How much does online video and two websites pay a collective viewership of probably a bit over 1 million views/interactions per year? I’m talking all of my YouTube channels, on-site Amazon videos that get commissions, affiliate links I place in descriptions and on my websites. Not bothering to count Instagram and TikTok, but I do post videos on those websites too even though I can’t do click-able links or receive ad revenue sharing due to not meeting their requirements. Plus, only one of my 8 YouTube channels is monetized which accounts for 810k of the total in 2023.
A bit less than $10k USD for the year before tax. My Amazon efforts are a much larger portion of this than YouTube Ads.
How expensive is it to live in the USA? Let’s just focus mostly on taxes with a mention of healthcare.
Tax for this type of income is a mix of “self employment tax” (15.3%), federal income tax (10% at the lowest tier with 37% being the highest), and state income tax (4.95% in Illinois in my case). We also pay various other taxes like sales tax on purchases, taxes/fees related to vehicles like yearly registration, and taxes/fees related to housing depending on what an individual has or pays indirectly for if they rent.
Our healthcare system is heavy on employer provided plans and contributions, though there is a marketplace for other individuals. This marketplace will provide income based subsidies, but even if someone has most of a basic health plan paid this way these plans will have yearly deductibles in excess of $6k and can have something called co-insurance which is a percentage of services rendered not covered by insurance.
Health insurance doesn’t include dental and vision except with whatever they decide is part of healthcare… So if you can’t see well without glasses that’s not covered under normal health insurance. Or you have a cavity that isn’t covered under normal health insurance.
Yeah, if someone called me crazy for spending as much time as I do on all of this, I wouldn’t disagree at all. Though I do enjoy it a lot.
I’m not sure how I can physically make this financially work to reach ~10x more viewership given what viewers and algorithms have decided so far. Outside of creators that have strong communities that directly support them, I think it’s necessary to get around 1 million views/interactions per month to make it financially viable in the USA. By physically I mean planning, recording, and editing videos/articles.
Here’s to 2024! haha