Surpassing the 1 million subscriber mark on YouTube is a huge milestone, and, in practical terms, it often means a creator can earn a full-time living from the platform.
YouTube creators earn money a number of ways, but money from the ads that play in their videos usually constitutes a big chunk of their income. Andrei Jikh, a finance YouTuber with 1.7 million subscribers, has earned $1.6 million in ad revenue in less than three years, for example.
Another YouTuber, lifestyle creator Tiffany Ma, earns up to $11,500 a month from ads on her videos, she told Insider.
To start earning money directly from YouTube, creators must have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year. Once they reach that threshold, they can apply for YouTube's Partner Program, which allows them to start monetizing their channels through ads, subscriptions, and channel memberships. For every 1,000 ad views, advertisers pay a certain rate to YouTube. YouTube takes 45% of the revenue, and the creator gets the rest.
Two key metrics for earning money on YouTube are the CPM rate, or how much money advertisers pay YouTube per 1,000 ad views, and RPM rate, which is how much revenue a creator earns per every 1,000 video views after YouTube's cut.
Some subjects, like personal finance and cryptocurrency, can boost a creator's ad rate by attracting lucrative advertisers.
"The ad revenue for crypto is a lot higher than anything else finance-related, like credit cards or banks," Jikh told Insider.
While Ma's lifestyle content makes less money, she's perfected a strategy to maximize payout.
"To really optimize your audience, I think YouTubers should definitely put three to four ads within a video," Ma said.
Many of these creators make money outside YouTube as well.
Graham Stephan, who has 3.4 million subscribers, launched his own coffee brand, for instance. (Read how he did it, what it cost, and how much he's made in our interview with Stephan.)
But the money made directly from YouTube forms a key pillar of many creators' incomes.