Today is a milestone for everything that I’ve been doing in my business. I got monetized one year ago today, and I want to show you how much YouTube paid me in 2020.

You will see other videos out there about people making thousands and thousands of dollars maybe in their first year. But, I had less than 3000 subscribers. In fact, I only hit 3000 subscribers last week. So, all year, I had less than 3000 subscribers.

I’m going to show you how much money I made because I want you to see that it works. You just have to be consistent. Don’t give up and just keep doing what you’re doing. It doesn’t even matter if you’re doing it wrong because one day you’ll figure out what you’re doing wrong and fix it.

So, let’s dig right in. Today is a very special day for me because it’s now 1 year since I was first monetized. I want to share this with you because I want you to see how much a small channel can make in their first year.

It’s easy to get discouraged when you see those channels who are making thousands of dollars quickly. But, you need to be on your own journey and everyone’s journey is different. As long as you’re doing better today than you did yesterday, you’re going to be successful.

My Stats As Of January 15^th, 2021

To see my stats for the past 12 months, I have to go to my analytics page. Then, I select 365 days in the top right-hand corner.

As you can see, I earned $2,148.36 in the last 12 months. That’s exciting for me because when you’re first starting out, you feel like you’re doing all this work for no financial gain. That’s when a lot of people will quit.

However, if you’re making videos because you’re passionate about sharing your knowledge and information, then you don’t mind working for a year without making any significant money. In fact, I earned nothing in my entire first year and I created a video almost every day.

I learned about this from another YouTuber I was following. Initially, this person was creating just one or two videos a week but things just weren’t moving fast enough. So, this YouTuber decided to create one video every day.

I took that advice and decided to create one video every day. And, I did this for eight months. Then, I slowed it down to 2 videos a week and now I’m down to creating just one video a week. This is because I now have an audience who like to follow my videos regularly.

In fact, 899 new subscriber joined my channel last year and I had a total of 5,200 watch hours and 76,400 views.

My Lifetime Stats

My lifetime stats look a little different because it includes all the views from that first year before I was monetized.

As you can see, my lifetime views are 150,800 and my watch hours are 9,600. Plus, I now have a total of 3,061 subscribers. And, my total income is $2,160.94.

One thing I want to share with you is that as you start getting subscribers and more watch hours, your analytics are going to start looking better. I know that when I first had my channel, I would get discouraged at the lack of analytics. But, just hang in there and those analytics are going to start popping up.

What I Learned About Monetization

Here’s something I learned about the monetization. You might hear people say that if you have 1,000,000 views, you should expect to earn around $2 for every thousand views. But, that’s simply just a generalization because it really depends on the type of ads that are being shown on your videos.

Here’s an example of my revenue data for 2020.

As you can see, my CPM is $65.73. What is CPM, I hear you ask. CPM stands for cost per thousand views. This is what the advertiser will pay. So, when the advertiser receives 1000 clicks for his or her ad, they’ll be charged $65.73 for those 1000 clicks. And, I will earn $28.37 for those same 1000 clicks.

Obviously, this is an average for my entire channel but I’m pretty happy with it because it’s a decent CPM. You can also view these stats for each individual video. So, if you have 2 videos, both with 5,000 views and the income is different, you want to have a look at these stats.

As an example, let’s look at one of my videos that gets a lot of views. I made this back in 2019.

As you can see, even though this video has had 5,000 views, the CPM is quite low at $6.35. So, this is an example of a video that gets watched a lot but doesn’t have a very high CPM. In fact, I’m only making $2.58 for every 1000 views. However, when you look at the average for my entire channel, the CPM is pretty good.

If you have videos like this, don’t get rid of them. Even though it’s not pulling in a lot of money, it’s still pulling in a little and you don’t have to touch it. In fact, in the past 48 hours, it’s received 103 views.

What I could do here is look at this topic and maybe make more videos around it or see if I can add some more information. So, don’t discount videos that are not making a lot of money because it all adds up.

Analyzing Your Top Performing Videos

Now, let’s have a look at the videos that brought in the most money in 2020. Then, we can check the analytics to see which ones have good CPMs. Here’s a snapshot of some of my videos showing the RPM, CPM and various other stats.

This will give you an idea of how much money your individual videos are generating. As you can see, most of my CPMs and RPMs are pretty good. In fact, most are over two digits.

Check out the RPM for the video “How To Remove a Pop-Up Funnel from ClickFunnels”. For that one, I get $93.00 for every 1000 views. However, this is not one of my top viewed videos. It only received 266 views last year.

Because the RPM is so high, maybe I should make more videos around this topic. Or, maybe there are things I can improve on the video itself such as the thumbnail.

These are all important things that you should check when you have a look at your analytics. It’s a great way to increase your income. But, just be careful about changing videos that are doing well.

As an example, I had a video that was doing really well right from the beginning. But, I went in and started changing some things and the views actually dropped. Personally, I would recommend just making another video with a different title to add more value.

Final Thoughts

So, now you know how much YouTube paid me in 2020 with less than 3000 subscribers. To recap, I earned $2,148.36 in 2020 after being monetized for just a year. I’ve been doing this for two years now and it took me one year to get monetized. It will be interesting to see what this next year brings.

As I go along this journey, I’ll be learning more new things along the way that I’m going to share with you. And remember, if you have any questions, please put them in the comments below.

You’ve Got This!