How Much I Made My First Year Monetized on Youtube
If you’ve spent any time on my Youtube channel, you probably know it’s all about backpacking. But if you’ve been seeing my content for awhile, you might also know that I have a pretty intense interest in personal finance as well. The combo of those two interests lead me to today’s blog: How Much I Made My First Year Monetized on Youtube (with my backpacking channel).
If you’re anything like I was when I first started exploring the world of content creation, you also might be super curious how much you can actually make from Youtube Ad Revenue. As a small creator, it’s not much, but it’s also not nothing. The absolute dream would be to one day be able to do content creation full time (getting to make content about backpacking and go backpacking and make creative films as a full time job??? Sign me UP). Spoiler: I’m not quite there yet, so for now I supplement any income I make from content creation with freelance copywriting (this is still by far the majority of my income actually).
Before I get into the numbers, I want to share a little bit about how I got into backpacking content creation. First of all, I’m a creative person, and I would probably be making the videos about my hikes even without financial motivation (which is good because as you’ll read, the pay, at least right now, is not that great). It’s provided a really awesome outlet and additional hobby for me.
Perhaps more importantly, when I was first getting into backpacking social media was honestly where I found a lot of inspiration and information on it. I didn’t grow up backpacking and I didn’t have many people close to me who did it. So, like many people, I went down the Youtube rabbit holes. The people who’s videos I watched inspired me to hike the PCT and, in turn, have inspired me to help others do the same.
I started posting my Pacific Crest Trail thru-hike on Youtube in 2020 (the quality was pretty bad), but didn’t start posting consistently until my Continental Divide Trail series in 2022. Ultimately, that’s what led to my first year monetized on YouTube — 2023.
So, how much did I make in my first year monetized on youtube?
The requirements for Youtube monetization are 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. I hit 1,000 subscribers on December 19th, 2022 and hit 4,000 watch hours two days later on December 21st. So that meant I could apply for monetization and my channel was approved for monetization on December 22nd. Therefore, I had monetization status for all of 2023! I made $40.80 for the rest of December, in case you are curious, but let’s get to the meat of it — what I made on Youtube for my first year monetized — 2023.
January: $93.03 | 5 videos, 7 shorts
In January, I was still publishing my weekly Continental Divide Trail series and I earned $93.03 that month, but most of my views were actually from my CDT Gear review that I posted in December. I published 5 videos and 7 shorts.
February: $86.29 | 4 videos, 4 shorts
In February, I was again still publishing my weekly CDT series and I earned $86.29 that month. Again, my highest watched content was my CDT gear list and my CDT series. I published 4 videos and 4 shorts.
March: $132.97 | 3 videos, 5 shorts
In March I finished my CDT series and earned $132.97. It’s worth noting that $38.50 of that was due to super thanks, so thank you VERY much to the people who enjoyed my CDT series and sent some extra cash my way. I published 3 videos and 5 shorts. I took a little bit of a break after finishing my CDT series.
April: $70.18 | 5 videos, 4 shorts
In April, I earned $70.18. This is when I started to try to post weekly videos that are backpacking related but were not part of an actual trip series. I published 5 videos and 4 shorts.
May: $47.81 | 2 videos, 2 shorts
In May, I earned $47.81. I published 2 videos and 2 shorts. Obviously I fell off the posting bandwagon a bit! Partially, because this is when I started traveling and backpacking more.
June: $57.47 | 1 video, 4 shorts
In June, I earned $57.47. I only published 1 video of my trip to the Grand Canyon and 4 shorts.
July: $26.91 | 2 videos, 2 shorts
In July, I earned $26.91. I published 2 videos of weekend backpacking trips and 2 shorts.
August: $28.13 | 1 video, 8 shorts
In August, I earned $28.13. I published my Pfiffner Traverse video and 8 shorts about the Pfiffner Traverse.
September: $41.57 | 3 videos, 6 shorts
In September, I made $41.57. I published 3 videos and 6 shorts.
October: $26.65 | 1 video, 1 short
In October, I made $26.65. I published just 1 video and 1 short about our trip to Black Canyon of the Gunnison.
November: $144.50 | 5 videos, 7 shorts
November was a big month because that’s when I posted my gear reviews for the year, and gear reviews always do well. I made $144.50 in November. I published 5 videos and 7 shorts.
December: $83.83 | 4 videos, 7 shorts
December is still ongoing, but so far my estimated revenue is $67.28 with 4 videos and 6 shorts.
2023 TOTAL: $839.34 | 36 videos, 56 shorts
That means I made $839.34 in my first year monetized on Youtube. I did not include any affiliate link earnings but I can tell you that’s usually not more than ~$20/month. I also have not yet done any paid partnerships on Youtube so this is all purely youtube ad revenue earnings.
My top earning videos for the year (in order) were:
My CDT Gear Review | $154.06
My PCT Gear Review (which was actually published in 2022 | $33.93
So like I mentioned, people definitely love the gear reviews. I also thought it was interesting that the first and last installment of my CDT series were the most popular.
My goal for 2024 is to mostly stick to a weekly posting cadence and maybe do a few paid partnerships to get my total revenue number up, but I want to be selective with paid partnerships so I’ll probably keep doing my freelance work in addition to youtube and content creation.
I’d estimate I spend an average of 10 hours on each video (this can vary quite a bit but I’d say it’s ROUGHLY around that) and maybe 1-2 hours on shorts. So with 36 total videos published and 57 shorts I think I spend about 444 hours on Youtube. That means the $822.79 shakes out to about $2/hour if I round up. I also pay for Creative Cloud and a music licensing service, Epidemic Sound, to be able to make my videos.
Hopefully, the work I’m putting in now will be worth it in a few years! But if not, I honestly do thoroughly enjoy making these videos, so I’d probably do it even if I wasn’t paid, I just obviously have to prioritize the work that actually pays the bills.
I really appreciate all of you who have tuned into my channel in 2023, and I hope you stick around for the exciting stuff I have planned in 2024. I hope you found how much I made in my first year monetized on youtube helpful!