How to make $1000 a month as a Youtube Beauty Guru

We all would love to make an extra money each month. Youtube is a great way to bring in a bit more cash, but understanding how much is really possible is important. Here is a quick math problem that will give you an idea of what it really takes to earn that kind of income.

Here are the basic assumptions:

1. All income is through Google Adsense and comes from advertising placed on or near your videos.
2. The click-through rate is 5%. Basically, we expect to have 1 out of every 20 viewers "click" on an ad. Since Youtube has pre-roll ads, viewers need to watch the entire ad and not click out to receive income. These count in the 5% as well.
3. The cost-per-click is $.10 (10 cents). This is an average, but appears to be an accurate amount. As a whole, beauty related videos receive a bit higher cpc because companies pay higher rates to target particular search terms. It is not unusual to see bids per click in the $1 range for terms such as makeup, etc.

So, let's get started. We need to hit $1000.

How much do we make per 1,000 views?

At $.10 a click and a 5% click through rate, you receive $5 for every 1,000 views.

1,000 views x .05 = 50 clicks; 50 clicks x .10 per click = $5

How many views overall do we need to make $1,000?

$1,000 / $5 = 200; 200 x 1,000 = 200,000 total views per month

How many videos do we need to make per month? Let's assume you do 3 per week or a total of 12 per month.

200,000 views / 12 videos = 16,666 views per video per month

How many subscribers do you need to have that many views per video?
We assume that you have an active subscriber group but not every subscriber is going to watch every video. We expect 20% of your subscribers watch each video or 1 out of 5.

16,666 / .2 = 83,330 subscribers or 85,000 to round it out

In summary: You need to make 12 videos a month and have 85,000 subscribers (5% click-through at $.10 per click)

Kind of eye opening, hunh?

Additional thoughts: I actually think these numbers are a bit high. I think you might reach $1,000 per month with less subscribers, but you are still going to need quite a few. Videos are watched by non-subscribers which drive that number down.

No one can tell you exactly what they make from Adsense because it is against the TOS, but you can come up with projections and assumptions that are reasonable. I think these numbers are reasonable.

Youtubers who make a living online have other ways to earn an income outside of Adsense.

What do you think? Leave a comment below.