionate about. Outside of work, Ryan enjoys traveling the world, being outdoors, spirituality and craft beers.

How to Get Paid on Youtube

How Many Views On YouTube to Get Paid

Spread the love

1 thought on “How Many Views on Youtube You Need to Get Paid”

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top