I posted on YouTube for the first time in a long time yesterday.

It was on the Fuel Your Photos channel.

A simple one-take video about Google’s SGE.

I’m great at reviewing other people’s websites/channels, but I rarely take the time to self-critique my own work.

In this post, I’m going to come up with a list of things to improve about my YouTube channel and video production.

This Video

Audio

The volume on this video was WAY too low. My headphone jack in my microphone is broken, and that is my main way to connect my headphones to computer audio. I probably need to replace my microphone, it’s a Blue Yeti from at least 7 years ago.

I also REALLY need to do something about the popping of my “p” and a few other sounds. I guess that’s why they make pop filters.

But in the short term, I think I can adjust some levels in Streamlabs and probably get this close enough.

For the next video, the main goal is to get the audio at an appropriate level.

Coloring

On some devices, I think I look VERY orange in this video.

Some options:

• Adjust light temperature
• Adjust camera white balance
• Add more white light to the whole scene

For the next video, I will test a few different light temps and white balance settings to see if I can get this closer without much editing or a major change to my lighting setup.

Lighting

Speaking of my lighting setup, I think the office is too dark behind me.

I want to at least light the river picture.

Over the course of the next few videos, I’ll experiment with adding various light sources to give the background some more depth.

Posture

I’m not 100% sure how I feel about this one. I do feel like I’m slouching a bit, but maybe it fits with the backwards hat approachable vibe? Not sure. I did notice that the desk shakes when I lean on it, and that shakes the camera.

For the next videos, I’ll test sitting vs. standing, and also try to be careful not to shake the desk.

Structure of Content

I’m pretty good at just turning on the camera and talking, and making it all work in one take. However, I feel like I’m losing the opportunity to really polish what I have to say by starting with a specific outline.

I’d like to experiment with using a few title slides in between sections of the video.

I think I did a good job with that in my PowerPoint OBS video. The main thing I want to avoid is sounding TOO “youtubey.” If you watch that video you’ll see what I mean. I guess this tone works well for many people doing this style of video, but I also want to be more approachable, genuine, and natural.

For my videos that go with blog posts, I can even make the structure of the post match the points of the video for a cohesive viewing and reading experience.

I’ll experiment with this on an upcoming video.

Polishing and Editing

This video was LITERALLY zero editing. I took the raw recording and uploaded it.

I’m not sure I need to do more editing if I can use some slides to keep me on track. I think music might feel annoying.

However, I think having a really solid intro and outro would do wonders for the vibe.

For the next video I’ll draft an intro and outro, memorize it, and try it out.

Thumbnail and Description

I didn’t add a thumbnail on this video. It is one of the most important steps for any YouTube video, but it takes me too long to do on each video.

For now, I’m going to start a swipe file of thumbnails from successful tutorial/talking head channels and then work on a template system for myself to create branded thumbnails.

I probably won’t get thumbnails right for the next few videos, but my action for now is to study and brainstorm.

Tool to get Thumbnails quickly: https://www.get-youtube-thumbnail.com/

Pinterest Board to save inspo: https://www.pinterest.com/fuelyourphotos/youtube-thumbnails/

For the description, I need to at least make sure people know how to stay in touch with me and Fuel Your Photos. Would love to get some of my top posts as links in the description, giving people some other things to do next.

Pacing

I feel like my videos are SO slow. Maybe that’s because I do naturally talk slow, but I watch all of my YouTube videos on 2x.

At the very least, I feel like the beginning of the video needs to capture people’s interest, curiosity, and imagination. The beginning of this video feels really dull to me. This is something I’ll need to practice. I’ll also try to take notes on the first 5 seconds of videos in a similar genre that actually capture my attention.

Summary Video Checklist

• Get the audio levels right
• Try adjusting the white balance
• Add some lighting to the background
• Experiment with standing, and don’t bump the desk
• Try an outline with some slides
• Test an intro and outro
• Brainstorm thumbnail ideas to create a template
• Create a description template with other actions viewers might want to take
• Improve the pacing at the beginning of the video

Fuel Your Photos Channel

Phew. The channel needs ALOT of work.

I’m going to start with 3 things to fix, and one goal. I’ll do more in a future review. Baby steps.

Cover Art

This cover is terrible. It’s from like 7 years ago FYP branding, and doesn’t match anything I’m doing today. ANYTHING would be better than this, so I’m going to update it ASAP.

Profile Picture

I really don’t like using the logo here. I’m going to switch this to a headshot at the very least.

Featured Video

It says 2020. That’s such a bad look. Update this to something relevant for 2024! I’ll need to make a new video, but this should be a top goal for me. I’d like to make this a true channel intro to talk about what I do at Fuel Your Photos, and why you should dig into the channel.

Goal – Get to 100 videos Published by Summer

Most people focus on subscriber count, but that’s a number I can’t control. Instead of focusing on my weight, I’m going to focus on putting in the reps.

20 videos in 64 days means I need to be publishing about 2 videos a week to get this number where I want it. I think I can handle that pace, especially if I’m ok with some of the videos being one-take videos like the one I posted yesterday.

Wrapping Up

I’d love to have you along for the journey. Subscribe over at Fuel Your Photos!

If you have any other ideas for me, or topics you’d like to see videos about, leave me a comment below!

I also want to publish things that are worth following.

I need to reenter a phase of life where I create more than I consume (and consume smarter).

I actually do some pretty interesting things. I just don’t do a good job of documenting and then publishing publicly.

It feels like social media puts me in mold that I don’t want to exist in. With my site, I get to make it my own.

If you’re also someone who uses a personal website in place of social media, I’d love to connect. Leave me a comment on this post.

I’m still figuring it all out. In April, I’m going to work on slowly fixing up my website.

First up…

• Work on styling – right now I don’t feel like my website is a joy to read
• Clarify my offer – consulting + website reviews
• Talk about my products – Fuel Your Photos

Even the people who have been following Fuel Your Photos for years might not know what I’m currently putting my energy into.

In this post, I’m going to give an update about what I’ve been working on, and why I’m loving the Fuel Your Photos Membership so much right now!

First, a little backstory for those who don’t have any context…

Myself and Dylan Howell run a brand called Fuel Your Photos.

We teach photographers about websites and SEO. We have:

• The largest Facebook group dedicated to SEO for Photographers (over 26k members)
• A podcast where we talk about online marketing for photographers (currently 37 episodes)
• An SEO course with over 1,000 students (+ some pretty amazing testimonials)

Plus we’ve written dozens of blog posts, been featured on many of the industry’s top podcasts, and spoken about SEO and websites at some of the biggest photography conferences in the world.

Dylan and I both offer consulting services, but our primary product over the past few years has been our SEO course. For a while, we were selling the course for $1249, with lifetime access. However, we found that there were a few critical pieces missing if we really wanted to prioritize student success.

The Fuel Your Photos Membership

In late 2022, we decided to turn the course into a membership. We currently charge $499 to join, and then $249/year for anyone who wants to stick around.

The membership is so much more than just a course. It now includes two separate courses (with more to come) and also includes a private community, weekly group coaching, WordPress templates, and a few perks like discounted consulting and premium templates.

Over the past 2 months, I’ve been putting almost all of my energy into three areas of the membership, and they’ve really renewed my excitement about what we are offering at Fuel Your Photos.

The New Content Course

Last year, I decided to run a small workshop for 5 students. We spent 4 weeks learning about writing content that gets clicks from Google.

I absolutely loved the format. Weekly group calls and assignments so that everyone knew exactly how to keep on track to get a post published by the end of the workshop.

Since then, we have done 4 more rounds of this 4 week workshop, working with dozens of photographers on perfecting their blogging.

The results have been great. Most photographers get one piece of new content published by the end of the workshop. Some have created pieces that are already driving traffic. Others feel significantly more confident in their strategy and aren’t stressed about blogging anymore.

Other students realized how much expertise they have to bring to their readers, and published authoritative posts like these:

Since students were loving the workshop, we decided to also release it as a self-paced course (and it is *included* in the membership).

Now, there are 7 lessons and a Notion template for any students who want to take the course on their own time.

Combined with the weekly Office Hours, this can act exactly like the workshop! Just take a lesson each week, then come to an Office Hours call to review the assignment and get pointers about the next week!

Speaking of Office Hours…

Weekly Office Hours

I’ve been doing weekly Office Hours since January of this year.

These calls are open to any members, and are a place to get personalized help and chat with other members who are actively working to improve their website and SEO.

Instead of paying for 1-on-1 consulting where you need to use an hour all at once, you can get small chunks of consulting spread out over time *included in your membership*.

It’s also a great way to take advantage of the tools I have access to, like Semrush, Ahrefs and Sitebulb. Instead of paying $100+ per month to use the tool, you can come to an Office Hours call and ask me to run a report for you!

After a few months, I realized that this was one of the most valuable things I was offering members. It was also the main thing I looked forward to working on for the business each week.

In June, I decided to test doing Office Hours 3 days per week. The extra calls have certainly built momentum, and I’m so excited about the energy and results we’re building together each week!

I’m going to commit to 3 days per week for the next few months, with a heavy focus on collecting member success stories!

I’d love to see you there…

WordPress Templates

For a long time, I’ve been a huge fan of WordPress. I was doing custom WordPress development before I was a wedding photographer, and started using WP for my photography site in 2008.

As much as I love WordPress and *want* to recommend it to photographers, I can admit that it can be quite complicated to get started.

Also, if you’re using any popular 3rd party builder (Flothemes, Prophoto, Divi, Elementor), it’s basically a completely separate platform that can barely be called WordPress anymore.

I decided that I want a big part of my journey with Fuel Your Photos to be making WordPress *easier* for photographers!

The first step was to work on a standard BASE starting point so that we can offer more tutorials and education that really makes things easy. WordPress has toooo many options, so I want to be opinionated and give you the options that will be most effective and cause the least headache.

I started with an example family photographer template. This is an example of a template that prioritizes SEO for a multi specialty photographer. It uses sections directly from our course lesson about creating a perfect home page.

Here’s an example of Nashville Newborn Photographer using this template:

Recently I decided to split up the Kadence child them from a cloud library of templates and sections.

“Canvas” – is a Kadence child theme that offers a “blank canvas” for anyone wanting to build their own WordPress website. This lets you skip tedious setup steps, gives you some smart defaults, and automatically connects to our cloud library.

“Kindling Cloud” – is a library of sections that can be used by anyone on WordPress with the Kadence Blocks plugin.

These sections adapt to your theme’s styles, so they are an excellent way to build a layout quickly.

I am excited about adding much more content about WordPress, and many more sections to Kindling Cloud in the coming months.

Again, all of this is *included* in the membership!

Future Plans for the Membership

I’ve been trying to “follow what works” with Fuel Your Photos, but also have some ideas about the direction we’ll be taking things next. These are some things coming up in the next few months.

Online Learning Experience Improvements

Sometime last year we were forced to move our course from a hosted course platform that was closing down. We decided to self host on WordPress, but didn’t have time to do an extensive custom build.

I’m using the membership as a way to improve my development skills, and to experiment with some of the ideas I have for creating better online learning experiences.

This will happen slowly over time, but I’m constantly tweaking to improve the member experience.

More Courses

Our course library will continue to grow over time. We may restructure the current course a bit, and add some courses dedicated to specific topics. I’m already working on an interesting course about AI and SEO that I hope to release ASAP.

Continued Office Hours

As long as people keep showing up and getting value, I plan to continue with 3 Office Hours calls per week for the foreseeable future. I’ll keep working to tweak the format, and will probably dedicate one day each week to WordPress/Kadence support!

Top Secret Tools and Features

Dylan and I have some *really* cool ideas that we’re quietly working on in the background. We aren’t sure about release dates, so we don’t want to tease them too much… but stay tuned for some cool projects we have planned for this and next year

Pricing Updates

Honestly, the value of the membership is extremely high if you’re someone who wants to get serious about improving your website and SEO.

We lowered the price of admission to give more people access, but as we continue to add more value we will need to adjust the price.

At the end of July, we plan to increase the up-front price for new members to $549. We will likely increase the price again in the fall. The annual renewal will stay the same.

Special Offer

Right now, if you purchase our membership, you’ll be presented with an option to add two consulting calls to your order for only $200. Calls must be used in August or September.

That’s a total of $699 for two 60 minute 1-on-1 calls, and a one year membership including everything I talked about in this post!!

This offer will only appear for the first 10 people who decide to take it!

TL;DR

This year, Fuel Your Photos started offering a membership, and I’ve been working hard to implement new ideas, new content, and provide more support for our members.

The value is high, student results are great, and there is much more to come!

If you’re a photographer who wants to learn more about SEO and using your website to get new clients I’d love to see you in the membership!

However, the standard WordPress experience can be overwhelming and confusing as soon as you log in.

In this post, I’ll share a few simple steps you can take to clean up your WordPress dashboard.

Plugin Option (No Nonsense)

I really love this plugin that basically gives you a checklist of quick actions as well as some really smart clean up options in a single dashboard. I do like to keep my plugins to a minimum, but this lightweight admin-only plugin is certainly a convenient tool to have in your toolkit if you install WordPress frequently.

Screen Options

The very first thing I do on a new WordPress installation is hide the standard WordPress dashboard widgets.

Doing this is simple… IF you know where to look!

From your WordPress Dashboard, look for the tab in the top right corner of your screen that says “Screen Options.”

I like to deselect every option except for “At a Glance.”

Color Options

You can set the color scheme for the WordPress admin area in your user profile (easily accessed in the top right corner of the screen).

Disable Admin Notices

If this is a brand new installation of WordPress, you probably won’t have an issue with admin notices.

If you’ve had your WordPress site for a while, and have any popular “freemium” plugins installed, your dashboard is probably plagued with banners asking you to review a plugin or upgrade to a premium version.

You can almost always dismiss the notices individually, but this will often require clearing notifications every time you log in.

You can also use a simple plugin to hide the admin notices. My favorite is Hide Admin Notices.

This plugin keeps the notices, but hides them under a “Show Notices” tab in the top right, near screen options.

Another option you can test is Clarity – Ad Blocker for WordPress.

Other Dashboard Widgets

As you continue to use WordPress, you’ll find other ways to make your dashboard your own. Many plugins will include new admin widgets you can enable, and you’ll be able to decide exactly what you want to see when you log into WordPress!

Leave a comment if you have other suggestions on simplifying the WordPress admin area!

My workflow for consulting calls has always been a bit unorganized.

At first I was doing everything manually…

• Get an email or a message on Facebook
• Discuss pricing and what’s included
• Go back and forth about a time to meet
• Send a Paypal.me link
• Book the time on my calendar (and hope the client remembers)
• Set up a new Zoom meeting
• Send a Zoom link 15 minutes before the meeting
• Upload the video to YouTube (unlisted)
• Send an email from Gmail or a Facebook message with a link to the recording (if I remembered or the client asked for it)

Unfortunately, doing everything manually meant that some things were falling through the cracks.

Eventually I added Calendly and a WooCommerce checkout into the mix, and that helped significantly, but I still wasn’t providing the level of service that I would expect as a client.

I’m not a fan of doing things “half-way” so I decided that if I’m going to offer consulting, I need to make it an excellent experience.

Is Consulting a “Real Business”?

It seems like every business book written in the past 30 years talks about getting away from trading your hours for dollars. In general, I agree with these books. Sometimes I think that causes people like me to overlook “consulting” as a legitimate business idea.

So I started asking myself, “how can I treat my consulting calls more like a real business?”

Consulting isn’t the only way I make money, but I do believe I can add significant value for my clients while being compensated fairly. There are also other benefits to consulting:

• I get to sharpen my skills by encountering new problems each week
• I build a list of clients who trust me as an authority
• I can create predictable recurring income if people sign up for monthly consulting
• The price I charge is naturally regulated by supply and demand – create more demand and I can make more money for the same # of hours
• If I find patterns or proven solutions for specific problems, I can turn the solutions into products and train someone else to provide that service for my clients
• The solutions I find for clients help me improve my course materials

I have two goals with my consulting workflows:

1. Make the consulting process more efficient (don’t waste time or energy)
2. Improve the client experience from start to finish (exceed expectations)

With these goals in mind, let’s look at my new system for consulting.

My New & Improved Consulting Workflow

I’ll explain my workflow in two parts… my “tech stack” and my “processes.”

Consulting Tech Stack

These are all of the tools I use to offer consulting services online. Every one of these tools has dozens of competitors, but these are the ones I’ve settled on after my research and testing.

I’m very happy with this setup, but I’m sure it will continue to evolve over time! If you have other recommendations for tools, I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

WordPress + WooCommerce

Since my site is built with WordPress, it makes sense to use WooCommerce to sell the consulting. Woo can be intimidating at first, but I’ve used it for years and done extensive customization for other projects.

I’m using WooCommerce Payments + PayPal, and so far it has worked flawlessly.

A few notable settings and customizations:

• Automatically set up an account at checkout (uses the customer email for a username and sends an email to set a password).
• Turned of all shipping options and made all products “virtual.”
• Made a coupon that I’ll keep updated as the current year. It can only be used once per customer, meaning each year a customer can get one call at 50% off.
• Hid the company field and made the phone field optional at checkout
• I got a bit lazy and used this plugin to redirect to a thank you page after purchase
• Added a few lines of CSS to fix the padding/spacing of items at checkout
• Disabled the “Completed Order” email (will explain later in processes)
• Disabled the zoom on hover feature on product images (using the following code – add to functions.php or use the Code Snippets plugin)

add_action( 'wp', 'remove_wc_zoom', 99 );
   
function remove_wc_zoom() { 
   remove_theme_support( 'wc-product-gallery-zoom' );
}

I also set up a Custom Post Type for “Recordings” – which I’ll talk about in the processes section.

ConvertKit

I’m using ConvertKit because for some reason I just like it lol. I’ve been watching them since the company began, and I’ve always been a fan of their mission and implementation. Also, it is simple and does exactly what I need.

We use ActiveCampaign for Fuel Your Photos and it is certainly more “versatile” (especially if using WP Fusion), but also felt like overkill for what I need right now on this website.

I’m using a couple of plugins with ConvertKit to fully integrate it with WordPress + Woo. I hate adding plugins, but these are really just to make the API integration easy and built in. I haven’t tested extensively yet, but they shouldn’t impact performance and they made my life much easier.

Basically, when a client checks out, they get added to ConvertKit with a tag (“hourly-consulting”) and that triggers an automation to send the welcome email + booking links.

I also added a custom field for “recording link” that triggers a second automation to deliver the recording.

Calendly + Google Calendar

Calendly is a LIFE SAVER when it comes to automating your online consulting business. It may be the most important tool on this list.

My favorite feature is that I can set my availability in one place, plus check multiple Google Calendars for conflicts.

My standard availability is every Tuesday from 9-5pm Eastern. However, I can quickly add “overrides” in Calendly if I want to open extra days. I can also add overrides for specific times or Tuesdays where I’m not available (either in Calendly, or by adding another event during that time on my Google calendar).

Note that I also have a different availability schedule for “Quick Meetings” where I can give people a link to set up a 15 minute call if needed. I can keep that availability completely separate from my consulting sign-up.

I also set up a “check availability” calendar that mirrors my main booking calendar. This way people will know when they can book before they check out on my site.

I give clear instructions not to book on this calendar, and if someone misses it I can easily cancel those meetings. This lets me keep the official booking link private so that only paying customers can use it.

Technically, a paying customer could use the SAME link to book again, but so far this hasn’t been a problem. I’ll tell you about how I keep track of which clients have already booked their calls in the “Admin” section of processes.

These are the “Workflows” I use within Calendly to send reminder emails:

Other notable settings:

• For 60 minute calls, I let people book up to 60 days in advance, for 15 min calls, I let people book 2 weeks in advance
• For 60 minute calls, I block 45 minutes after the meeting. This gives me time to make notes and process the call
• I made it so people cannot book or change an event within 24 hours of the event
• Show availability in 60 min increments
• Integrated with my Zoom account so that it automatically provides the link to join our call with the email reminders

With these settings, I can have a maximum of 4 consulting calls in an 8 hour time block, which is exactly how I like it!

Zoom

I use Zoom for my video calls. I love the integration with Calendly. Now that I have my default settings like I want them, I never have to think about Zoom settings. Just show up and press “start.”

Maybe it is just because I’m used to it, but I also really prefer the interface of Zoom to tools like Google Meet. Recording is easy, screen sharing is easy, hosting multiple participants is easy.

I also put the “test your Zoom setup” link on my checkout page and let people know to expect a video call. You could also add that link to the Calendly reminder emails.

Bunny.net + Presto Player

This is a new addition for me. Because I’m using self-hosted recording pages, I decided I would also self-host the video recordings. This means I don’t need to use YouTube unlisted videos anymore and gives me more control over the player/presentation.

Bunny.net is surprisingly affordable and extremely fast. The playback is exactly what you would expect from YouTube or another streaming service. The files I upload from Zoom are also pretty large, so I would never be able to keep them on my WordPress hosting plan.

Presto Player makes the upload process fast and simple, plus gives me full control over the player presentation and options.

I’m not sure if these tools would make sense for most consultants, but since I also host courses on WordPress, they are perfect for my needs. If this seems like overkill to you, just keep using YouTube or Vimeo!

Consulting Processes

Here’s a quick overview of the consulting process from start to finish!

Pre-Checkout

My Hourly Consulting landing page sets expectations and terms clearly. This cuts down on back and forth and allows me to send a single link that will answer the majority of questions that I was dealing with via DM or email.

• Mentions coupon code for your first call
• Lets people know how long they have to book their call
• Lets people check my availability
• Gives a link to test your Zoom setup
• Sets expectations about how much work I will do before the call
• Sets expectations for my availability for follow up after the call
• Lets people know how to reschedule without penalty
• Tells people about my review or refund policy

Checkout

Checkout is pretty simple, but several important things happen here:

• Capture payment and create client order in Woo
• Add client to ConvertKit with product tag
• Email me with a notification about the sale
• Email the customer with an order receipt and a link to set an account password

Post-Checkout

Right after the checkout, a few more automations kick in:

• Redirect to a product-specific thank you page – gives the option to book the call immediately (within seconds of a successful purchase)
• An automation is triggered in ConvertKit to send an email with the booking link (for people who weren’t ready to book right after checkout)
• When the client is ready, they book a time slot on Calendly

Reminders

Calendly handles all of the follow up reminders about the call. Here are the reminders I send:

• Email client 24 hours before the call
• Email client 1 hour before the call
• If the client provided a phone number, text them a reminder 1 hour before the call
• Text me a reminder 1 hour before the call
• Google Calendar reminds me with a notification 30 minutes before any event
• Zoom also gives me a system notification 5 minutes before the call with a button to start the call

This might seem like overkill for some, but over the past ~200+ calls, the number of calls missed by me or my clients can be counted on one hand (only 1 was a non-emergency reason). Before Calendly, the percentage of “no-show” clients was much higher.

Pre-Meeting

Before the call, I don’t have to spend hours preparing, just do a few simple things:

• Review the client notes from checkout/Calendly/emails
• Open a browser with the client’s website open, and if they sent Search Console access or website login information, go ahead and log in
• Create a new “Recording” post on my site
  • Use a consistent format with a random URL (and the whole post type is noindexed/hidden from public view)
  • Use this as a place to take notes during the call

Meeting

The meeting is pretty straightforward. A couple of notes:

• Zoom is set to auto record, but sometimes I have to pause it when I enter if the guest hasn’t arrived yet. Make sure to press record when we are ready to jump in.
• Make notes throughout the meeting
• At the end of the meeting, recap the most important points and ask for any additional questions or clarifications needed

Post-Meeting

Right after the meeting, I try to fill out the rest of my notes while they are fresh on my mind. Here are my steps:

• Upload the Zoom recording to Bunny.net (done through the Presto Player block right on the recording page I’ve been taking notes on)
• Fill out the notes as I close the tabs I had open from the call. Include action items, specific instructions, and resources mentioned on the call
• Generate a random number for the call recording URL
• Embed the video when it finishes processing (I usually have to do these at the end of the day as they can sometimes take an hour or two to process fully)
• Publish the recording page, then open ConvertKit, and paste the URL in the client’s “call recording” custom field
• This triggers an automation to send the recording with a template, it also includes a link to ask for a review (or have them request a refund)

I’m really pretty proud of these “call recording” pages – and I think it really elevates the experience over getting a link to a YouTube video. My clients can also use the comments feature right on the page to communicate with me directly!

Admin

Because clients are allowed to purchase multiple calls or use their call anytime 365 days after purchase, I also need to keep track of how many calls are “pending.”

I just use the built in WooCommerce order status to do this.

• Processing = Client still has calls available
• Completed = All calls have been used
• Order Note = if they have purchased multiple calls, I make a note on the order after each call

After call recordings are uploaded and checked, I also delete them from my hard drive.

More Ideas for Improving an Online Consulting Workflow

I have a few great ideas for improving even more in the future. I need to give this new process some room to breath before adding even more features and steps (better to get feedback from real clients first).

Here is a short list of things I think would be really fun to add in the future:

• Improve the client account dashboard
  • Have a link to their recording pages
  • Make it easy to find receipts/invoices
• Include a “clients-only” library of content
  • Could be an additional fee, or just a way to add extra value
• Consolidate instructions for “special notes”
  • Right now you can leave notes on the Woo checkout page + Calendly booking
  • “Additional information” is too vague. Let people know what to send.
• Consolidate emails after checkout
  • Combine account setup + receipt + booking info
• Create consulting “packages” or “templates”
  • Find common tasks that would take multiple hours and sell a “done-with-you solution” as a series of calls
  • Give people a set of questions they should answer to prep for the call
  • Let people choose a call format that looks like it would best fit their needs (eg. WordPress cleanup, keyword research, content strategy) so that I know exactly how to lead them on the call and we don’t waste time trying to understand the goals
• Set up some sort of promotion schedule or follow-up to turn one-time calls into repeat clients

Over to you!

What tips do you have for improving an online consultant workflow? What are your favorite tools and why? What have you done that has made your clients leave raving reviews?

Want help setting up your own custom consulting workflow? Book a one hour call here!

I use Streamlabs OBS for recording my videos, so recently I did a deep dive on options for presenting slide presentations with OBS.

Note: The standard version of OBS should follow a very similar process.

There are 2 main ways to stream or record a slide presentation with Streamlabs OBS.

1. Exporting images for each slide and using the “Image Slideshow” source in OBS.
2. Using Google Slides, PowerPoint, or Keynote as a source with window or display capture.

There are pros and cons to each method, but I found that it was much easier for me to use the Image Slideshow feature right inside of SLOBS. 

Pros to using the Image Slideshow:

• Everything is within OBS and you don’t need to worry about other windows
• Much easier to do if you only have one monitor
• Hotkeys make it easy to advance slides or hide the slideshow completely
• You can make the “slides” with any software (Canva, Photoshop, PowerPoint, etc.)
• Transparency is supported (with PNG images)

Cons to using the Image Slideshow:

• You can only do simple transitions of the entire slide (no object transitions)
• Slightly more complicated to set up at first
• May be buggy with large presentations

To use this option, you’ll need every slide exported as an image. With PowerPoint this is very easy, but with Google Slides it takes a little more effort since you need to save every slide individually. 

How to use the Image Slideshow in Streamlabs OBS

1. Save your images to a folder on your computer

In most presentation software, you can save slides individually as images. OBS can support JPG and PNG images. JPG will have a smaller file size and PNG can preserve transparency if needed.

Make sure to save into a new folder and name your images sequentially in the order of the slideshow. 

In PowerPoint, just go to File>Export, and choose from the Image File Types. When you click save it will ask if you want to save “All Slides” or “Just This One.” Choose All Slides and it will create a folder and automatically name the files sequentially for you. 

If you are streaming or recording in 4k, be sure to check out “other lessons learned” below to learn how to increase the image quality from PowerPoint.

2. Create a scene and add the Image Slideshow source

Create a new scene in OBS called “Slide Presentation.” 

Click the “+” icon by sources to add a new source. 

Choose the “Image Slide Show” option and click “Add Source.”

If you have created slideshows in other scenes, you can select them here, or select “Add a new source instead” to create a new slideshow. 

3. Configure settings and select your folder of images

Leave the Visibility Behavior on “Always play even when not visible”.

Set the Slide Mode to “Manual (Use hotkeys to control slideshow)”.

Choose your transition (I like “Cut”).

Adjust transition speed if desired (I sometimes lower to 300-400ms).

With the manual slide mode, the other boxes can all remain unchecked.

Leave Bounding Size on Automatic.

Click the “+” next to “Image Files” and then select “Add directory”

Choose the folder where you saved your slides.

4. Set your hotkeys to advance slides

In Streamlabs OBS go to Settings (gear icon in bottom left) then “Hotkeys”.

Scroll all the way down to “Sources” and expand “Image Slide Show”.

Click any field and then press a key that you want to use as the hotkey for that action.

5. Add any other sources you need to your scene

If you want your camera to show up over the slides, or if you don’t have a default audio capture device, you’ll need to add those to your scene as well. 

How to use Google Slides or Powerpoint as a source in OBS

1. Create your presentation

Use whichever presentation software you like to create your presentation. I typically use Google Slides or PowerPoint when I want to present with OBS. Streamlabs OBS is also available for Mac, so you can create your presentation with Keynote if you prefer.

2. Present on a second monitor

Use the presentation software to “present” your slideshow on a second display. 

While it is possible to add a PowerPoint window with the “window capture” source, I have found that it is very unreliable, and also difficult to keep all presenter tools out of the presentation. 

If you decide to go the window capture route, be sure to go to Slide Show>Set Up Slide Show>Show type in PowerPoint and choose “Browsed by an individual (window)”. Personally, I couldn’t get my slides to advance as expected in OBS using this method.

3. Create a scene and add the second monitor as a display input in OBS

Create a new scene in OBS called “Slide Presentation.” 

Click the “+” icon by sources to add a new source. 

Choose the “Display Capture” option and click “Add Source.”

If you’ve added a full window display capture before, you can choose it from the list, otherwise click “Add a new source instead” and select your monitor from the list.

Adjust the source size as needed to fit your workspace.

4. Add any additional sources to your scene

If you want your camera to show up over the slides, or if you don’t have a default audio capture device, you’ll need to add those to your scene as well. 

5. Make sure the presentation window is active so you can advance slides

When you are ready to go live, you’ll need to make sure to click on your presentation window to make sure it is active if you want to advance your slides with the arrow keys. 

Tips for live streaming slide presentations with OBS

Use Streamlabs Deck on an iPad or phone to easily switch between your scenes on the fly. This makes it easier to keep the presentation window “active” so you can easily advance slides.

Other lessons learned

If you are recording or streaming in 4k, make sure to save your images in a higher resolution (at least 3840 x 2060px). In PowerPoint, you need to make this adjustment by adding an option manually in the Windows registry (tutorial). 

If you only have a few text based bullet points to make, you could just add them as Text sources in OBS. 

If you want to have different crops on the same video capture, first add a scene with only the camera input, then in another scene you can select that scene as a source and crop the scene itself. In subsequent scenes after that you can copy that source and paste it into new scenes as a reference.

Jump straight to the YouTube Income Calculator!

If you’re thinking about starting a channel, or if you are working hard to grow your channel, chances are you’ve asked this question at some point!

I watched over 110 YouTuber’s income reports, and compiled the data to give you real world answers. 

In my study based on 100 channels, the average revenue paid to YouTube creators was $6.40 per 1,000 views (RPM). The median RPM was $4.38. This means that these YouTubers earn between $4,380 and $6,400 on 1 million views. Amounts will vary by niche and other factors.

In this article we will look at numbers from this study, official numbers from YouTube, and several other third party resources to obtain accurate information about how much you can make on YouTube.

Let’s dig in and figure out exactly how much YOU can expect to make on YouTube!

How much can you make on Youtube?

The amount that you can make with YouTube is truly unlimited. However, there are MANY factors that go into determining your potential earnings. 

I’ll go over how YouTube monetization works later in this article, but for now let’s look at some real examples of how much people are earning on YouTube. 

Top earning channels

Do you ever stop and wonder how much the TOP YouTubers are making? It seems like I see a new clickbait headline every few weeks with some wildly random guess about how much famous YouTubers make. 

The truth is, unless a YouTuber discloses how much they earn, we can only estimate based on industry averages and public metrics. 

Even if we can guess how much top earners make through ad revenue, it would be almost impossible to guess how much YouTuber’s make through sponsorships, since every deal is unique, and most include a non-disclosure agreement. 

However, using tools like Social Blade or other online articles (like this one from Forbes), we can get a baseline estimate for how much top YouTubers could be earning.

Top YouTuber Earnings in 2021

Note that there are likely other YouTube channels making even more money, but here are 10 famous YouTubers and their estimated annual earnings.

Highest CPM YouTube niches

The amount that YouTube pays creators (and the amount advertisers are willing to pay for placements) is different for every niche.

A few key things that increase the CPM of a niche on YouTube:

• Advertisers have more money to spend (often because they offer a high ticket product)
• There are a large number of advertisers willing to compete on placement
• The top channels attract an affluent audience
• The top channels attract an audience likely to spend money
• The content is generally “advertiser friendly”

Highest paying categories on YouTube

The CPM or RPM for any given category will have a wide range, as there are also many channel specific factors that dictate how much a YouTuber earns. These numbers are averages from 100 channels that I studied, and should only be used as a comparative estimate. 

These are often great categories for small YouTubers to make a decent income without needing millions of views or subscribers.

Categories with typically low CPMs

In these categories, the revenue per thousand views is often significantly lower. However, they sometimes have higher potential viewership and the top channels can still perform very well.

Small Youtubers in these categories often struggle to gain traction in the beginning.

YouTube Income Calculator

Do you want to find out how much your YouTube channel could earn, how much you would make with a viral video, or how much a certain number of subscribers could be worth? 

This calculator will let you enter a few simple metrics to estimate potential earnings from YouTube ads.  

How much do you make on YouTube per month?

The amount you make each month on YouTube will mostly depend on total number of video views, and your CPM. A YouTuber who gets 1 million views per month and has an CPM of $4 would make around $2,200 per month.

Use the calculator on the “Channel” tab and the estimated CPM per niche chart above to estimate how much you could earn from Adsense. 

How much do you earn for 1 million views on Youtube?

If your video is monetized and advertiser friendly, you can expect to earn between $1,100 and $2,200 for 1 million views on YouTube. Many creators in my study reported making between $4,000 and $6,000 on 1 million views.

Use the calculator on the “Video” tab to see how much you would earn with various CPM rates.

How much do you earn with 1 million subscribers on YouTube?

When it comes to getting paid by YouTube, subscribers are not an important factor in how much you get paid. On average, a channel with 1 million subscribers might expect $300-600 from their subscribers for each new video.

This calculation assumes that 20% of your subscribers will watch each new video. Channels who drive more views from their subscribers may make much more than this. 

Some channels get 50-70% of their subscribers to watch every new video, while others are more like 8-10%. 

For example, many popular daily vloggers like Casey Neistat or The LaBrant Fam have over 12 million subscribers, and can regularly get 1-3 million views even on daily uploads. 

Subscribers can be important to sponsors, and may get their attention faster than metrics like views per video, so there are some situations where you may be able to make more money because of your subscribers.

Use the calculator on the “Subscriber” tab to figure out how much money your subscribers might earn you on a single video. 

How much does the average YouTuber make?

According to my survey, the average is $4-6 per 1,000 views. However, this is likely higher than the overall average, which is probably closer to $2 per 1,000 views based on estimates from large data aggregators like Social Blade. 

Since YouTube is SO large, it is hard to estimate what the “average” YouTuber makes. There are likely millions of monetized channels, and the majority of revenue likely flows to the top 20% of creators.

How much do small YouTubers make?

Small YouTubers who have made YouTube their full-time job usually make money with multiple streams of income. A YouTuber who gets 100,000 views per video can easily earn $100-200 per video from Adsense, and with a high RPM, some may earn $1,500 or more per video. 

Many small YouTubers make significantly more income through affiliate marketing, sponsored videos, and by selling their own products or services to their viewers. 

How does YouTube monetization work?

If you want to make money with your YouTube channel, there are quite a few methods that work very well. 

Most people who ask “how much does YouTube pay” want to know about Adsense revenue, but for many creators this is only a fraction of the income they generate because of their YouTube channel. 

Ads

YouTube generates revenue by selling ads and placing them on YouTube videos. There are several types of ads including bumper ads, skippable ads, and overlay ads. The advertisers are charged each time their ad plays. 

If a channel owner is part of the YouTube partner program, YouTube pays the creator a percentage (55%) of the ad revenue generated by their videos. 

Requirements

To join the YouTube partner program, your channel needs to be in good standing, have at least 1,000 subscribers, and at least 4,000 hours of watch time on your public videos. You must also be at least 18 years old, or have a legal guardian who can handle your payments. 

The YouTube Creator Academy has an entire course on meeting the requirements to monetize your channel. 

CPM

CPM stands for “Cost Per Mille” (pronounced like mill), which means cost per 1,000 views. 

Advertisers bid on placements on your videos, and the amount they pay for placements on 1000 monetized playbacks is the “CPM.” Often when talking about CPM, it is the average rate advertisers paid for ad placements on a particular video or the entire channel. 

When you multiply your channel’s views by the average CPM (and divide by 1,000), you will get the gross revenue generated by ads on your channel. YouTube still takes a percentage (generally 45%), and the remaining amount is what the creator gets paid by YouTube. 

RPM

RPM stands for “Revenue Per Mille” and represents the actual payout to the creator per 1,000 views. A rough estimate of RPM can be found by multiplying the CPM by .55 (55% of the CPM). 

Technically, RPM also includes other channel features and Premium revenue share, and is based on all video plays, even if they are not monetized. If you find that RPM is not ~55% of CPM, this may be why. 

Google has an official support document outlining the difference between CPM and RPM if you want to dig into the specifics. 

Do Youtubers get paid if you skip the ads?

Advertisers can choose to pay only when ads are clicked, or only when at least 30 seconds of an ad is viewed. If none of these conditions are met on a skippable ad, the creator will generally not get paid for the view if the ad is skipped. 

YouTubers can still earn revenue if you watch a different ad on their video (like a mid-roll ad), if you are a YouTube Premium subscriber, or if they monetize the video in other ways.

YouTube Premium (Previously YouTube Red)

YouTube Premium allows an ad-free YouTube experience. When a YouTube Premium subscriber views your videos, you will not be paid for ad plays. However, if you are part of the YouTube Partner Program, you will receive a share of the revenue generated by YouTube Premium. 

Channel Features

Youtube offers several other options to monetize your channel, outside of ads. Each feature has its own requirements and revenue share. 

Superchat & Stickers

Superchat or Superstickers give the ability for live viewers to “tip” a creator to pin their comment or sticker to the top of the chat. 

YouTube keeps approximately 30% of Superchats and the creator gets the other 70%. 

Channel Memberships

Enabling channel memberships allows people to join a channel for a monthly fee. You can offer benefits to channel members such as badges, emojis, and exclusive video content. 

Youtube keeps 30% of channel memberships as their fee.

Some sources say you need 30,000 subscribers to enable memberships, but in other places YouTube says the feature is being rolled out to channels with over 1,000 subscribers. 

Merch Shelf

Merch Shelf allows channels to showcase their official merch right on YouTube. 

To enable Merch Shelf, you’ll either need 10,000 subscribers, or an official music video channel. 

Sponsors / Paid promotions

Whenever you have an audience that wants to hear from you, advertisers will often be interested in getting you to make an official endorsement for their brand. 

YouTube allows creators to do custom endorsements on their videos, as long as a few guidelines are met. You are required to disclose paid promotions, and you are not allowed to insert “commercials” provided by companies into your videos (since that is the service YouTube sells with their ad platform). 

I’ve seen several “rules of thumb” for estimating how much you should charge for sponsored videos, including: 

• $500 per 10,000 page views (average of your past 6 videos) for a 60-90 second spot.
• With 1 million subscribers, most sponsors offer between $4,000-20,000 per video.
• $20-$30 per 1,000 views based on your last 10 videos. 

Let’s just say that if you get around 10,000 views on each video, a good rule of thumb is to start negotiations between $300-500 per sponsored video. You can adjust based on demand.

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is when you send your audience to someone else’s product in exchange for a commission. 

One of the most popular examples of this with YouTubers is Amazon Associates. Many creators will list the gear they use to create their videos or items they used in the video and link to Amazon where viewers can buy the product. Amazon generally pays 1-4% on any purchase that visitor makes within 24 hours. 

Many other companies (large and small) offer affiliate programs, and some pay 50% or more for referrals. For many YouTube channels, affiliate income is among the highest of revenue sources.

Merch / Product / Course / Consulting Sales

Perhaps the MOST valuable way to monetize your YouTube channel is by selling your own product. 

For some channels, this may be as simple as merch or branded products. For others, it may be a course or digital product. If you offer a local service or have a storefront your YouTube channel can drive customers who are eager to buy your product. 

The possibilities for selling your own products are endless, and YouTube can be a great way to increase your sales. One of my consulting clients makes about 50x their monthly adsense revenue by selling products in their online store. Even small channels can make a significant income if they have a product to sell.

How much YouTube paid me videos

There is a popular trend where YouTubers create a video showing how much YouTube paid them. The trend really started to spread when Shelby Church created an income report video that went mildly viral. 

I searched YouTube to find a list of these videos, added them to a spreadsheet, and watched every single one all the way through. 

While I watched, I not only made notes when the creators gave helpful tips, but also recorded the numbers they reported in their videos. 

I also looked at the creator’s channel to determine the number of subscribers (at the time of creating the spreadsheet), their niche, and their geographical region. 

Some videos reported how much they were paid on a single viral video, some reported the lifetime earnings of their channel, and some reported how much they made in a specific timeframe (usually a year or a month). 

I tried to standardize the reporting by breaking down revenue per month, revenue per view, and by giving an RPM instead of a CPM for each channel. 

Below is a table listing the videos included in the CPM calculations for this post. I watched at least 20 more videos, but threw out any that were not in English or where they did not give enough specific details to calculate RPM. 

If you’d like to see the entire spreadsheet with all numbers calculated from these videos, it is available as a free bonus for subscribing to my email list where I’ll send updates with future YouTube related content!

Income Reports Included in Study

Channel	Income report Video	Subscribers	RPM
Marissa Romero	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me For My 500,000 Viewed Video (not clickbait)	126,000	31.56
TommyBryson	How much did YouTube Pay me for 50k views	247,000	29.63
Start Starting Up	How Much YouTube Pays You For 1,000 Views In 2020	54,500	22.51
Richard Fain	How Much Money YouTube Paid Me for 1,000,000 Views In 30 Days	172,000	18.82
Ryan Pineda Show	I Can’t Believe How Much YouTube Paid Me (Monetization)	29,200	18.69
Not Taught At School	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me For 450,000 Views	51,800	18.13
Graham Stephan	How Much I Make With 1 Million Subscribers	2,380,000	16.59
Hey Jessica	How Much YouTube Has Paid Me in the Last Year | How much do YouTubers make?	93,100	14.19
Aubrey Janik	This is How Much YouTube Paid Me For 1,000,000 Views	29,600	14.12
Clark Kegley	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me For My 2,800,000 Viewed Video (not clickbait)	375,000	11.94
MamaFurFur	This is HOW MUCH Youtube PAID ME for 2 MILLION VIEWS – 43k Subscribers Income	44,200	11.73
ThisisJohnWilliams	How Much Youtube Paid me | 25,000 Subscribers – Personal Finance & Real Estate Niche	29,800	11.29
Charlie Chang	HOW MUCH MONEY YOUTUBE PAYS ME! [100,000 Subscribers]	154,000	11.28
Investing Engineered	How Much YouTube PAID ME in my First 3 Months Monetized!	16,600	10.42
Kat Theo	How Much YouTube Paid Me | 1 million Views 2020	220,000	10.25
Spencer Cornelia	How Much YouTube Paid Me for 40k Subscribers | July 2020	71,900	9.90
Learn to Make Honest Money Online	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me For 1,000,000 Views (not clickbait)	32,000	9.44
Kevin David	How Much YouTube Paid Me in 2019	1,160,000	9.40
Nikki Marie	How Much Youtube Paid Me For 700,000 Views? + Small Youtuber Monthly Pay	13,100	9.38
Leon Angus	How Much YouTube Paid me for 95,000 Views! [Income Report]	3,910	8.96
themissalliecakes	HOW MUCH YOUTUBE PAID ME FOR MY VIRAL VIDEOS. *it’s shocking*	420,000	8.63
Meet Kevin	How Much Youtube Paid me for 31 Days (30 million views)	834,000	8.46
LavishRuby	MONEY MONDAYS | HOW MUCH YOUTUBE PAID ME FOR 5 MILLION VIEWS + HOW MUCH I CHARGE FOR SPONSORSHIPS	191,000	8.19
Tanner Planes	EXACTLY how much YouTube paid Me for a VIRAL Video	94,500	8.12
Dan Lok	How Much YouTube Paid Me For My 1M+ Viewed Video (3 Little Known Factors)	3,100,000	7.91
H-EDUCATE	How much Money YouTube Paid Me for 1 Million Views! [ You Can Do It ]	58,200	7.69
Roberto Blake	My YouTube Paycheck with 400K Subs // EXACTLY How Much Money YouTube Pays Me	476,000	7.43
Financial Wolf	How Much Money YouTube Pays Me Per Month!	54,600	7.22
Budget Girl	How Much YouTube Paid Me for 5 Million Views – An Average Channel Income!	64,300	7.04
Cathrin Manning	How Much YouTube Paid Me My FIRST YEAR Being Monetized! // What you need to know about monetization	245,000	6.91
Natalie Barbu	How Much Money YouTube Has Paid Me (total) *NOT CLICKBAIT*	284000	6.84
Marissa Lyda	HOW MUCH YOUTUBE PAID ME FOR 700,000 VIEWS	46,600	6.27
S2W	how much youtube pays me	1,750,000	6.12
Gillian Perkins	Here’s how much YouTube paid me for TEN MILLION video views	447,000	6.04
JSL Review	How Much YouTube Paid me for 1 Million Views on my iPhone 11 Video	105,000	5.88
meghan pruitt	how much money i make as a SMALL youtuber // first youtube paycheck?!?	5,590	5.79
Silicon Valley Girl	How much YouTube pays me every month	380,000	5.38
Maryjane	How Much YouTube Paid Me for a 2 Million Viewed Video	265,000	5.34
Amanda Monroe	HOW MUCH MONEY I MAKE ON YOUTUBE!! // SMALL YOUTUBER!! (not clickbait)	39,900	5.19
– SweetScale TV –	How Much YouTube Paid Me!! FIRST YOUTUBE PAYCHECK – How much YouTube Pays A Small YouTuber	17,000	5.10
Cristi Kerekes	How Much YouTube Paid Me For 5 Million Views – A YouTuber’s Life EP.	57,600	4.97
Emma Romano	How Much YouTube Paid Me For My Video With 1.5 Million+ Views	21,400	4.92
ZacCoxTV	How Much Money Do YouTubers Get Paid? How Much I made for 20,000,000 views in ONE MONTH.	663,000	4.92
Hannah Ashton	How Much YouTube Paid Me | yearly, 100k views, 1M views (NOT CLICKBAIT)	179,000	4.91
Natural Kaos	How Much Youtube Paid Me In 2019, ONLY 57K SUBS How much do SMALL YouTubers Make? 4K	117,000	4.67
Josh Ryan	How Much I Make From Youtube With 11,000 Subscribers	14,800	4.50
AFC vending	how much Youtube paid me for a 2 million viewed video	54,100	4.42
kelechi mgbemena	This is How Much YouTube PAID Me For a Video With Over 500,000 Views! | Not Clickbait!	94,400	4.42
Shelby Church	How Much YouTube Paid Me in 2019 (with a million subscribers)	1,580,000	4.38
Rohini Elyse	HOW MUCH MONEY I ACTUALLY MAKE ON YOUTUBE ????spilling the tea as a small youtuber!!	106,000	4.37
Annie Long	How Much YouTube Paid Me for my 2,000,000 viewed video	270,000	4.31
Sunny Lenarduzzi	HOW MUCH YOUTUBE PAYS ME EVERY MONTH	485,000	4.24
The Jessica & Reece Show	How Much Youtube Paid Me For 1 Million Views | My Advice For Starting Youtube	44,900	3.95
Reyes The Entrepreneur	how much youtube paid me for a 1 million viewed video	373,000	3.76
KJ Hardrict	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me Last Year With 75,000 Subscribers!	92,000	3.70
Annie Dubé	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me For 100,000 VIEWS! (not clickbait)	63,300	3.46
Bailey Chiu	How Much YouTube Paid Me for 10k Views in 2020	2,140	3.40
THAT ICELANDIC GUY.	How I Make $4000/month on YouTube With Only 20K Subscribers	32,300	3.24
DavidVlasBusiness	How Much YOUTUBE PAID ME For 10 MILLION VIEWS…	147,000	3.23
AutoVlog	Here’s How Much Youtube Paid Me For 134 MILLION Views! (Lifetime Youtube Earnings)	568,000	3.19
DNVlogsLife TV	How Much Youtube Paid Me For 3 MILLION VIEWS Videos AND I SHOW YOU HOW TO DO IT | DNVlogsLife	180,000	3.14
Syree	HOW MUCH YOUTUBE PAID ME FOR 300K VIEWS | How Much Small Youtubers Make 2020	4,890	3.12
Swell Entertainment	what youtube paid me for 1 million views	156,000	2.99
Nate O’Brien	How Much YouTube Pays Me For 1 Million Views	752,000	2.98
I AM RIO P.	How Much YouTube Paid Me for a 3 MILLION Viewed Video | I AM RIO P.	130,000	2.97
Jimmy Tries World	How Much Money Does My SMALL 20,000 Subscriber YouTube Channel Make?	109,000	2.96
Lauryn Doan	THIS IS HOW MUCH YOUTUBE PAYS ME FOR MY 10,000 SUBSCRIBER CHANNEL | 2019 Small YouTuber Statements	92,100	2.77
linguamarina	How much YouTube pays me every month	2,740,000	2.61
Jodie Dewberry	EXACTLY How Much YouTube Pays Me Every Month! (As A Small YouTuber)	26,000	2.50
Hes Kicks	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me For My 100 MILLION VIEWS ((Lifetime Youtube Earnings)	540,000	2.48
IndiaBatson	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me For My 1,000,000 Viewed Video (not clickbait)	366,000	2.28
MattDoesFitness	How much YouTube paid me for my 15,000,000 viewed video	1,910,000	2.13
Jazmine Garcia	How Much YouTube Paid Me for my 1,000,000 Viewed Video	456,000	2.06
More Plates More Dates	How Much YouTube Paid Me For A Video With 1 Million Views In Canada	177,000	2.04
Alex Jayne	How Much YouTube Paid Me For 1,000,000 Views! (not clickbait) + Donating To My Adoption Agency	36,900	2.04
Ali Abdaal	This is How Much YouTube Pays Me	1,070,000	1.91
by Brianna Nichole	How Much YouTube Paid Me For A Video With 250,000 Views ????	6,490	1.83
Kate Li	how much youtube paid me for my 1,000,000 viewed video *SPILLING EVERYTHING*	104,000	1.59
Doctor Mike Diamonds	How much YouTube paid me for my 24,000,000 viewed video	507,000	1.58
Marina Mogilko	How much YouTube pays me every month	1,220,000	1.43
Payton Frantz	How Much Youtube Paid Me As A Small Youtuber	13,400	1.40
Pennies Not Perfection	How Much YouTube Paid Me For 2 Million Views | YouTube Ad Revenue Real Numbers	14,900	1.21
King Josh	How Much Youtube Paid Me For My Viral Video With 3,000,000 Views?? $1,000 in 30min.	58,600	1.14
artofkickz	How Much YouTube Paid Me For 3,000,000 Monthly Views	646,000	1.08
SWOOP	How Much YouTube Paid Me for 1 MILLION VIEWS *shocking*	215,000	1.04
Browney	How Much Money YouTube Paid Me For My 10,000,000 Viewed Video	781,000	0.95
Sunny	This Is How Much YouTube Paid Me For 1,000,000 Views	487,000	0.62
Spath	How Much YouTube Paid Me For 1 Million Views (Gaming)	16,700	0.56
Swati Dhunna	This is How much Youtube Paid Me For My 1 MILLION VIEWED Video (NOT CLICKBAIT)	123,000	0.50
Brandon Harding	How Much YouTube Paid Me for a 12,000,000 View Video…	569,000	0.46
Living in China	How Much YouTube Paid Me for my 5,400,000 Viewed Video (not clickbait) YouTube Money ????	19,200	0.44
Michelle Anyango	HOW MUCH YouTube paid me for a video 300,000 views|Michelle Anyango	3,000	0.41
Joe Fazer	How Much Money YouTube Paid Me for a 26 Million View Video	206,000	0.31
Austin Campbell	How much YouTube paid me for 13 million views	82,300	0.29
Zaib Sheikh	HOW MUCH YOUTUBE PAID ME FOR 1 MILLION VIEWS (with proof)	48,000	0.29
AllyLawsLife	HOW MUCH YOUTUBE PAID ME FOR A 20 MILLION VIEWS VIDEO!	279,000	0.24
Garima’s Good Life	Indian Youtuber’s Income Revealed | 1 Million Subs = How Much Money? | Garima’s Good Life	1,150,000	0.17
Rachel Pedersen	How Much Money YouTube Paid Me For 2.9 Million Video Views	49,300	0.16
Isaac & Andrea	How Much YouTube Paid Me For 100k Viewed Video!	89,400	0.16

Additional Notes: 

• The overall trend for doing these videos skews toward the “make money online” niche, which generally has a high CPM. Therefore, the averages from this study are likely high if compared to overall YouTube averages.
• Some creators gave numbers for their entire channel, and some gave only for monetized playbacks. This will have some impact on the accuracy of RPM. 
• Some creators reported long timeframes, even though the majority of their revenue was from a short period. This impacts average revenue per month. 
• 100-120 videos is still a small sample size, but this data gives real-world insight into how much YouTube pays in different scenarios. 
• The study was done at the end of 2020, and most videos were created in 2019 or 2020. I have watched several follow up videos since, and the numbers seem to still be good estimates for 2021, even with changes in how YouTube places ads on non-monetized channels.
• I did my best to make accurate calculations, but mistakes are possible. These numbers are presented as estimations only. Your results may vary significantly.

Tips to make more money on YouTube

In the 100+ videos where successful YouTubers revealed their income, they also gave plenty of tips about making money on YouTube. 

This isn’t advice from marketers or “industry experts,” but from real YouTubers who have learned with real-world experience. 

The snippets below aren’t DIRECT quotes from the YouTubers, but my notes after watching their videos (the video is linked below each snippet). 

See, I’m not completely inexperienced at making money online. In fact, I’ve made multiple 6 figures through affiliate marketing and selling online courses.

However, my projects are quite unorganized and lack a sense of direction and purpose.

I want to start fresh.

Not “start over” or give up what I’m currently doing successfully, but start something on the side that has a bit clearer purpose and direction.

I have a vision for the kind of income I’d like to make, and how I want to make it. I’ve started the ball rolling in that direction, but now it needs a good push.

This post (and re-working of this website) are the first “push.”

I’m starting with a simple goal that is clear, attainable, and easy to understand.

I want to make $5,000 USD per month with affiliate marketing, advertisements, and selling online products.

For the sake of this “challenge,” I won’t be including my income from Fuel Your Photos, an established project where I have a business partner.

Right now, the only real monetization I have outside of Fuel Your Photos is on a single post on this website.

This is a screenshot from my Tubebuddy affiliate dashboard, showing that this month (September) I was paid $356.90 in commissions from my referrals from that post. I was also paid ~$50 from VidIQ, but I’ll get into tracking that more precisely next month.

For Month Zero, let’s just say I made $400.

Only $4,600 to go.

I’ll try to do an income report here as often as possible, and also document what is working, what isn’t working, and how I plan to accomplish my goals.

For now, my plan is to start creating content again.

I want to get my blog and YouTube channel off the ground, and start publishing regularly (probably every week or two).

I also plan to create a brand new course and try a BUNCH of random ideas I’ve been thinking about for a while.

I don’t have a perfect plan yet. But an action taken today is better than a perfect plan for tomorrow. So here I am writing this post, renovating this website, and giving the ball a “push” in the right direction.

Wish me luck!

Both TubeBuddy and VidIQ offer free browser extensions and free account levels, and both tools have various premium levels and features.

But which of the two tools are better? Should you use one of the free tools, or both at the same time? If you can only pay for one premium tool, which one should it be? That is what we will cover in this post.

NOTE: Many links in this article are affiliate links. I’m a paid user of both of these tools, and I’m recommending based on my own personal experience and opinions. This post is not sponsored by either company and I have no affiliation with them other than the standard affiliate program. If you click the links in the article and decide to purchase the premium versions, I may receive a commission.

Getting Started: Free Browser extensions for YouTube SEO

The great thing about both TubeBuddy and VidIQ is that they offer a free account level that includes quite a few valuable tools. TubeBuddy is available as an extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, while VidIQ is only available as a Chrome extension. I did all of my testing on Chrome, since it is my normal browser of choice. If you don’t have Chrome yet, you can download it for free at the official website.

Installing the extensions and setting up your account

Install TubeBuddy Extension
Install VidIQ Extension

Each of these extensions will require an account, which you can set up through the extension itself. For TubeBuddy, you simply use your YouTube account to login. With VidIQ, you can easily set up an account through the extension using your email address and a password. Once your account is created and you’ve authorized access to your YouTube channel, you are ready to start using the free tools.

Quick feature overview videos

Every VidIQ tool/feature (note: some are not free): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2t5F54zDGFE

TubeBuddy has a video about every free tool here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ihh9g5zwyk

Which free extension is better, TubeBuddy or VidIQ?

The short answer is that both VidIQ and TubeBuddy have their own strengths in different areas. If I had to pick only one of the free tools, I would choose VidIQ because I really enjoy the extra things it adds to my YouTube experience (like subscriber counts in comments, the toolbar quick stats, like to dislike ratio on every video, and views per hour stats). However, I do think TubeBuddy wins when it comes to upload tools & checklists, plus bulk video editing tools, especially at the free level.

To start the comparison, I wanted to test ONLY the free versions of these tools to see which one was better. I’ll share some notes and screenshots from some of the most important areas where these tools add functionality to YouTube.

1. Search Sidebar

One of the places these tools add functionality to YouTube is on the YouTube search results page. You can search for any term and get extra information about the term both on the sidebar and in-line with the video results.

TubeBuddy also has keyword stats behind this tab…

VidIQ has the option to show the tags for each video in-line with the video results (top 3 videos on the free plan)…

Both tools offer very similar features in this section. Some general stats about the videos that appear in this search, recommended or related keywords, and a proprietary keyword score. Both tools are very limited when it comes to suggestions for the free version. TubeBuddy says that it showing the top 3 of 9 related searches in the free version, and that it is showing 3 of 229 total tags while VidIQ gives 3 out of 313 recommendations in the free version for this particular search.

VidIQ offers inspiration for keywords in the free version because they have the option to show the video tags in-line for the top 3 videos, and they also give you related queries from Google Trends.

At first glance, VidIQ seems like the clear winner in this section, but I do believe that TubeBuddy’s unweighted keyword score gives a far more accurate idea of how difficult it might be to have one of your videos show up in this particular search. In every search I performed, the VidIQ score seemed to understate the difficulty of the term, based on my experience and knowledge of the topic. That being said, both scores are only estimates based on a third party calculation (not an actual YouTube metric), and if you don’t care about this score, I do like the VidIQ features better on the search page.

Search Sidebar Winner: TIE

2. Video Sidebar

One of my favorite features of both of these tools is the video analysis. For any given video, you are able to see more information about the stats in a sidebar. This works on any video, and you are able to see some additional information on your own videos.

Again, both tools offer very similar features and metrics. You can see video stats, social share information, channel stats and video tags. Both tools also give you the ability to copy all tags to your clipboard, and will show where this video ranks in YouTube search for that particular keyword. You can also click any tag in this list to open it in the tool’s keyword inspector (data on the free plans is quite limited).

One feature that I really like on TubeBuddy is the ability to copy the tags to a tag list. However, as a data nerd, I really prefer the VidIQ sidebar primarily because it shows views per hour for the video, and more expanded channel stats.

Video Sidebar Winner: VidIQ

3. Channel Statistics

If you navigate to any channel on YouTube, you’ll be able to see additional information and statistics about the channel itself.

This is the first area where the tools offer significantly different tools. Both tools show all channel tags, but outside of that, the stats are quite different.

TubeBuddy shows a live subscriber count for any YouTube Channel, along with a graph that lets you compare YOUR channel to the channel you are viewing.

VidIQ gives a global rank on Youtube, along with the total number of views, subscribers gained, and videos uploaded over the past month (monthly by default, you can change the date range).

Perhaps my favorite feature across either of the tools is VidIQ’s channel trending video list. With the free version, you can see the top 6 videos based on the view velocity (number of views per hour). This can be a really big deal if you are looking for opportunities to create videos that generate search traffic or videos that are likely to be suggested over time. Videos created a long time ago with a high velocity right now are likely getting their traffic from search and suggested.

Channel Stats Winner: VidIQ

4. Video Upload

Both TubeBuddy and VidIQ add features and shortcuts to the YouTube upload video screen. If you have both plugins enabled, it gets really cluttered and confusing, so I enabled one plugin at a time for these screenshots.

Both tools offer many of the same features and stats. Adding/suggesting tags, and an upload checklist are included in both tools, even at the free level (although tag suggestion is limited on free accounts).

However, in my opinion there is a clear winner when it comes to the video upload screen.

TubeBuddy offers the ability to save multiple default profiles (YouTube only lets you set channel wide defaults, where this feature allows you to set profiles for different types of uploads). The TubeBuddy options are well organized and don’t clutter up the screen too much, and you can manage what you want to appear on the screen in your TubeBuddy account (under the settings icon for your channel). Plus, once the video is uploaded, TubeBuddy offers even more options, including a thumbnail generator, card templates, end screen templates, and a list of best practices, with shortcuts to complete each one (only 3 of 11 best practices are shown with the free account).

But my favorite tool on the upload screen is TubeBuddy’s upload checklist. You can pick one of the profiles from various YouTube experts, and then you’ll get that checklist along with detailed tips for each of your future uploads! These lists are also available to view and print, even if you aren’t a TubeBuddy user. For example, here is Roberto Blake’s upload checklist. You can also add your OWN items if there is something you want to remember to do every time you upload a video. This feature is easily one of my favorite things about the free version of TubeBuddy!

Video Upload Screen Winner: TubeBuddy

5. Video Management

When managing your videos (In YouTube Creator Studio / Studio Beta), both tools add additional options. At the time of this writing, VidIQ has not made their options easily accessible on the video manager in Studio Beta (you’ll need to use Creator Studio Classic, which won’t be available for much longer). I can only assume that they will be updating this in the coming months. For now, VidIQ does have a way to view your videos within your VidIQ account and make some basic edits.

When it comes to bulk video management, there is really no competition between the tools, especially if you are using Studio Beta, and especially on the free versions.

TubeBuddy offers easy bulk edit options, along with quick shortcuts to almost anything you could want to do with your video, all in-line in Studio Beta. The free options are somewhat limited, but are still useful enough to come in handy and get some tasks done! If you are looking to bulk update/manage your YouTube videos, TubeBuddy is a clear winner for this.

Video Management Winner: TubeBuddy

6. Miscellaneous

There are various tools and features that VidIQ and TubeBuddy add to the YouTube experience, and while I can’t cover them all, I’ll point out a few miscellaneous features that might cause you to choose one extension over the other.

Comment Management

Both tools offer the ability to save “canned responses” for comments. TubeBuddy only allows you to use canned responses on your own videos.

One thing I really love about VidIQ is the subscriber count on each comment, along with the ability to filter comments on any video. For example, you can filter comments to only those made by channels with a specific number of subscribers, or comments that include questions.

Like to Dislike Ratio

VidIQ adds a handy like to dislike ratio on each video.

Quick Stats

VidIQ adds a few quick stats to the top bar in YouTube, including total watch time over the past year… an especially valuable metric for anyone who is working to get monetized!

Mobile App

TubeBuddy offers a mobile app, available on iOS and Android! At this time, VidIQ does not offer a mobile app. I have not tested the TB app extensively, but if you like to work from your phone, this could be a game changer for you!

Member Perks

TubeBuddy offers several discounts and even free access to other popular YouTube tools and services. For example, even the pro account level gets you 25% off at Epidemic sound, which is a great way to make the subscription even more affordable!

Miscellaneous Features Winner: TIE (mostly because TubeBuddy pulled through with the app)

Can I use TubeBuddy and VidIQ at the same time?

While both tools offer free account levels and free browser extensions, it can be tricky to use both tools at the same time because of the overlap in functionality. If you are going to use both tools, you are going to want to adjust the settings on both extensions to disable some of the panels and features.

TubeBuddy makes disabling features really easy, just go to your account and click the settings icon for the channel you want to edit.

For VidIQ, you can choose some options by clicking the browser extension icon in the taskbar, then choosing settings. The other settings you may want to adjust are on the video upload screen, and even if you disable these settings individually, the preferences box will still be visible.

Advanced Users: Premium YouTube SEO Tools

Now that you have seen a feature comparison for the free versions of each tool, let’s take some time to talk about the premium versions, whether you need them, and which premium tool is right for you!

Is it worth upgrading to the premium version of TubeBuddy or VidIQ?

In short, I at least recommend upgrading one of the tools to the ~$10/mo level that each offers. For that price, the extra insights provided even in the keyword research tools alone are well worth it. When I upgraded my TubeBuddy and VidIQ both to the “Pro” account I was impressed with how much more data I was able to access. They have both done a great job at packing the value into these entry level tiers.

You don’t necessarily need to upgrade both tools. If I were going to upgrade only one tool to the Pro level, I would upgrade TubeBuddy and use the free version of VidIQ. This is mainly because I think at the $10/mo level, the primary benefit of these tools is keyword research, and I give TubeBuddy a very slight edge in this area (although this is mostly a preference based on my use). However, I will say that I LOVE the channel trending videos feature from VidIQ, and I’d happily pay $10/mo just for the ability to get the data from 100 videos per channel instead of 10. The “Top Keywords” for all videos with the highest velocity is also a very helpful tool.

Both tools also have a plan that is around $50/month. When you start looking at these plans, you are likely a power YouTube user and the cost is likely negligible to the value you will receive from the tools. TubeBuddy also has an “in-between” plan that is ~$20/mo that offers a few extra features above the Pro plan, but in my opinion it is mostly a stepping stone to avoid the situation VidIQ has created where you can either pay $10 or $50/mo, which feels like a huge jump for most users.

Which subscription should I choose?

I’ve now tested every plan except for TubeBuddy’s “Star” plan and VidIQ’s “Enterprise” option.

When I first started testing the free plans and extensions, I really gravitated toward VidIQ. The little things they add to the YT experience are things I would really miss if I didn’t have the tool. However, most of these things are available with the free extension.

When it comes to the paid plans, I feel like TubeBuddy has done a better job of building out a full feature set to match their price points. However, I do think each tool still has it’s strong points, and as an SEO, I’ll likely keep paid accounts with both tools.

VidIQ is a really strong tool for competitive analysis. I know I’ve mentioned the competitor trending videos feature a few times now… but I really can’t overstate how powerful this could be for research! Being able to pick any YouTube channel, then export a .csv with all of their videos including title, description, duration, publish date, keywords, views, likes, dislikes, and social shares… then the ability to sort by any of these fields? Mind = blown.

This, combined with the trend alerts and other various trending video features make the $50/mo “Boost” subscription well worth it in my mind, at least for a few months while I really get to know my competition and trends. After that, I might scale back to the $10/mo VidIQ plan and be perfectly happy. I don’t particularly care for the “bulk SEO tools” from VidIQ, and pretty much everything else I need is covered with TubeBuddy.

Over on TubeBuddy, I’m really looking forward to testing the A/B test feature more, and by itself, that feature is enough for me to keep the “Legend” license subscription. Again, after a few months of exporting video data from various channels, I’ll likely cut back my VidIQ plan, and at that point, keeping the Legend plan at TubeBuddy allows me to do competitor comparisons, competitor upload alerts, and all of the bulk video management my heart desires. Another feature that both tools offer at the top tier is native FB video uploads from YouTube… another feature I’m excited to test more.

If you’ve tested TubeBuddy at $9/mo, you’ll know pretty quickly whether the Star or Legend plan is “worth it” for you.

For now, my plan is to keep the Legend license with TubeBuddy, along with the Boost license at VidIQ. I expect both companies to keep pushing out new features, so I’ll decide in a few months if I need to downgrade to the Pro license at VidIQ.

If you are publishing at least 1 video per week, your topics depend on search or suggested traffic, and you plan to make money or are currently monetizing your YouTube channel, you’ll likely recoup your investment from these tools even at the highest license levels.

Looking to take your channel to the next level and can’t afford the monthly fees yet? Stick around until the end for info on how to get discounts on BOTH tools!

Alternatives to TubeBuddy & VidIQ

This has been a pretty long comparison of two YouTube optimization tools, but are there any other tools that you need to consider when comparing TubeBuddy and VidIQ?

In my searching and testing, I haven’t found any other YouTube tools that offer a complete package like these two. There are tools for different individual aspects, like SocialBlade for live counts and statistics, or Ahrefs for keyword research (they recently extended their keyword tool to include YouTube keyword data… and if you are wondering the data is significantly different from TubeBuddy and VidIQ… I may do a deep dive on this later).

The closest VidIQ or TubeBuddy alternative I found was Morningfame. I absolutely love the onboarding and workflows with Morningfame, and I’m looking forward to using it to grow my channel as well. They have pricing at $5 and $13/mo and the primary focus is on topic/keyword discovery and research.

Discount codes & Special Offers

Finally, if you’re looking at purchasing TubeBuddy or VidIQ, you should be aware of some regular discounts that they offer, as well as a couple of official discount codes.

First of all, if you have less than 1,000 subscribers, both tools offer 50% off of select plans.

For TubeBuddy, you can just head to the pricing page and check the box that says “I have less than 1,000 subscribers” and you’ll instantly see the 50% discount on the pro plan, making it $4.50/mo. If you pay annually, it brings it down to $3.60/mo, which is an absolute no brainer.

For VidIQ, at the time of this writing, the coupon code to get 50% off for channels under 1k subs is “letsgetyou1ksubs”

Also available for VidIQ is a free first month on any plan, using the code “maytheviewsbewithyou”

These are official discount codes from their support documents and emails, but I’ll try to keep this updated if I find that they stop working or better codes pop up!

Conclusion

I’ve tried to end each section with a conclusion specific to the section, but if you’re skimming and just want the answers, here’s the TL;DR…

Best FREE YouTube tool for SEO: VidIQ.

Best Premium YouTube tool: VidIQ for competitive analysis, TubeBuddy for almost everything else.

My winning combo: TubeBuddy Legend and VidIQ Pro (Total = ~$60/mo at full price paid monthly)

Best combo for channels under 1000 subs and on a budget: TubeBuddy Pro (discounted to $4.50/mo because of channel size) and VidIQ free

Favorite VidIQ features: Competitor channel video export, trending videos, and top keywords on trending videos.

Favorite TubeBuddy features: Keyword Explorer and A/B Testing.

This will be a list for my reference, and hopefully it can also help someone else! The style I was seeking when doing research for this list is basically the vlog style videos that are popular on YouTube in 2019.

Oh and one other quick link that I always have to search for… YouTube’s Music Policies (to find out what will happen to your video if you use popular music).

Where to find music to use in your YouTube Videos

1. YouTube Audio Library

YouTube has a library of music that is safe to use in your YouTube videos. Some of this music is surprisingly high quality. Some require attribution and some do not (there is a simple filter you can use if no attribution is important to you).

One issue you’ll find is that because it is free and easy, some of the tunes are extremely popular on YouTube. Often the songs are long enough that you can take a section that isn’t quite as popular and it will still sound familiar to people without feeling over-done.

2. Tom Fox Music

I found Tom through Johnny Harris and love his style. It is very unique and if you have ever seen any of Johnny’s videos, you’ll recognize this music immediately.

The YouTube use licensing is very reasonably priced, starting at $6 and going up to $28 (for entire albums). The $28 album he has (Beats and Beds Vol. 3) also includes loops and instrumental stems. Pretty epic for this price. Even the commercial use license is only $128 for that entire album.

3. Cherne Beats

This guy has some amazing beats and has done music for big name YT channels (like Will Smith) as well as TV shows and major brands.

There are some really good options for generic background music for YouTube, I especially like the track “Close” as an example. There are also some fun and interesting mixes and remixes that I think are very unique.

The tracks are $1.99 each and may be used on YouTube (including monetized videos). That price covers unlimited personal use projects.

4. Andrew Applepie

Andrew has some great options if you want soft vocals that could still be used as background music. I would call his style folk or indy, but that doesn’t really say much these days. At the same time, if you heard this music in a video, it feels very professional, like it would require a very expensive license. In fact, many big time YouTuber’s have used his music, including Casey Neistat and Mark Rober.

Surprisingly, you can get access to all of his songs by becoming a Patron at $2 per month. Mind blowing really.

5. Bandcamp Tags [Youtube Music]

There are SO many talented independent musicians on Bandcamp. Most of them include their contact information, and quite often they are willing to give you permission to use their music in your videos.

Some music is already specified as royalty free or ok for Youtube. Here are a few tags you can try:
YouTube Music
Creative Commons
Royalty Free Music
Copyright Free Music

6. Epidemic Sound

I know, I know… seems like every YouTuber is talking about Epidemic Sound, so some people may not call it unique. It may also not be considered cheap, but as far as royalty free music libraries go, their creator subscription is pretty reasonable (starts at $15/mo).

They have over 30,000 tracks, a basically endless supply of music and sound effects. I think the biggest downside is that it can be overwhelming to sort through the library to find what you want for your video.

Tips on sorting through the endless options

1. Find YouTubers You Like

Then just look in their descriptions. Quite often, creators will at least mention where they get their music. Sometimes they will go as far as telling you the names of the tracks they used in the video. If it is creative commons, that attribution may even be required.

For example, I found many of the sources on my list from Mark Rober, who usually lists his music sources in his descriptions. I also appreciate Kara and Nate for listing the track names they use from Epidemic Sound.

2. Find a Style You Like

Almost every music library will have a sorting option, and most will let you view similar music to your current selection. Once you find a track you like, make a note of the mood/style/category/tempo or whatever other attributes are listed. This will help you narrow down your search on other platforms!