For a long time, the standard advice was: pick a niche, buy a DSLR, build a 37-step plan, then think about money. That advice kept a lot of people permanently in the planning stage. Then you look around YouTube and find channels posting simple slideshow videos about how much something weighs, or how to make bread, pulling thousands of dollars per month without showing a face or even speaking a word. A 2023 YouTube report found that 75% of creators making a full-time income are not full-time content creators. A big chunk of them do not have a niche at all.
This post walks through all five methods Alston covers in the video above: affiliate marketing, digital products, YouTube Shorts, search-based tutorials, and channel memberships. None of them require high production value. None require a niche. The fourth one can make money automatically even if a video gets only 17 views, most of them from friends and family. If you already know which path fits you and just want to find the right starting point, try finder.platformproof.com.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- A clear-eyed breakdown of three myths that keep beginners stuck before they even start
- The full income range for each of the five methods (low end to high end, specific numbers)
- Exactly how affiliate marketing works without needing subscribers or YPP approval
- Why digital products pay 95% vs. affiliate’s 1 to 3%, and how to create your first one in a weekend
- The YouTube Shorts playbook: tools, daily posting volume, and how to stack passive income on top
- How a simple search-based tutorial channel hit 1,000 subscribers without Alston speaking a word of Spanish
- The four beginner mistakes that destroy momentum before month one ends
- A five-step launch system and a tool to find your best starting point at finder.platformproof.com
Three Myths That Are Keeping You Stuck
Before the five methods, there are three beliefs worth clearing off the table. They are the real reason most beginners never upload anything.
Myth 1: You Need a Niche or You Will Fail
YouTube is not college. It is not a profession. Plenty of creators started with no niche, found what worked, and built income around it. YouTube rewards consistency more than it rewards clarity. If you are uploading content that people actually want to watch, the algorithm does not care whether your channel fits a single category. Niches help eventually, but you absolutely do not need one to start monetizing.
Myth 2: You Need Fancy Gear
A $300 microphone and a $7,000 camera will not save a video that does not solve a problem. If you have a relatively new smartphone, that is enough to start. A decent microphone from a thrift shop or pawn shop can cost $25. Editing can be done in iMovie. You do not need b-roll or motion graphics. If you can deliver value, you can be successful on YouTube. If you cannot deliver value, no amount of production quality will make people stay.
Myth 3: You Cannot Make Money Until You Are Monetized
Waiting on AdSense is like waiting on dial-up internet to load TikTok. You could make money from your first video. The YouTube Partner Program (1,000 subscribers, 4,000 watch hours) is the icing, not the cake. It can be taken away, suspended, or simply never arrive. Your primary monetization strategy should be something you own and control. If YPP comes, great, add it as an extra stream later. Every method below works before you ever hit those thresholds.
Method 1: Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is recommending other people’s products and earning a commission when someone buys through your link. It is not just courses and info products. It is security cameras, video games, soundbars, stand mixers, and pretty much anything sold online. You could start today with products already sitting around your house, and your starting cost would be exactly $0.
The content types that work best for affiliate marketing are: unboxing videos, reviews, first impressions, side-by-side comparisons, and long-term reviews (the “I bought this 6 months ago, is it still worth it?” format). You hold your phone up to the product, talk about the pros and cons and why you chose it over the alternatives, drop your affiliate link in the description, and people buy. You handle zero shipping, zero customer service, zero returns.
Income Potential
On the low end as a beginner: $50 to $200 per month from a handful of sales. The range depends entirely on what you are promoting. A $99 security camera at 3% commission is about $3 per sale. You need a lot of sales for that to add up. But if you promote something that pays $500 or more per conversion, two or three sales per month changes the math completely. On the high end with consistent traffic and smart promotions: over $5,000 per month.
How It Works
There are over 11,000 affiliate programs out there. You sign up, get a custom tracking link, create content about the product or service, and embed that link in the description. One of the best moves for beginners is to promote products with a free trial. VidIQ, for example, has a 30-day free trial. Someone clicks your link, signs up for free, and if they stay past 30 days it rolls over to $17 per month and you earn a commission. The person felt no friction, and you still get paid.
Here is a real-world example from Alston’s own channels: six years ago he posted a video on how to install a Ring video doorbell without a prior doorbell. That video now has over 250,000 views. People watch it every single day. The affiliate link is still in the description, still earning commissions, on a video made half a decade ago. Passive income from old content is one of the most compelling features of this method.
Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing
Pros: You can earn passive income from videos years after uploading them. There is no product to create, no customer service, no returns. You get to partner with brands people already recognize and trust. Ring is already one of the leading video doorbells in the world, so buyers are not making a blind leap.
Cons: You need traffic, which means consistent content creation. Commission rates on some programs are low. Amazon, one of the biggest affiliate programs, used to pay around 10% on most products; now it is down to 1 to 3% in many categories. Affiliate programs can change their terms at any point, reduce your rate, or remove you from the program entirely. You have very little control over what happens on the program side.
Affiliate marketing is telling someone where the party is and getting paid every time they show up and buy snacks. It is ideal for beginners who like tutorial-style content or who already talk about what they use every day. It is not a great fit if you hate the idea of ever feeling like you are promoting something, or if the idea of not controlling your commission structure keeps you up at night.
Method 2: Selling Digital Products on YouTube
A digital product is anything created on a computer and delivered over the internet. Templates, planners, cheat sheets, stickers, coloring books, songs, beats, mini courses, workbooks, fillable Google Docs. Not merch, not print-on-demand, those are physical. A pure digital file that someone downloads after buying: that is what we are talking about here.
With affiliate marketing you earn 1 to 3% of the sale. With your own digital product you keep 95%, minus whatever your payment processor and platform take. Platforms like Gumroad, Payhip, and Stan Store handle the hosting and delivery. You do not need a website or a consistent upload schedule. You just need one digital product that solves a specific problem and at least one video that puts it in front of the right people.
Income Potential
As a beginner: $50 to $500 per month. A $10 product only needs five sales in an entire month. Consistent and persistent, with some automation in place: $5,000 to $10,000 per month. The other big advantage is the customer data. When someone buys your digital product, you get their name and email. You can sell them a $49 course or a $97 program later. With affiliate marketing you have no idea who bought, so you cannot follow up with anything.
How It Works
Create the product. Think cheat sheet, Notion template, ebook, mini course, checklist, workbook, or something similar. Host it on Gumroad, Payhip, or Stan Store. Make YouTube videos that solve a problem related to the product. Mention the product naturally in the video, link to it in the description, pin the comment, or promote it in a community post. When someone buys, you get paid instantly. Not 30, 45, or 180 days later like some affiliate programs. Instantly.
Alston’s first digital product was a Google Doc he called the 60-Second Business Blueprint. He saved it in Google Drive and delivered it by sharing a link to the doc. That was the whole setup. Yes, even a well-designed Google doc can be monetized. You can create one digital product for each video you upload. One video on five ways to organize your life, linked to a $5 Notion dashboard. One video on how to plan YouTube videos, linked to a fillable Google Doc. Each video has its own product attached, which means no niche is required.
The Pro Tip: Stack Affiliate Links Inside Your Product
Create a digital product first, then embed affiliate links inside it. Say you make a 30-day dog training planner. Inside that planner, you link to recommended leashes, harnesses, treats, and a course to help dogs sleep through the night. You earn money from the product sale and from every purchase made through the affiliate links inside it. Multiple revenue streams from one thing.
Pros and Cons of Digital Products
Pros: Create it once, sell it forever. There are buyers still purchasing products Alston created five or six years ago. You keep close to 95% of every sale. It works for any niche or no niche at all. You own the customer relationship and can build an email list.
Cons: You have to do some selling and promoting upfront. Creating the product takes time, maybe a weekend, and there is no guarantee anyone buys it the first time around. Perfectionism is a real trap here. Nobody is going to spend more time looking at your product than you will. Get comfortable shipping a version that is 85 to 95% ready and plan to improve it over time. Selling digital products is like building a vending machine: you stock it once and people keep paying to press the button.
Not sure which income stream matches what you already know how to do?
Answer a few questions and get a specific recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.
Method 3: YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts are exploding, and YouTube is pushing them hard because they need to compete with TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Facebook. You do not need to dance, talk, or show your face. You just need to understand what keeps people watching and hit upload. That is the whole game.
AI is making this method even more accessible. You can generate clips, add voiceovers, and produce content without ever filming yourself. If you have been on YouTube for more than five years, the idea of running a channel without your face or your voice ever appearing would have seemed impossible. It is now completely normal and, for some creators, very profitable.
Income Potential
On the low end: $100 per month from the YouTube Shorts bonus fund. On the high end, with multiple income streams running alongside the Shorts: over $10,000 per month. The key phrase there is multiple streams. Shorts alone, on the revenue-share side, are not going to be your whole income. But combine the Shorts fund with a digital product in the channel banner, an affiliate link in the pinned comment, and a community post pointing to a lead magnet, and you are stacking passive income on top of passive income.
How It Works
Pick a bingeable theme. Motivational quotes, weird facts, fails, movie edits. Use tools like CapCut, VidVid.io, or Pictory to auto-generate clips. Pull audio from viral TikToks, Reels, or podcasts using fair use commentary or royalty-free audio. In the very beginning, Alston recommends recording your own audio. It takes five seconds longer and it helps with authenticity and with the algorithm. Add captions, zooms, and fast edits. Post two to four Shorts per day and let the algorithm find your audience. Once it finds that initial audience, YouTube keeps serving your content to more people who match the same profile.
Examples that work: AI quotes that sound human but are not, motivational movie lines people forgot about, weird facts they will repeat at parties. The bonus tip: add links in your channel banner or pinned comments pointing to a Notion template, ebook, or any digital product. That way the Shorts are racking up views and building passive income in the background at the same time.
Pros and Cons of YouTube Shorts
Pros: No face required. YouTube is actively promoting Shorts right now. They are great for testing viral ideas before committing to a full long-form video. You can also combine 10 to 20 Shorts into a single long-form upload, giving the same content two different surfaces on the platform.
Cons: Quality and quantity both matter. Posting once a week is not enough, and people’s standards for Short-form video quality are rising. Some themes burn out fast. When one format works, a thousand other creators flood into it, the novelty disappears, and the audience moves on. Making YouTube Shorts is like handing out digital candy: small, addictive, and everyone wants another one. Except this time you get paid instead of getting cavities.
Method 4: Monetizing YouTube Search with Simple Tutorials
People go to YouTube and type in everything. How to cancel a Netflix subscription. How much is a gym worth on TikTok. How to delete messages from an iPhone. How to donate hearts on TikTok. These are real searches, consistent searches, and most of them have room for new creators to rank.
You can use AI to research the answer, create a screen recording showing the steps, add on-screen text or an AI voiceover, and publish it. You never have to show your face. You do not have to be an expert who has spent years in the field. You just have to know the answer and be able to show it clearly on screen.
A Real Example: The Spanish Channel
Alston does not speak Spanish. He built a YouTube channel teaching people how to say different words in Spanish anyway. He hired someone on Fiverr to record the pronunciation. The videos are about one minute long. That channel just crossed 1,000 subscribers, and it keeps growing from search traffic with zero ongoing effort from Alston. The lesson: you do not need to be the expert. You need to be the one who finds the answer and puts it on screen.
Income Potential
On the low end: $50 per month from AdSense. On the high end with tutorials that drive tool and product signups: over $5,000 per month. Google is the number one search engine in the world. YouTube is number two. A video that ranks on both surfaces gets compounding traffic from two different discovery engines simultaneously. That is hard to replicate with any other content format.
How It Works
Go to YouTube and type “how to” and look at the auto-suggest dropdown. The suggestions are real searches real people are making right now. Pick topics with consistent demand and not too much competition. Use screen recording tools like Loom or OBS to show the process on screen. Add text overlays or an AI voiceover to explain each step. Then monetize the video with AdSense if you are in YPP, with affiliate links to whatever tools you used, or with a digital product that goes deeper on the same topic.
Here are examples that match real searches: “How to remove backgrounds in Canva” with a Canva affiliate link. “How to use ChatGPT to make a resume” with a resume template for sale. “How to create a free logo in two minutes” with no product necessary, just AdSense and an affiliate link to a design tool. One bonus move: create a blog post, embed your YouTube video in it, and have AI write a short article around it. You are now on Google search and YouTube search with the same content, and both surfaces can send you traffic and revenue at the same time.
Pros and Cons of Tutorial-Based Search Content
Pros: No niche required. You just follow what people are searching for. Videos are simple to produce. Content ranks on both Google and YouTube, giving you two search engines pointing traffic at the same video. You do not need to be front-facing.
Cons: You have to actually learn how to do the thing before you can teach it. That is the work. If you are hoping for overnight results or instant fame, this method builds slowly through search ranking. Patience is required. It is digital hitchhiking: you are jumping into traffic that already exists and holding a helpful sign.
Method 5: Channel Memberships and Private Communities
This is the method that converts one-time viewers into people who pay you every month. Channel memberships on YouTube, Patreon, Skool, and platforms like GoHighLevel all let you charge a recurring monthly fee for access to exclusive content, early video drops, live Q&As, behind-the-scenes updates, or exclusive templates and mini guides.
You do not need a massive audience to make this work. The math is simple: 1,000 people paying $10 per month equals $10,000 per month. YouTube gets over 20 billion visits per month. You need a tiny fraction of that number to hit any membership target you set. The people who have been in Alston’s communities for years, he knows their families, their niches, their goals. That depth of relationship is built by consistently showing up, not by going viral.
Income Potential
On the low end with five to ten supporters: $2 to $100 per month. On the high end with a thriving community plus upsells, events, and exclusive offerings: over $5,000 per month. And because it is recurring, you know roughly what next month looks like. Affiliate income and digital product income can swing month to month depending on traffic. Membership income is much more predictable.
How It Works
Enable YouTube channel memberships or start a private group on Patreon or Skool. Offer perks that are low-effort for you to produce: early video access, behind-the-scenes updates, a monthly Q&A where people email questions and you answer them in a live or recorded session, exclusive templates or mini guides. Mention the membership casually in your videos. “If you want to support the channel and get early content, click the link below.” Then rinse and repeat. Channel memberships are like starting a tiny Netflix where instead of shows, you offer resources, Q&As, and community. People will pay for that.
Pros and Cons of Memberships and Communities
Pros: Recurring monthly income with minimal extra effort once the community is running. You do not need to go viral, just consistent. You build real relationships with people who know your work and want to support it.
Cons: You have to show up outside of just posting videos. This is not a set-it-and-forget-it method. Communities grow slowly, and churn (people not renewing month to month) is a real thing you will have to manage by consistently delivering value. This is not for anyone looking for fast results or anyone who does not want to commit to showing up for their community at least weekly or monthly.
Four Mistakes That Kill Momentum Before Month One Ends
Even with the right method, these four patterns send most beginners back to zero.
Mistake 1: Waiting Until You Figure It All Out
No YouTube creator has it figured out when they start. Most of them think they do, then pivot based on what their audience actually responds to. Clarity comes from action, not from overthinking a Google Doc for six weeks. Start today, after this post, and adjust as you go.
Mistake 2: Uploading Videos With No Monetization Plan
Before every upload, ask: how is this video going to make money? What income streams can it generate? Relying entirely on the YouTube Partner Program as your monetization plan is a big failure point. YPP should be an extra layer, not the foundation. Have a plan for each video before it goes live.
Mistake 3: Ignoring Descriptions and Comments
Reply to comments. People ask for recommendations in the comment section, and that is a direct affiliate commission opportunity you are ignoring if you never respond. Alston replies to about 10 comments per day. Also: do not be shy about selling. Put affiliate links in descriptions. Mention your digital product. People came to your channel to see you. If they do not like the recommendation, they will scroll past it. But many will click.
Mistake 4: Trying to Be MrBeast on Day One
High-production 4K footage is not your job right now. Start with your phone in front of a window. Stack it on books if you need a stand. Make content. The people who wait for the perfect camera end up waiting forever. Upload the video. Let your audience decide if the content is good. Imperfect content that is live makes money every day. Perfect content sitting on a hard drive makes nothing.
The Five-Step Launch System
Here is how you actually start without spiraling into research rabbit holes or rewatching this post four times.
- Step 1: Pick one method. Do not try to do all five at once. Pick the one that makes the most sense to you right now and focus on it. Add the others later.
- Step 2: Build your assets. Make a list of digital products you could create. List the products already in your home you could review as an affiliate. Pick your bingeable Short theme. Identify a tutorial topic with real search demand.
- Step 3: Make one video. It does not matter if it is ugly. It does not matter if you say “um” a hundred times. Imperfect content that is live has a chance of making money. Perfect content that is not uploaded has a 0% chance. One hundred percent of zero is still zero.
- Step 4: Add your monetization link. Whether it is an affiliate link, a digital product page, a freebie with an upsell, or a membership page, the link goes in the description before the video goes live. If it solves a problem, someone will click.
- Step 5: Track, improve, and repeat. Look at what worked and what flopped. Keep doing what worked. Drop what did not. This is how creators build momentum. When you see a creator making what looks like the same video over and over, it is because that format proved to work on their channel. They are not being lazy. They are being consistent with what the data told them.
Choosing the Right Starting Point
You now have five methods, a startup system, and a clear picture of the mistakes to avoid. The only remaining question is which one fits the skills and time you actually have right now. That is exactly what the free tool at finder.platformproof.com is built for. Answer a few questions about your schedule, your comfort on camera, and the resources you already have, and it points you to your best first move.
Find Your X
If your next question is “but which of these is right for me?” the answer is waiting at finder.platformproof.com. It takes a couple of minutes and gives you a specific starting point based on what you already have and what you want to build toward.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I really need zero subscribers to start making money with affiliate marketing?
Correct. Affiliate marketing does not require any minimum subscriber count or YouTube Partner Program membership. You create a video, put your affiliate link in the description, and if someone watches, clicks, and buys, you earn a commission. A channel with 12 subscribers can earn affiliate income on day one.
Which affiliate programs are the easiest to join as a beginner?
Amazon Associates is the most beginner-friendly because almost everything people buy is on Amazon and the signup process is straightforward. The downside is that commissions are low, typically 1 to 3% in most categories. Impact.com and ShareASale host thousands of programs across every category. For software tools, many companies run their own affiliate programs with higher commission rates, often 20 to 40% recurring on subscription products.
What should my first digital product be?
The fastest option is something you can create in a weekend: a checklist, a Notion template, or a fillable Google Doc. Think about a problem you have already solved in your own life. Turn your process into a document someone else could follow. Price it anywhere from $5 to $25 and see if anyone buys it before you spend more time on it. Alston’s first digital product was a Google Doc delivered by sharing a Drive link. That is genuinely the bar for version one.
How many YouTube Shorts should I post per day?
Alston recommends two to four per day for Shorts specifically. The algorithm needs enough volume to find your audience. Once it finds that initial group and confirms engagement, it will start showing your content to more people who match the same profile. One Short per day is not wrong, but two to four accelerates the testing process significantly, which means you find out faster what is working.
Can I make tutorials about topics I don’t personally know well?
Yes, and Alston’s Spanish language channel is the example. He does not speak Spanish. He used Fiverr to hire someone to record the pronunciations, made one-minute videos, and built a channel past 1,000 subscribers. The requirement is knowing how to find accurate answers and present them clearly on screen. You do not have to have spent years mastering the skill yourself.
How many members do I need to make $1,000 per month from a community?
At $10 per month you would need 100 members. At $20 per month you would need 50. At $5 per month you would need 200. The right price depends on what you are offering. A monthly Q&A and early video access is a $5 to $10 offer. Exclusive templates, workshops, and direct feedback from you pushes it to $20 to $50. Start low, prove the value, and raise the price as the community grows.
What is the fastest way to get your first affiliate sale?
Create a review or comparison video about a product you already own and use. The video does not need high production value. You hold your phone up, talk about what you like and what you do not, explain who it is best for, and put your link in the description. Then share that video anywhere you can: in the comments of related YouTube videos, in relevant Reddit threads, in Facebook groups. Getting people to the video is the job right after making it.
Is the YouTube Partner Program worth working toward?
Yes, but treat it as icing, not the foundation. Getting 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours is a worthwhile milestone, and AdSense adds a real revenue layer once you qualify. But the risk is that YPP can be suspended, videos can be demonetized, and the platform can change its policies at any time. Building income streams you own and control, like digital products and affiliate links, protects you from being entirely dependent on decisions YouTube makes without asking you first.
Read Next
If you are already thinking about specific content formats and want to see how monetization stacks on top of a YouTube channel that uses a reaction-based format, the next post covers that in detail.
5 Monetization Hacks for Reaction Channels (That No One Talks About)
Sources
- Alston Godbolt, “5 Lazy Ways to Make Money on YouTube Without a Niche,” YouTube, 2025
- YouTube Creator Economy Report, 2023 (cited in video: 75% of creators making full-time income are not full-time creators)
- Amazon Associates commission structure (cited in video: dropped from ~10% to 1 to 3% in many categories)
- YouTube monthly traffic (cited in video: over 20 billion visits per month)
Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.