How Much I Make With 3 Million Subscribers

What's up you guys! It's Graham here.

So I'm sure at some point you've been scrolling YouTube. You come across your favorite creator, and then you start to think to yourself, "How much money are they making?" No? Just me? Alrighty then! I'll end the video right here. Thank you guys so much for watching. I really appreciate it. Make sure to like and subscribe, and I'll see you next time.

Alright, for real, I think it's crossed everyone's minds when they see their favorite YouTuber change Lamborghinis as often as they do underwear or buy a $45,000 Rolex as a spur-of-the-moment gift. Because why not?

To make things even more confusing, how much some of these big YouTubers make is largely a complete mystery, shielded from the public until now. See, I noticed something interesting. If you want to try to figure out how much a YouTube channel makes, you really only have a few options.

You could try socialblade.com, which estimates earnings based on the number of views a channel receives, or you could just go on YouTube and search, "How much do YouTubers make?" But there's a problem. It seems as though the more subscribers the channel has, the less likely they are to tell you how much money they make.

I think that's understandable. Typically, money isn't something you talk so openly about, and perhaps it comes off the wrong way if you lose relatability with your audience. But because my entire channel is focused around personal finance, investing, and making money, I think it makes sense that I owe you complete transparency in terms of how much this channel makes with now three million subscribers.

After all, you're the reason why all of this is possible in the first place, so for that, thank you! Also, I want to say a huge thank you to Discord for sponsoring this video, but more on that later.

Alright, so let's start off with the basics in terms of how YouTubers make their money. The most common approach is what's called Google AdSense. This is what happens when you see that little countdown on the right side of the screen, and suddenly you know a 5 to 15-second ad is about to play, like the one you're about to see right now.

What's up, Graham? Welcome to my ad! This is a reminder to make sure you smash the like button for the YouTube algorithm, and by watching this ad, I am earning a fraction of a penny. Now, I know that might not sound like a lot of money, but when you get hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, that begins adding up to a lot of money.

See, if an advertiser wants to get in front of you as a potential customer, they have the option to bid on certain keywords in order to appeal to an audience who they feel is most likely to buy and use their product. Every topic is going to have a different value associated with it, depending on the content and the audience.

For example, here's a video with 1 million 496,000 views about why I'm not getting the Apple credit card. Since posting, that video has earned about $15,300. But here's another video of mine with the exact same amount of views, and that video has earned more than double the amount at over $31,000 since posting.

See, every topic has a different advertiser with different guidelines and a different budget in terms of how much they're willing to pay to get in front of you. In my case, the topic of personal finance and investing pays really well.

For example, in the last 30 days, my channel receives anywhere from 200,000 to 500,000 views per day, and that generally translates into an income of $5,000 to $11,000 per day, depending on the subject. However, that is not the case for every YouTube channel.

Generally, the less niche and focused your audience is, the less accurately advertisers can target a certain demographic, and because of that, they pay less. Advertisers can also be incredibly sensitive in terms of associating themselves with creators. So if you swear and say no-no words, or if you talk about controversial or mature subject matter, you're generally seen as less advertiser-friendly. Because of that, you'll earn less money.

Using copyrighted material or music in your videos could also lead you to make substantially less YouTube ad revenue because those copyright owners can literally claim your video, and from that point on, they receive all the YouTube ad revenue that you otherwise would have made.

That's why some of the largest creators on YouTube might only make a few hundred dollars a month in ad revenue, despite getting tens of millions or hundreds of millions of views a month. But don't you worry; not all hope is lost.

Even though these YouTubers might not make a lot of money from the traditional sense, they certainly do make it up from sponsorships. Like, let's take the sponsorship of this video as a perfect example, and that would be Discord.

Now, when it comes to creating and crafting an effective sponsorship, you always gotta begin by describing exactly what it is. In this case, Discord is a voice, video, and text communication service used by over 100 million people to hang out and talk with their friends and communities. Think of it just like a group hangout—except literally on one platform. That makes it extremely easy to keep track of everything in one place.

Now after that, it's important to make it relatable and share your own personal experience. For me, I created a Discord server about two years ago from popular demand because you all wanted a place that you could connect and talk with each other outside of YouTube. We talk about stocks, investing, real estate—really whatever you want. It's just as much yours as it is mine.

Plus, we have some guests that hop on from time to time to share their thoughts and give you some feedback. Then, to wrap everything up, every effective sponsorship has to end with what's known as a call to action.

Like this: If you're interested in joining and being a part of my Discord group, just use the link down below in the description. It's totally free and takes you just 15 seconds. Not to mention, Discord could send you an immediate notification as soon as I post a new video here on YouTube. Usually, that's faster than the actual YouTube notification, so if you want to try to get the first comment, that is how you could do it.

So seriously, I would highly recommend you sign up. It's fun, it's free, it doesn't cost you anything, and it's totally free! And really, that's it—that's how you do an effective sponsorship.

Of course, I know the next question you're gonna ask: "But Graham, how much do the sponsorships pay?" I'll admit there's a huge gray area in terms of how much creators are earning. It depends on who the company is, who they're marketing to, how valuable your audience is, the average views in the average video, and how well you negotiate your rate.

The negotiations are really key, though. I've seen identical channels receive vastly different amounts from the exact same sponsor just because one of them negotiated and the other one didn't. In terms of a more specific answer, though, the value of most sponsorships ranges anywhere from $10 to $120 per thousand views based on the average number of views you get per video.

I know that's a really big range, but it just depends on who the creator is. The reality, though, is that creators will never publicly tell you how much they charge for sponsorships. Because if they ever decide to renegotiate and raise the rates in the future, that could work against them. Not to mention, sponsors never like you to share how much they're paying you because that might prompt other creators to then ask for more money if they feel underpaid in comparison.

That's the reason why I've never been able to give you specifics in terms of how much I make from this, but I will say I do turn down about 99% of sponsors that come my way. And you know what they say? It takes a lifetime to build up a good reputation, but five minutes to ruin it.

So pretty much everything gets denied unless it's a product or service that I like and use myself. Now, as far as how much I've made from sponsorships, I will say it's over $100,000, but it's less than a million dollars. I will say for most channels in the one to five million subscriber range, this should be fairly accurate depending on their audience.

But before we go further down the rabbit hole of YouTube income, let's take a step back and talk about YouTube ad revenue. That's probably the topic you're most curious about, and you just want to know how much money I make with the channel of 3 million subscribers.

Now, just for reference, when I first started making YouTube videos, the early days didn't pay anywhere near how much I'm making today. Back in early 2017, I was posting about two to three videos a week, and that earned me about $10 to $50 a day. But after three months of posting consistently, I started building up a small audience and getting more views, and the amount I was earning began increasing to about $10 to $20 a day.

Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, one of my videos got magically blessed by the almighty YouTube algorithm, and in a single day, I made $171 in ad revenue. I remember that day in such vivid detail because I was blown away that I could literally make videos for fun about topics I enjoyed talking about and somehow make money doing that.

So of course I continued. During my first full year of posting videos in 2017, I earned $26,966.60. Then throughout 2018, I started taking YouTube a lot more seriously. I began spending more of my time on editing, I was getting more comfortable in front of the camera, I built out my garage as a studio to make more visually appealing videos from.

I also continued my same schedule of posting every single Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, no matter what. As my audience grew, so did the views, and that translated into a higher income. Throughout the entire year of 2018, the channel made $170,945.60.

But 2019 is really the year that changed everything. The channel had grown at that point to about 700,000 subscribers, and I saw that as an opportunity to diversify into new topics and to meet with different creators to showcase their accomplishments.

That year, I met with Ben Mala, who shared how he was able to get $250 million worth of real estate. I detailed my experience buying a Tesla Model 3. I got sued by Apple—okay, not really, that was just an April Fool's joke! But I was able to start my second channel, The Graham Stephan Show, to answer subscriber questions and review the spending habits of millennials.

From doing that throughout 2019, the main channel earned $1,001,231.43, and my second channel, The Graham Stephan Show, earned $170,428.75. Now, I'll admit I didn't think things could get much better than that.

In 2020, things really picked up. Up until that point, I was pretty much doing everything myself—planning, filming, editing, thumbnails, titles, sponsorships, emails—you name it! It was really just me and my garage making videos for fun. But as the channel was approaching about 2 million subscribers, it got to the point where I realized that if I wanted to continue growing, I needed some help.

So I hired Jack full time to edit the videos on the second channel, The Graham Stephan Show, and take some work off my plate. That allowed me to focus more on my time on creating daily content between the two channels. I was able to start up a third channel called The Iced Coffee Hour Podcast, which posts a one to two-hour episode every single Sunday morning.

Now, in terms of how much ad revenue all of that earned in 2020, the main channel here earned a whopping $2,082,858.68. The second channel earned $415,046.96, and The Iced Coffee Hour Podcast earned $28,998.91.

And now in 2021, we've been really fortunate that everything has continued growing at a rather consistent rate on this channel. I've continued the same schedule of posting every single Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Most days get anywhere from 300,000 to 400,000 views, which translates to an income of anywhere from $2,000 per day on the low end to $13,000 per day on the high end.

In the last 28 days, the channel has made about $200,000. The second channel also has a very consistent schedule; we always stick to every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. That generates anywhere from 100,000 to 150,000 views per day.

In the last 28 days, that works out to be about $46,000 in ad revenue. Now the third channel, The Iced Coffee Hour, is still relatively new, but that's recently been picking up. Right now, we post once per week, we get about 25,000 views per day, and in the last 28 days, it's earned about $8,500.

Oh, and if you thought we were done yet—nope! We now have a fourth channel called Millennial Money that's split evenly between myself, Meet Kevin, Andre, Jake, and Jeremy Financial Education.

We go live every Tuesday night, and that channel is still too new to tell you how much it's making, but I'll keep you posted on how that does over the next year. But that means between four channels, it's eight new videos every single week. You get a brand new video to watch every single day!

In total combined, it works out to be about $270,000 per month in ad revenue. But here's where things start getting really interesting. Running a YouTube channel is very much like running a full-service business where the sky is the limit in terms of what you could do and what you could offer your audience.

For example, Nelk has the Full Send merch line, Danny Duncan has "Virginity Rocks," Logan Paul has "Maverick," Emma Chamberlain has "Coffee"—the list goes on. Depending on how they promote this, they could easily earn another $3 to $15 million a year.

Mr. Beast is also the perfect example of how you could expand to business way beyond just YouTube. Now as for myself, I've done my best to diversify across as many different facets as possible because it's never a good idea to be too reliant on just one source of income.

So my other YouTube-related income sources include a Teachable program where I teach people how to grow a YouTube channel or how to build up their career as a real estate agent. Then for those wanting something different, I also offer a mentorship program where we meet every week and talk about whatever comes to mind.

Beyond that, though, I've also done some part-time consulting for financial services. I've been able to invest in FinTech startups, and there are so many other opportunities that I never would have had access to if it wasn't for the channel.

If we go and add everything up—throughout ad revenue, program sales, sponsorships, consulting, and affiliates—my income for 2020 was just over $5 million as a channel with 3 million subscribers.

If there's one big takeaway that I've learned throughout the last year, it's the importance of longevity and building up a system that's sustainable. The reality is, creating, filming, editing, and posting a new video every single day, 365 days a year, is not sustainable on my own.

So being open to receiving help has been one of the biggest "aha" moments for me in terms of continuing to grow. I've also begun thinking of how I can continue growing, and over the next few weeks, I'll be announcing three new endeavors.

The first is the official launch of my new coffee company. Because why pay someone else for my 20-cent iced coffee when I could just create my own instead and offer it to you?

I'm also going to be releasing an app that focuses on the financial day-to-day of the market and topics that I'm not able to talk about every day here on YouTube. Finally, we also got a vlog channel. I kid you not, this started off as a joke, but then we filmed the first episode and it turned out to be so hilarious and fun to film!

So we figured, why not? We may as well post weekly vlogs and just have fun with it. That one thumbnail where the guys on his Tesla on the roof—oh yes, that's it! That's her thumbnail right there. The link to that is down below in the description, and it's called "These the Family." Get it? Like "Graham Stephan, this the family"?

But go ahead and subscribe! Pretty soon it's going to be a family vlog channel, except instead of kids, we got Bailey the puppy and Ramsay the cat, who sleeps all day.

So overall, there you go! That's how much money I earn with the channel of 3 million subscribers. I like to think that anything is possible, and that it's really up to the creator to decide how they want to position themselves to give you the content, products, and services that you will like and use.

Lastly, I just want to say this: obviously, none of this is possible without you. So I want to say a huge thank you for all of your support and helping us reach 3 million subscribers. That is an unbelievable milestone that I never thought would happen.

None of that would have been possible without you, and you allow me to be able to talk about what I love every single day. For that, I am forever grateful! Plus, I also owe a lot to YouTube for fostering a platform that allows us to talk about different topics and to reach an audience that wants to hear about that.

So there's no doubt I would not be here today if it were not for the accumulation of factors that have just all made this possible. So, like I said, thank you so much for all of your support, and in return for that, I promise to keep talking about the topics that you want me to talk about and to keep sharing my experiences along the way so you could replicate those same steps too.

And lastly, I can't end a video without saying this: thank you guys so much again for smashing that like button for the YouTube algorithm and subscribing! So with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching. I really appreciate it. As always, make sure to destroy the subscribe button and the notification bell.

Also, feel free to add me on Instagram! I post pretty much daily, so if you want to be a part of it there, feel free to add me there. As for my second channel, The Graham Stephan Show, I post there every single day I'm not posting here. So if you want to see a brand new video from me every single day, make sure to add yourself to that.

Thank you guys so much for watching. I really appreciate it, and until next time!