Last Updated on January 3, 2024
When looking into creating a new Youtube channel, most people go immediately into their comfort zone and create a channel based around their hobbies.
It makes a lot sense – creating a content about your passions is easy and can be very rewarding.
That’s all fine and dandy, as long as you get into Youtube for fun.
But if you want to grow a Youtube channel that would become a real business and earn a reliable income over a long period of time, creating a channel solely around your hobbies can be a fatal mistake.
You don’t want to waste your time putting lots of effort into making videos that would end up not give you any income. You have to find a niche that earns an high CPM rate from Youtube Ads.
Not all niches are born equal
Let’s run a little scenario so you could have a better understanding of what I am talking about when it comes to CPM and its importance.
Let’s assume you and me both start a channel at the same time. Your channel is about playing video games, while mine is about dropshipping services.
Both of our channels get some decent traction and after a few months of hard work – we both reach the monetization goals and start earning ad revenue from our videos.
After our first month of monetization, you get your very first AdSense check. You had over 50,000 monetized plays this month and with an average CPM of $1.5 you earned a total of 75 dollars.
At the same time, my smaller channel had only 20,000 monetized plays. But while your CPM was $1.5, my videos about dropshipping received an average CPM of $12, earning me 240 dollars – more than 3 times your earnings from less than half the amount of viewers you had.
Consider your Youtube channel as your real business and not just a hobby; that’s the first pillar to any sort of Youtube success.
Which niche should I choose for my Youtube channel?
The main issue when it comes to finding profitable Youtube niches is the lack of knowledge and transparency. Most people in the industry act solely based on hunches and actual facts are hard to come by.
A common advice (and misconception) I see everywhere online is to find the highest paying Adsense keywords via the Google keyword tool and try to create videos on those topics. While it may sounds like a good idea, those are two completely different beasts.
The top 2 highest paying Adsense keywords in 2024 are Attorney and Electricity. Do you really believe this type of content would be the most profitable on Youtube as well?
It’s important to understand that there’s no direct correlation between Google and YouTube. They are different platforms who attract different audiences, and in order to succeed in YouTube you need to adapt to its existing audience base.
How to find the best Youtube niches?
Luckily for us, last year a new trend of Youtubers sharing their income reports started to show up all over Youtube, and the total result was hundreds of Youtube income reports available publicly for us to explore.
This month I have analyzed over 100 different YouTube income report videos in the pursuit of finding accurate details regarding average YouTube CPM numbers and how much you can realistically earn per 1000 views, depending on your niche. Those videos were made by Youtubers from over 30 different distinct niches.
In this article I am going to share with you the top 17 Youtube niches with highest CPM I managed to find, as well as key channels from each one of them and a list of viral video ideas to help you get into those niches yourself.
As always, it’s important to mention that despite going over 100+ videos, this data set is still relatively low and the numbers cannot be trusted completely.
I urge you to not focus on the exact CPM rates, but look into it as an estimate of what you could earn with the right content strategy before making the final decision of which niche you want to get into.
Lastly, please notice that for the purpose of this research and in order to provide you with realistic numbers, I am using the metric of “true” CPM, which is total earnings / total number of views * 1000.
What are the highest CPM Youtube niches?
CPM rates vary depending on the niche. For example, the affiliate marketing niche have CPM rates of up to $22. Trading can have CPMs of $8-18, while Dropshpping’s average CPM is $12. Content creation comes slightly after that with $10 CPM.
Below you’ll find the top 17 highest paying niches on Youtube, according to my analysis of over 100 videos:
1. Affiliate Marketing
Average true CPM: 12-22$
Affiliate marketing is the king when it comes to earnings from Youtube ads. I went through the stats of 20+ Youtubers in this niche, and it seems that the CPM they are getting can sometimes get through the roof.
It all boils down to competition: affiliate marketing is a niche where all of the players, no matter how big or small, are available online and put the majority of their acquisition budget on digital promotions.
Most of those brands and advertisers already have experience with Youtube ads and understand the value that it can bring them by reaching the targeted audience who watch affiliate marketing-related videos.
Unlike physical brands, SaaS companies and online course creators (who are the main advertisers in the affiliate marketing niche) can allocate a much bigger budget cut into Youtube ads, as they know they have a very real possibility of achieving a positive ROI quickly, and do not rely on those ads solely for their brand power.
All those factors contribute to the ever increasing costs of advertising in the affiliate marketing niche, which you can personally bank on by creating a new channel covering those type of topics.
Key channel in the niche: ODi Productions is one of the prime examples in the affiliate marketing niche. His YouTube channel’s average CPM is 25.5 dollars, which is definitely on the upper side of the bracket.
Digging deeper into his channel statistics (that are no longed available to the public), its clear that the main advantage of the affiliate marketing niche is that you don’t need an enormous amount of monthly viewers in order to earn big numbers from Youtube.
You just need to drill down on relevant topics that are doing well, give your own twist and you will be ready to go.
Viral video ideas for your own channel: How to create a WordPress website from scratch, how to start affiliate marketing for beginners, X best affiliate programs for beginners.
2. Trading / Investing
Average true CPM: 8-18$
The finance niche in Youtube seems to be doing extremely well right now.
With more and more brands getting into the mix, the ads competition is getting fiercer as well – to the benefit of all the finance-related creators, especially those who create trading and investing video content.
Key channel in the niche: Andrei Jikhi is one of the biggest creators in the trading niche. Look at this video to gauge the monentization possibilities for your own channel:
Viral video ideas for your own channel: How to invest your first 1000 dollars, top 5 stocks of the month, highest paying jobs for you to learn, Best AI trading software
3. Drop Shipping / Print On Demand
Average true CPM: 7-14$
Similarly to affiliate marketing, drop shipping is another niche that saw a huge surge in the last few years in terms of the revenue content creators can expect to earn.
With more and more drop shipping courses launching every month, as well as the rise of print on demand, this kind of videos are considered as prime advertising spots for all the relevant brands in the industry. Thus – raising the average CPM of related channels up to 18 dollars.
The growing CPM rates, combined with the fact that videos in this niche can be easily monetized externally as well via affiliate links, digital courses and coaching services, makes the drop shipping niche an extremely lucrative option to get into this year.
Key channel in the niche: Wholesale Ted
With over 500,000 subscribers, Wholesale Ted is clearly doing something right. Look at this video where she reveals some of her online earnings:
Viral video ideas for your own channel: Print on demand tutorial for beginners, top 5 print on demand sites, what you need to know before starting dropshipping.
4. Content Creation
Average true CPM: 5-13$
With the rise of the work from home lifestyle, especially during the current Covid situation, more and more people are trying to create their own online businesses.
Whether it’s via blogging, podcasting or (you guessed it right) Youtube – the demand for education videos related to starting a digital business and creating online content is consistently growing.
Taking the first step is always the hardest, and viewers are desperate to get any advice they can get from people who already got their feet wet and had some sort of success. This is true for any type of online content, so if you have any sort of expertise when it comes to content creation – this is an excellent niche to get into.
Key channel in the niche: Cathrin Manning
Cathrin’s channel is all about growing your Youtube channel. Those videos tend to enjoy from a fairly high CPM rates, so even lower-end videos that get 1-5K views can still generate serious income.
Viral video ideas for your own channel: How to start your own podcast, how to start a Youtube channel.
5. Personal Finance
Average true CPM: 4-12$
Personal finance is a topic that impacts all of us for the majority of our life ,yet isn’t taught at all in school. That’s the reason so many people turn to the internet and Youtube to teach themselves about money.
Reducing expanses is a huge part of increasing your net savings, and despite being a relatively small niche – personal finance videos on Youtube are doing very well without being too clickbaity. They are all about establishing trust and sharing personal tips, which might be the reason advertisers like to use them as a a tool to promote their products.
This niche is also a great candidate for other forms of monetization. Online courses in particular seems to be the go-to choice.
Key channel in the niche: Financial Flamingo is a small channel with plenty of videos about personal finance, reducing expanses and managing your budget properly.
Despite the small size of the channel, thanks to the high CPM of the personal finance niche – this channel is still doing very well in terms of earnings.
Viral video ideas for your own channel: 5 side hustles to increase your income, how to pay off my X student loan debt, yearly budget planner setup.
6. VPN Content – The VPN niche is extremely competitive with plenty of companies competing in a fairly limited field. As a result, the CPM rates on VPN content can reach very high numbers.
7. Amazon affiliates – Sub-niche of the Affiliate Marketing category. Videos about earning money with the Amazon Associates program in particular tend to get extremely high CPM rates on Youtube, most notably from other affiliate brands.
8. Website Hosting
9. Tech Reviews
10. Web Development
11. Cryptocurrency – Despite the Bitcoin’s usual up’s and down’s, cryptocurrency is still a very hot topic with lots of advertisers willing to bid on related videos.
12. Insurance – As boring as it may be to most of us, insurance is a topic with a lot of ongoing interest. It’s one of the niches with the highest average CPC rate on Google all year-long, and traditional advertisers are starting to move to Youtube thanks to the overall lower rates.
13. Website Flipping
14. Software Reviews
15. Business Advice – This is a pretty broad term and can relate to large number of videos (including the personal finance and trading niches we have discussed previously) but from my observations videos that target small/medium businesses in particular usually result in $10+ CPM rates.
16. Career Advice
17. Online Deals – People love finding deals and getting discounts on products or services. Check out my recent post about Amazon prime discount to seniors, as an example.
What niche has the highest CPM on Youtube?
The niche with the highest CPM on YouTube is affiliate marketing. The average CPM in the affiliate niche stands at $17 per 1000 views, which is over ten times higher than the average CPM on YouTube.
The affiliate marketing niche is extremely lucrative thanks to the high number of tech startups and online courses who are heavily competing for reaching this type of audience. Those companies have budgets in the millions, and they are spending it in order to attract valuable customers.
Further Reading On SMBillion: For more Youtube related content, you can read our Youtube CPM ultimate guide, YouTube CPM by country case study, how to make money on Youtube and fastest growing trends on Youtube.
