YouTube stars make money mainly by getting paid to interact with products on their channels and sharing ad revenue with YouTube. List-topper Felix Kjellberg (aka PewDiePie), is a 25-year-old Swede who earned an estimated $12 million previous year as the most watched video gamer in the world, with about 40 million viewers subscribing to his hilarious (aka annoying?) play-through videos, rife with boisterous comments and Millenial catch-phrases.
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As one cruises down the list from the number one spot, earnings fall off from PewDiePie’s high water mark, but not as much as one might think; the bottom three earners still pull in a whopping $2.5 million per year each by Forbes’ estimates.
In a tie for second place with $8.5 million was comedy duo Smosh and the Fine Brothers, who made a name for themselves by recording kids reacting to pop culture phenomena.
This talented musician found a following on YouTube.
And coming in fourth is Lindsey Stirling who performs online by playing the violin and dancing, often at the same time.
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Speaking to Forbes previously, Stirling said of YouTube’s benefits: “It’s a very loyal fan base (that) wants you to succeed because they found you. It wasn’t a few big radio station or record label that shoved art down someone’s throat”. This means there are bound to be a few discrepancies (previous calculations of Kjellberg’s earnings, for example, have pegged the figure at .4 million a year). Comedy duo Rhett & Link have amassed part of their fortune thanks to earnings from sponsored deals, according to Forbes. In April, he released a song called “Lamborghini” – something the YouTube star can certainly afford with his $4.5 million payday.
