Top 7 Highest Paid Niches on YouTube

Anyone whose familiar with the topic of YouTube as a money-making opportunity will be familiar with the concept of niches.

If you’re not, all you really need to know for this post is that some niches are worth more to advertisers than others, and the more valuable a niche, the more revenue it has the potential to generate for YouTubers.

Choosing the right niche (or niches) is key to not only ensuring that your channel is financially successful, but also to ensuring that you can maintain the kind of momentum necessary to stick at it long enough to be successful. With that in mind, we’ve picked out seven of the highest paid niches on YouTube.

It’s best to pick a niche you are interested in, but that doesn’t mean you can’t lean towards a more valuable niche that you’re interested.

And now, in no particular order…

Affiliate Marketing

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that one of the best paying niches on YouTube is about another way of earning money.

Affiliate marketing—earning income through referrals—typically commands a CPM (cost per thousand views) of around $12 to $22, and is probably the highest paying niche available.

Because affiliate marketing is such a viable way to succeed, there is a lot of interest in affiliate marketing products and, as a result, a lot of interest in advertising said products And, because YouTube ads work on a bidding system, the more interest there is in advertising something, the more money those advertisements will generate.

Personal Finance

Our next pick, and something that you might see as establishing a bit of a trend on this list, is personal finance.

Being financially successful is about more than finding ways to make lots of money, you also need to manage your money well, and more of us are coming to learn that.

That’s where personal finance products come in. These might be anything from debt management consultations to services and software for tracking your finances. Videos making content in this niche can expect to see a CPM of between $4 and $12.

Business Advice

In much the same vain as the personal finance pick, business advice is also a very lucrative niche, often commanding CPMs in excess of $10. This one makes a lot of sense, as more and more opportunities for small businesses become accessible to regular people, more of us are looking to start a business of our own.

It could be a craft brewery, a 3D print on demand business, an Etsy store, or any number of other ways to start a business without hundreds of thousands in capital. But those people still need advice on running a business, which is why this niche is so competitive.

Drop Shipping

Very much continuing the theme of our last pick, drop shipping is a business model whereby a business owner markets and sells products that another company stocks and ships, that company being a drop shipping company.

This works to both companies advantage, as the smaller company does not need to worry about purchasing and storing lots of expensive stock, and the larger company does not need to worry about things like customer service.

This model of business has found a lot of success in the Internet age, and videos in this niche can expect to see CPMs in the region of $7 to $14.

Print on Demand

There isn’t a great deal to be said about print on demand that wasn’t said in our drop shipping pick because the basic business model is very similar, and so are the CPM figures.

Many drop shipping services will offer a print on demand component on some of their products, allowing companies to offer those products with their own branding.

Trading and Investing

It’s probably obvious to you now that all of the highest paid niches on YouTube are ones that revolve around finances in some form or another, so you shouldn’t be surprised to see investing and trading on here.

Videos on the hows and whys of investing, as well as tips for those brave YouTubers who are willing to put that information out there, do very well in their own right, but content in this niche that trading platforms, signal services, and the multitude of investing and trading related services and products can advertise on routinely see CPMs as high as $18.

Content Creation

Our last pick might not be the most lucrative in terms of CPM—typically around $5 to $10, if you were wondering—but it is probably the most relevant to anyone reading this post.

Content creation is big business these days, whether it is creating content on video platforms like YouTube, or making podcasts, writing blog posts, or any number of other ways to make things and put them out into the world.

Crucially, there is a seemingly endless supply of products, tools, and services to help people in their content creation endeavours, which means there is plenty to advertise about.

Final Thoughts

While the niches shown here are hot right now, this is very much a volatile marketplace, and there are so many factors that can affect it.

If you can find a niche you are comfortable working in and interesting in making content for, you are in the ideal position as a YouTuber, because you will enjoy what you do.

We understand that many YouTubers don’t necessarily have that luxury, however, and it is sometimes necessary to hunt for the niche that makes the most financial sense. As with most areas of online revenue generation, the best advice you can take here is to not put all of your eggs in one basket.

If you focus everything on one niche, and that niche takes a dive for some unforeseeable reason, you will find yourself in a sticky spot.

If you can diversify your content and tackle multiple niches in different areas, you stand a much better chance of withstanding any dramatic changes to any single niche’s popularity.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.