How Much YouTube Paid Me In 2022 With 23k Subscribers

Did I Finally Earn Enough Revenue To Become A Full-Time Content Creator?

2022 is in the books and 2023 is well under way and that means we need to break down how much revenue I generated from YouTube-related sources. We’ll also take a look at the total amount of views the channel had and what my highest earning video was.

Just to quickly review my channel’s growth — in 2020 I earned $1,235.55 with 6k subscribers and a single source of revenue — Google AdSense. In 2021 I made $7,751.51 with 14k subscribers and seven revenue streams which was a 627% increase from 2020.

So did I stay on track with that growth for 2022? Let’s find out.

Now I just want to quickly say that I’m not writing this article to flex or brag or shine a spotlight on myself so that I can self congratulate and show all of you how awesome I think I am. That’s not my intention at all. I just want to relay all of this information to you to help you if you’re thinking about content creation or struggling with monetizing it.

In 2022 I gained 8.9k subscribers from 781,412 views, which was almost twice as many views as 2021 where I had 467,235 views. My overall RPM was $8.42 and my overall CPM was $22.85. My top earning video was 5 Tips to Take Charge of Your Final Cut Pro Library & Never Run Out of Hard Drive Space Again and that video earned $429.47.

Now my plan to increase revenue in 2022 was primarily to add new revenue streams, and I was able to expand from seven streams of revenue to twelve. The revenue stream that helped my overall revenue the most was sponsorships.

So let’s break it all down starting with the revenue stream that made the least amount of money and work our way up to the revenue stream that earned me the most.

SUBSCRIBER DONATIONS

I received two direct donations which totaled $41.06. It’s an odd number because of currency exchange rates. And that figure was down 36.83% from 2021.

STOCK CONTENT SALES

Stock Content are clips from the b-roll I film for my videos being uploaded to stock content sites and then licensed for use in other videos. The total revenue generated there was $70.82 — a 21.48% drop from the previous year but keep in mind that I added all of zero new clips to those stock content sites — I literally did nothing to try to improve my earnings through Stock Content sales.

PATREON

$198.18. I’ve actually closed my Patreon in favor of YouTube Memberships — I wanted to keep things contained to YouTube because I found that I just wasn’t getting on Patreon enough to deliver value to my Patrons. Although I still struggle with consistency for my YouTube members, it’s much easier to to upload member videos and make Community posts just for members on YouTube instead of Patreon.

CONSULTING

I made $700 consulting with a company about something related to Final Cut Pro. And, no, it wasn’t Apple.

COACHING

I offer 1:1 Final Cut Pro & YouTube coaching on my website and a few of my viewers purchased coaching sessions with me. Mostly Final Cut Pro coaching. I generated $1,124.56 there. And if you didn’t know that I offer coaching for Final Cut Pro, feel free to check the link below to learn more.

TEACHING & SPEAKING EVENTS

I earned $1,350 doing some online seminars, and this is a stream of revenue I’d definitely like to develop more in 2023.

MEDIUM

I adapt many of my videos — but not all of them — into articles on Medium, and I earn royalties on subscriptions when Medium members spend time reading my articles. In 2021 I earned all of $6.78! But in 2022 I increased those earnings by 21,332% to earn a total of $1,453.08. I have just over 330 followers and try to post at least two articles per month with some of them being exclusive to Medium.

AMAZON ASSOCIATES

I earned $1,777.83 thanks to my viewers who clicked on my Amazon affiliate links and purchased items within 24 hours of clicking. It goes a long way to generating regular monthly income for the channel.

DIGITAL PRODUCTS

In 2022 I launched a few digital products, namely my Finder Folder and Final Cut Pro Library templates. These templates are meant to help you better organize your media in Finder and in Final Cut Pro and take a lot of the unnecessary prep work out of your project setup workflows. My total revenue from digital products was $4,390. If you want to check them out and the few others I have: https://www.matthewobrien.co/shop

AFFILIATE SALES

Affiliate Sales are revenue generated from my viewers clicking on links to sponsored products, links to services that I use, and links to software products I use — especially plug-ins. In 2022 I earned a total of $4,766.50 — an increase of 185% from 2021.

Alright, now we’re in the home stretch with two streams of revenue to go…

GOOGLE ADSENSE

This year’s earnings not only include royalties from advertising but they also include Memberships and Supers. So I have about 13 channel members who pay a monthly fee to receive custom content on my channel, and I was able to finally enable SuperThanks on my channel as well this year. During my livestreams some viewers will send a SuperChat my way and for all of you who sent Supers, thank you!

Total revenue from AdSense, Members and Supers was $6,155.89, which was up 33% from 2021.

SPONSORSHIPS

Sponsorships were another another new revenue stream for the channel in 2022, and this one earned $23,900. It’s these sponsorships that really made it possible for me — in September — to make the decision to go full-time with YouTube.

With a total annual revenue from the channel of $45,927.92, I hit the bare minimum threshold I needed to hit to make the decision to set aside video production work with clients and make YouTube content creation my main source of revenue for my business. Now, I did earn additional revenue from working locally in the filmmaking community, but in all of 2022 I didn’t have a single project with a client that went from proposal to pre-production to production to post-production to the delivery of a finished video.

And I don’t know how often I’ll do any of those in the future outside of my YouTube channel.

And this is quite the turn-around from how my total earnings video from last year ended where I said, “But you know what? It’s still not enough. $8,000 dollars is NOT AT ALL feasible for me to be a full-time YouTuber and provide for my family, pay down debt, and build wealth.”

So at the beginning of 2022 if you would have told me that I would earn just shy of $50,000 from YouTube I would have thought that was a stretch. Not crazy…just a bit…much.

But here’s what’s most exciting to me — if I was able to increase revenue by nearly 500% from 2021 to 2022, what can I do in 2023? Another 500%? Probably not. But even a 150% increase would put me well past the bare minimum I’d need to provide for my family, aggressively pay down my student loan debt, and build wealth.

I still have a few revenue streams to develop — a Final Cut Pro course being the main one — and I can certainly expand the revenue in all of my existing streams of income by shoring up my overall strategy for my channel and then executing on that strategy.

So those are the numbers for 2022. I’m definitely proud of what I’ve accomplished, and there are certainly things that I may have done differently in 2022 given the chance, but I feel good about executing the plan I put in place at the beginning of 2022.

If you have any questions or want to talk more about your own YouTube channel, please don’t hesitate to hit me up in the comments, send me an email, or sign up for some YouTube coaching. I’m more than happy to share what has worked for me on this crazy journey into the mystical art of content creation and help you take some shortcuts to avoid some of the things that I’ve had to learn the hard way.

2023 is off to a bit of a slow start, but I’m sticking to my strategy for continued growth in 2023. As so many of my fellow YouTubers say… “Let’s get it.”

If you enjoy my writing, get ready to have your 🤯 by all the other amazing writers on Medium. I started coughing up some dough for a membership this past year, and I highly recommend you joining as well. Click here to join (a portion of your membership fee will be sent my way and therefore directly support my work!).

And if you like content like this, check out my YouTube channel where I make vids on all things Apple Tech, Filmmaking & Final Cut Pro: