How to Monetize on YouTube Without the Partner Program?

It’s a great experience to be monetized by YouTube. Upload videos to YouTube Studio and make as much money from video ads as you can. What could be more rewarding?

It sounds amazing, but you may be wondering how long it takes. To collect advertising revenue from YouTube, you must join the YouTube Partner Program. That requires 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of viewing.

This leads to some people asking, “Can I get YouTube monetized without 1000 subscribers?” The answer is yes.

For note: Check out how much money do YouTubers make using the Youtube earnings calculator.

Ways to Monetize on YouTube

1. Affiliate Revenue

Affiliate marketers make money by convincing others to purchase products online. This includes furniture, clothing, and books as well as video games, videos, and gardening tools. You could also have something digital like an extension for your web browser or an online course.

Affiliate links are the URLs that direct users to these products. These links can be found on YouTube by creators who paste them into the description of relevant videos.

The creator is paid a commission if someone uses those links to make a purchase.

Affiliate sales can earn you 1%, 5%, or even 50% commission depending on the amount of your original purchase. It all depends on which program you choose to join.

There are more than 11,000 affiliate programs in the United States, but these are the best around:

• Rakuten (various goods)
• BHCosmetics (makeup, beauty)
• Trip Advisor (travel)
• CJ Affiliate (various goods)
• Shopstyle (fashion)
• LTK (various goods)
• Shopify (eCommerce)
• Amazon Associates (various goods)
• ShareaSale (various goods)

Once you have found the perfect program, add affiliate links to your YouTube videos. Remember to remind viewers that they can scroll down to the description to purchase any featured or mentioned products.

2. Paid YouTube Sponsorships

Sponsorship on YouTube is when a company or brand pays you to promote products in your videos.

What does this look like?

Perhaps it’s an advertisement in-video, where you spend about a minute “selling” the product to viewers, before returning to the main topic of your video. Perhaps the whole video is just an advertisement, but it’s still creative and fun to watch.

Depending on the size of your channel and how engaged you are, you may earn hundreds to even thousands of dollars per sponsorship.

How do you find sponsors for YouTube?

Here are some ideas:

• Pitch brands via email. Describe what you do on YouTube and share your channel stats. Also, pitch ideas for the brand and your followers.
• Use social media to network. It’s possible to meet a public relations manager responsible for brand campaigns.
• Highlight your YouTube profile. Have you ever done a YouTube product review? Let brands know that you have done the hard work.
• Make use of technology. Numerous websites can match creators with brand campaigns.

3. Video Memberships

YouTube offers a Channel Memberships feature. However, only YouTube Partner Program creators can access it. To make money with exclusive video content, you will need to have 1,000 subscribers.

You don’t have the time? Instead, try your hand at creating a membership website

Patreon, a popular membership site, summarizes the benefits quite well.

• Freedom from algorithms
• Predictable income
• Connecting with Fans

Uscreen is one such service. It offers everything you need, including video hosting, monetization tools, and the exact website viewers will visit. You don’t need to start from scratch, but it is possible.

These are just a few of the websites that can help you build an online membership:

• Sign up to Star
• Gumroad
• Podia
• Kofi

4. Online Courses

Are you a YouTuber who posts tutorials or how-to videos? You can create a course on your niche if your viewers love them. Your viewers will learn everything they need to know about starting an online business, investing, and fixing cars.

Before you begin building a course for your audience, it is important to make sure they want one. Your audience should be interested in the topic and believe that your lessons will solve a specific problem.

Two ways to gauge the interest of viewers are available:

• Create a poll in the YouTube Community tab
• You can read comments on YouTube

Begin building your course by listing the questions you get asked and the answers. This will help you create a rough outline of the content that you can use to make chapters, lessons, and quizzes.

You can also host video courses through a membership site. Sometimes it is better to use a service that is specifically designed for education like Udemy or Skillshare, Kajabi, or Thinkific.

5. Digital Products

Digital products include:

• It is easier to make than physical products
• Stock up!
• Easy distribution

Guess what? You can even sell passive income-generating assets with a very small YouTube audience. As you grow on YouTube, you can gradually increase this number to 20, 30, and 40 customers.

• A digital asset is also affordable.

Let’s take an example. To sell an ebook you need to have an idea, create chapters and write the words. Then you will need to edit your work. You might then use Canva to design the cover of your book. You’ve now spent more time than you have financial resources.

Other assets that are popular include:

• Photography
• Fonts
• Sound effects
• Songs
• Software
• Graphics
• Templates

Make sure that your products solve a problem for viewers. Identify their needs and then ask them directly.

Once you are ready to launch your product, you can sell it on any of the top marketplaces online: Shopify. Amazon. Etsy.

Now you know: YouTube videos can be monetized without being a partner. It doesn’t have to be a YouTube ad. That’s a good thing.