How much YouTube paid me in Month 5 (POWER of small numbers)

Mar 04, 2024

I’m sure we all dream of doing MrBeast-level numbers on YouTube, but that simply does happen overnight.

YouTube is a slow burn that, if you give it long enough to ignite, can blow up and change your life.

But how do you stay motivated to stick with it in the early days of monetization, when the dollar figures are small?

I’ve found one way of looking at my earnings that keeps me pushing.

Let me tell you about what I earned in my fifth full month monetized on YouTube, and then I’ll explain the power of small numbers and compounding.

A different way of looking at small numbers

So let’s start out by taking a look at my monetization journey so far.

Here’s what I’ve made in each of my first five months in the YouTube Partner Program:

My YouTube earnings over the past 6 months.

We’re only in early February right now, so for the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on my last *full* month, which is highlighted above (you can see I’m on pace to beat it already though).

Now you might look at $55 and think, “Gee James, that kind of sucks. Why both putting in all that work for such a small return?”

There are a few reasons for that:

I already mentioned that YouTube is a slow burn — the exponential growth comes later
Every time I publish a video, I have a new digital asset paying me a little something every day — this compounds over time
When you think about it in terms of hourly wage, the numbers start looking a lot better

We’ll get to the third point in a moment because it’s the whole point of this article, but let’s touch on point 2 for a sec.

Here’s what my top-earning videos have brought in for me so far:

The way I look at any video or article that I publish is this: he’s now my little employee going out into the world every day.

Some of my high-performing employees will bring home dollars every day, and some of the lousy employees will bring home pennies, but they are all working for me while I do other things.

I’m building a mini-corporation of little employees that, when it grows large enough, should put me in a position to live off their work.

Now let’s get back to the subject of YouTube and how I frame my earnings to stay motivated and on task.

Real-life comparison

This is also how I stayed motivated when I started out on the platform you’re reading right now.

I looked at my work in terms of hourly wage.

This was the subject of one of my most popular YouTube videos of all time:

When I started here too, the numbers were small, but they were also comparable to what a typical person would make doing a part-time job.

So let’s look at this in the context of YouTube.

In January, I published just 3 videos.

Now after more than a year making videos, I have my process down to a science. I can now shoot, edit, and post a video in about 2 hours.

So that means, in total, I put about 6 hours into YouTube proper in January (because I post all my “scripts” here, I count those articles as earnings on Medium).

So what does that mean for my earnings?

$55.43 / 6 hours = $9.24 per hour

Nine dollars an hour sounds a lot better than $55 per month!

Is $9 per hour life-changing money?

Not yet, but think of it this way — my hourly pay is now approaching the minimum wage in a lot of places.

So would you rather work part-time making YouTube videos or working at McDonald’s?

Slingin’ burgers or creating something cool … which would you prefer? (Licensed under the Unsplash+ License)

Compounding forever

As I create more videos that keep paying me into infinity, that hourly wage keeps going up.

I just need to keep making a few here and there to keep the momentum going and keep bringing new eyes to my channel.

For example, I’ve had months on this platform where my article output was low but my pay was high (like we’re talking $250 per hour).

So if you’re an early stage creator like I am on YouTube, I’d strongly suggest you take a bit of time to calculate your hourly wage.

You might already be making more money than you think.

Hey friends, thanks so much for reading today! If you enjoyed this piece, please let me know in the comments and consider supporting my work directly for less than the cost of a Starbucks coffee a month (cancel any time)!

Publish Every Day project update: Day 119

I’m trying to see if I can make enough money to quit commuter life within a year by publishing every day on various platforms and putting my earnings into passive income investments.

How much I need to retire: $250 CAD per day

What I earned on Day 119: $32.19 (writing) + $3.58 (YouTube) = $35.77 total

Publish Every Day project update: Total on Day 119

Publish Every Day project update: Earnings by day on Day 119

YouTube earnings chart — Bonus chart: YouTube earnings by day ($USD)

What I’ve published the last 2 days:

My top 5 trending stories right now:

James Julian's Publish Every Day

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