![Youtube.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/revisesociology/23u6YyqFzYq8cpkZbu6SJW5osXATMm2B13cnQsEVLcu8Feu2LeWY6iF7SGwTebZAjYSWy.png)


YouTube's Net Advertising Revenue in 2020 was just over $4 billion. ([Source](https://www.emarketer.com/content/us-youtube-advertising-2020)).

55% of that revenue goes to the channels with > 1000 subscribers who qualify for YouTube's Partner Programme, of which there are approximately 6 million.   

So $2.2 Billion of advertising revenue is shared among these 6 million YouTube Channels. 

NB - there are 37 million active channels with >10 subscribers in total on YouTube, but only 6 million have the necessary number of subscribers to qualify for a cut of that precious ad-revenue. (Data from [Tubics](https://www.tubics.com/blog/number-of-youtube-channels/)).) 

According to [Tubics](https://www.tubics.com/blog/number-of-youtube-channels/) the distribution of different sized accounts on YouTube is as below: 

|Account Type|Number subscribers | Number of channels| Cumulate Percent|
|-|-|-| - |
|Dinosaurs|> 1M|22 000| 0.05%| 
|Gorillas |> 100K|230 000| 0.6%| 
|Stags|> 10 000|1.3M| 3.5%| 
|Foxes|> 1000 |6M | 16%| 
|Cubs|> 100 |18M| 48%|
|Bugs|> 10|37M| 100%| 

_(NB - I may have misnamed some of these, I just went with what the pictures looked like for some of them.)_

According to [this 2018 study](https://observer.com/2018/02/study-youtube-stars-earnings-us-median-income/) by Mathias Bärtl, a professor at Offenburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany the top 3% channels attract 90% of the traffic (views) on YouTube.

Conversely this means 97% of the channels attract only 10% of the views. 

### Exponential Categories.... 

Note the above table again, the number of subscribers in each categories increases exponentially, thus....

- The Stag channels, which have an average of 50 000 subscribers 10 times fewer subscribers than 
- The Gorilla channels, which  have an average of 500 000 subscribers, which is ten times fewer than....
- The Dinosaur channels which I'm going to assign an average of 5 Million subscribers.

(This 5M average isn't such a stretch when you consider that the [top 50 have over 40 million](https://www.weshare.net/how-many-youtubers-have-10-million-subscribers/#:~:text=For%20one%20thing%2C%20you%20should,10%20million%20subscribers%20or%20more.) each and there are more than [600 channels with over 10 million](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-subscribed_YouTube_channels) subscribers). 

Now, this is simplifying to the extreme and says nothing of what might be a differentially skewed distribution in each category - which is especially likely to be true at the top as there is no upper limit to cap things off (other than sheer reality), and if I had the data I would add in a category above for channels with > 10 million subscribers, but I don't have that data to hand, just keep in mind there will probably be an upward skew to those channels in addition to what I say below. 

If we make the (rather crude yet probably fair) assumption that ad revenue also follows the channels with the most subscribers (more subscribers should mean more views) - I know this can vary depending on the topic of the channel, but traffic still matters - in order to get the proportion of advertising revenue which goes to each 'tier' of YouTuber we need to multiply the number of accounts in each level by the average amount of subscribers and then use that to work out the proportion of the $2 billion each of the top three ties gets in total...

|Account Type|Average subscribers | Number of channels| C2 times C3| Revenue share|
|-|-|-| -| - |
|Dinosaurs|> 1M|22 000| 110000000000 | 40% |
|Gorillas |> 100K|230 000| 115000000000| 40% | 
|Stags|> 10 000|1.3M| 65000000000 | 20% |

_NB I have simplified the revenue share, in fact the Dinosaurs get slightly less and the stags get slightly more, but it was so close to a 40/40/20 easy mental math ratio I just went with that!_

This brings us to (fanfare please!)..... 

### The Bleak Exponential Truth behind The Distribution of YouTube Earnings.... 

|Account Type|Total revenue| Number of channels| Average yearly revenue per account|
|-|-|-| -|
|Dinosaurs| $800 M|22 000| $36 300|
|Gorillas | $800 M |230 000| $3478| 
|Stags| $400 M|1.3M| $307|
|Foxes| $200 M| 6 M | $33.333|

The 31 million cub and bug accounts receive nothing from advertising revenue.

Or in chart form it looks like this:

#### Number of accounts in each size category


![no. accounts.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/revisesociology/23xpa4Mn3LtmWZstkoH3WNLCUAzcGPhPico3JmTjyPnb1ma9bVLzKuwvYQ4d3UrY4KqaD.png)

#### Average earnings in each size category


![chart (22).png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/revisesociology/23tmmXSvcaed4N6anmwjUy7yHiFad62Bis87vinTD6Rb7FW66Cp2LmCs8qZaQndVuhNk7.png)


Bleak though this is beginning to sound it's probably worse... the earnings will not be equally distributed across bins, those at the top will earn a lot more than those at the bottom, sucking the distribution upwards. 

It's easy enough to find [a list of the highest earning Youtubers](https://www.forbes.com/sites/maddieberg/2020/12/18/the-highest-paid-youtube-stars-of-2020/?sh=39270ede6e50), those with more than 10 million subscribers - who earn more than $10 million each, so a lot of that $800 million is going to go to those top channels, leaving probably very little left over for those at the bottom of even that top bin. 

I doubt very much if there are more than 5000 YouTube channels that earn a living wage, by US standards. 

The problem is I don't have the data to confirm this, YouTube black boxes it - but this adds more weight to my theory that very few people make money out of YouTube - if it was equally distributed, they'd be trumpeting that as part of their own advertising, but instead they rely on a small amount of very large earners being in the spotlight to illustrate how much you can potentially (but almost certainly will never) earn by posting content on YouTube.  

My analysis is broadly born out by [Bartle's 2018 research](https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/even-youtube-stars-with-14-million-monthly-viewers-earn-less-than-17000-a-year-research-shows.html) - "On average, the top three percent of the most popular channels attract 1.4 million views every month, which translate into $16,800 a year"

### Qualifiers 

My analysis doesn't count in-video private sponsorship deals - mentions for example - this can be a big deal in YouTube land, so some of those top 3% of accounts are going to be making more overall, probably not any account below 'Stag' level, there wouldn't be enough subs to attract sponsorship. 

I've used NET income from ads, I think this is the figure that gets shared, rather than the gross income, which in 2020 was $19 billion. That's the figure you'll see touted about. 

My top category average subscriber estimate may be out, but my gut tells me it's about right. 

_Caveat 1 - I've just realised the distribution may be ever so slightly (tiny difference) more equal - I should have maybe taken off 22 000 from 230 000 when working out the Gorilla share and so on._
 




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