5 Ways To Monetize Your YouTube Shorts Channel in 2025

Earning over $100,000 per month with a YouTube Shorts channel is not only possible, it is happening right now for creators who pick the right monetization model. The problem is that most people running faceless Shorts channels are stacking up views but leaving the actual money on the table, because they are focused on the wrong income stream entirely.

In this post you will get a ranked breakdown of five proven ways to monetize a YouTube Shorts automation channel, ordered from worst to best. Each method includes real numbers, real creator examples pulled directly from the video, honest pros and cons, and a plain answer to whether it fits your situation. By the time you finish reading, you will know exactly which path to prioritize and which ones to skip until you are ready.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear ranked list of all five YouTube Shorts monetization methods, from least effective to most profitable
Real earning ranges for each method, from the floor to the ceiling, based on Alston’s direct experience and named creator examples
The exact requirements to get into the YouTube Partner Program for Shorts
How to launch affiliate marketing from a Shorts channel in four steps
Why digital products are the closest thing to a set-it-and-run income on YouTube
The number one strategy that unlocks every other revenue stream at once
The single niche that prints more money than any other for Shorts creators, and why
Not sure which method fits your channel? Find out in two minutes at finder.platformproof.com

Method #5: YouTube Partner Program and Ad Revenue

This is the method most creators think of first, and it is Alston’s personal least favorite. The YouTube Partner Program pays you for the ads that appear at the beginning or end of your Shorts videos. You earn based on an RPM, which stands for Revenue Per 1,000 qualified views. For the Shorts format, that RPM lands somewhere between $150 and $200 depending on your niche, meaning you need to hit 1,000 qualified views to collect that amount.

Getting accepted into the program is not trivial. For Shorts specifically, you need at least 1,000 subscribers and 10 million views on your Shorts content, and those 10 million views must have happened within the last 90 days. That 90-day window rolls continuously, so you cannot coast on an old viral video. Once you hit those thresholds, YouTube invites you in. You then connect your AdSense account, keep posting, and get paid around the 21st of each month depending on where you live.

The time to results with this method ranges from one month to never. Those are real numbers from Alston’s experience. There are creators who have been posting for years and have never earned a single dollar from the Partner Program, either because their content does not qualify or because they cannot hit the 10 million view threshold consistently.

Earning potential with YPP runs from as low as $50 per month on a small channel to over $100,000 per month if you have multiple viral videos, upload three to six times per day, and catch some favorable algorithm momentum. The real-world proof comes from Charlie Chang, who runs three faceless YouTube channels and clears over $250,000 every single month using this method alone.

Pros: Once you are in the program, it is nearly 100 percent passive. You do not need to sell anything. The income comes in just from the content you post.

Cons: Your content might not qualify at all. Pay fluctuates based on view count, viewer location, watch time, and variables you cannot control. And you will feel the constant pressure of the content treadmill: stop posting consistently and your revenue drops immediately.

This method works well if you already have a team that can pump out four to six Shorts per day, or if you are the kind of creator who naturally makes videos that go viral. It is not the right starting point if you are a solo creator still figuring out your content rhythm.

Method #4: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing means getting paid to recommend products and services you already know, use, and believe in. You partner with a company, receive a unique link, drop that link in the description of your Shorts, and earn a commission every time someone clicks and buys. You can partner with more than 11,000 different companies, from global giants like Amazon all the way down to small local businesses.

The commission range is enormous. Some programs pay as little as 37 cents per sale. Others pay thousands of dollars per conversion, typically for high-ticket software, financial products, or premium courses. What you earn depends on three things: the product you choose, the quality of your content, and the size of your audience.

Starting is straightforward. Step one: identify a product or service relevant to your niche. Step two: find the affiliate program tied to that product. Step three: apply and get accepted. Step four: create videos about that product and include your affiliate link in the description. When viewers click through and purchase, your commission registers.

You can start seeing your first commissions in as few as a few days if your content is strong and you are in a buying niche. If you are still developing your content skills, it might take a few months to a couple of years. Earnings on the low end sit around $50 per month from a handful of conversions. On the high end, $10,000 per month or more is realistic if you are promoting high-ticket offers or driving significant traffic. A real example from the video: a Reddit user named Penelope Sheets made over $2,000 recommending other people’s products and services through YouTube.

Pros: You do not need your own products. No shipping, no inventory, no customer service headaches. You just provide the link. And there is an affiliate program for virtually every niche imaginable.

Cons: You only make money when someone clicks and buys. If the traffic does not convert, you earn nothing. Many affiliate programs also come with strict guidelines about what you can say, how you can promote, and what claims you can make. Violate those rules and you can be removed from the program and lose commissions you have already earned.

Affiliate marketing is a strong fit if you want to earn from your content without building your own products. It is not a fit if you want instant results, because most creators do not see meaningful affiliate income for at least a week or two, and realistically longer if they are early in their content journey.

Method #3: Brand Deals and Sponsorships

Brand deals and sponsorships are exactly what they sound like. A company pays you directly to mention their product in your video, create a sponsored segment, or make an entire video built around their offer. The key thing most creators do not realize is that you do not need a massive following to land these deals. You can start accumulating brand partnerships with as few as 3,000 subscribers.

Finding brand deals takes more work than affiliate marketing but the process is manageable. You reach out to brands that align with your niche and send them a branding kit that explains your content, your audience, and why a partnership makes sense. YouTube also has a built-in feature that connects creators with potential brand partners, which can speed up the process once your channel has some traction. Once a brand agrees to work with you, you negotiate the payment, they give you their requirements, and you create the video.

Results with this method typically take a month or more to materialize, because negotiation takes time and some brands require pre-approval of your script before you can film. Earnings range from about $100 for a single video with a small brand all the way to $50,000 or more per month for creators with large audiences and multiple active sponsorship relationships. The channel HowToBasic is cited in the video as proof: they are a faceless YouTube automation channel that has pulled in over $2 million through various brand deals and sponsorships.

Pros: Channels of any size can land deals. Sponsorships can also stack on top of affiliate links and other promotions, so you can earn from the same video in multiple ways.

Cons: Negotiation is required. If you are not comfortable talking numbers with a brand representative, this method will be frustrating. Some brands require you to follow strict content guidelines, and a few will insist on approving your entire script before you shoot. That can slow your publishing schedule considerably.

Brand deals are well-suited for creators who are comfortable with a little selling and who want to earn money without maintaining their own products. They are not the right path if you want full control over every word in your content or if you cannot handle a negotiation conversation.

Not sure which monetization path fits your channel right now?

Answer six quick questions and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

Method #2: Selling Digital Products

This is Alston’s personal favorite monetization model for YouTube channels. A digital product is anything you create on a computer and deliver electronically: songs, beats, podcast episodes, templates, workbooks, ebooks, guides, and more. The most powerful thing about digital products is the economics: you create the product once and you can sell it a million times. No inventory to manage, no shipping to arrange, no warehouse to rent. The customer gets access instantly after purchase.

Pricing flexibility is a major advantage here. If your product solves a small, specific problem you can price it at a dollar or two to bring in volume. If your product solves a significant, costly problem for a defined audience, you can charge $1,000 or $5,000. The price is not set by anyone else. You decide based on the value you deliver.

Getting started costs nothing if you are willing to use free tools. Step one is to come up with a digital product idea based on your niche and what your audience actually needs help with. Step two is to create the product using free tools like Canva, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, or Microsoft Excel. Step three is to build a sales page. You can do this for free using Gumroad, or you can use a platform like GBolt Systems for as little as $9 per month. Step four is to drop the link in the description of your Shorts videos and let the traffic do the work.

Time to results depends on how quickly you build the product, whether it is genuinely relevant to your niche, and whether your audience has a strong enough need for it. You could see your first sale in three days. You could also spend two months building something before you get traction. Earnings on the low end are around $100 per month from a few sales of a lower-priced product. On the high end, Alston points to Dave Nick as a real example: Dave has earned over $160,000 through digital products combined with YouTube automation.

Pros: No inventory, no storage, no logistics. Once the product exists, it is approximately 95 percent passive. The main work you will do after launch is occasionally responding to customers who think they never received the product. The solution almost always is: check your spam folder.

Cons: You need to build trust with your audience before they will buy from you. That takes time and consistent content. You also need to be in a niche where people have a real problem worth solving. If your channel is built around funny cat videos, there is no natural digital product to sell. And depending on your niche, you may face real competition from other creators already selling similar products.

Digital products are the right choice if you have expertise in your niche and you understand the specific problems your audience is trying to solve. They are not for you if you are uncomfortable with even a small amount of marketing, because you will need to talk about your product in your content and in your links for it to sell.

Method #1: Drive Your Shorts Traffic to Long-Form Content

The number one way to monetize a YouTube Shorts channel is to use those Shorts as a traffic engine that feeds viewers into your long-form videos. This is the method that makes every other income stream on this list more profitable, which is exactly why it sits at the top.

Here is why it works. Long-form videos carry significantly higher CPMs than Shorts. When your videos are eight minutes or longer, YouTube allows you to insert mid-roll ads, meaning ads that appear in the middle of the video rather than just at the start or end. That mid-roll placement multiplies your ad revenue from the same audience. Beyond ads, long-form content is the right environment to promote your digital products, affiliate offers, brand deals, and anything else you sell. People watch a 15-minute video and leave with real trust in you as a creator. They watch a 30-second Short and move on. The conversion rates are not even close.

The strategy is simple to set up. Start by creating a long-form video on a topic that matters inside your niche. Then create Shorts that function as highlights or snippets of that video. When you upload each Short, link directly to the long-form video. Viewers who get enough value from the Short will click through. Once they are watching the long-form video, make sure your monetization methods are visible: mention your affiliate links, promote your digital products, reference your brand partnerships, or direct viewers to an offer.

Time to results here is a few days on the fast end and a few months on the realistic end. The click-through rate from Shorts to long-form is relatively low, so you need volume: a lot of Shorts feeding a lot of views into a long-form library. Earning potential ranges from $100 per month on a small channel up to $50,000 or more per month when you combine viral Shorts, a growing long-form audience, and multiple revenue streams working together. The creator mentioned in the video is someone named L Guy, who earns over $20,000 per month by running exactly this short-to-long funnel.

Pros: Long-form content builds a deeper connection than anything Shorts can produce on their own. You also grow both sides of your YouTube presence at once, which compounds your reach over time. And because your long-form content sits permanently on your channel, older videos continue driving conversions long after you post them.

Cons: You need to become proficient at two distinct formats, not one. Short-form content and long-form content require different production skills, different pacing, and different structures. And as noted earlier, the click-through rate from Short to long-form is low, which means patience is required before you see meaningful results from the funnel.

This is the right strategy if you are already making or willing to make both short-form and long-form content. It is not worth pursuing if you plan to stay short-form only, because the whole model depends on having long-form videos to send viewers to.

The Best Niche for YouTube Shorts Monetization: Finance

Alston closes the video with a direct answer to the question of which niche prints the most money for Shorts creators: the finance niche. This means content that teaches people how to make money, save money, invest wisely, and build financial safety. The reasons finance outperforms every other niche come down to three factors.

First, the CPMs in the finance niche are among the highest on the platform. Advertisers in financial services, investing, insurance, and income education pay premium rates to reach people who are actively thinking about money. That means more ad revenue per view compared to entertainment or lifestyle channels in the same view range.

Second, the finance niche supports every single monetization method on this list simultaneously. You can earn affiliate commissions from financial tools and software. You can create and sell your own digital products like budgeting templates, investment trackers, or income guides. You can land brand deals with fintech companies, banks, and investing platforms. And you can run your Shorts into long-form financial tutorials that carry heavy ad loads and high viewer trust. No other niche gives you that many revenue doors open at once.

Third, a profitable finance channel scales in a way most other channels cannot. Once the revenue starts coming in, you reinvest it. You hire writers to research and script your videos. You bring in voiceover talent to narrate them. You build a small production team. At that point your channel is no longer dependent on your personal time, which means the output increases and the income grows without burning you out.

Real Numbers Breakdown: What Each Method Actually Pays

Here is a side-by-side look at the earning ranges covered in the video, so you can compare the five methods against each other at a glance.

YouTube Partner Program: $50/month low end, $100,000+/month high end. Requires 1,000 subscribers and 10M views in 90 days.
Affiliate Marketing: $50/month low end, $10,000+/month high end. Works from day one but conversions take time to build.
Brand Deals and Sponsorships: $100/video low end, $50,000+/month high end with multiple brands and a large audience.
Digital Products: $100/month low end, $100,000+/month high end with a strong product and a value ladder on the backend.
Shorts to Long-Form Funnel: $100/month low end, $50,000+/month high end when combining two or three revenue streams through the long-form content.

Notice that the top three methods by ceiling all share something in common: they do not depend on YouTube’s ad revenue alone. The creators earning $50,000 to $100,000 per month are stacking multiple income streams, not waiting on a single RPM check. That is the real lesson from the ranked list.

Honest Drawbacks Most Creators Ignore

The YouTube Partner Program is genuinely hard to qualify for on the Shorts side. Ten million views in 90 days is a rolling threshold that punishes inconsistency. Many creators hit it once and then fall below it the following quarter, which can interrupt their payment eligibility. If you are not posting daily or close to it, this method is unreliable income.

Affiliate marketing rewards patience and penalizes impatience. Creators who expect commissions in the first week usually quit before they ever see a result. The method works, but it requires weeks to months of consistent content before the audience trusts your recommendations enough to buy through your links. Build the trust first. The commissions follow.

Brand deals look passive but the backend work is real. Responding to brand inquiries, reviewing contracts, negotiating rates, getting scripts approved, and making revisions based on brand feedback takes real time. For solo creators managing their own channels, this overhead can eat significantly into the time available for content creation.

Digital products require an audience that has a real problem. The most common reason a digital product fails is not the product itself: it is that the creator picked a niche where viewers are entertained but not looking for solutions. Comedy channels, reaction channels, and pure entertainment channels rarely produce strong digital product buyers. Problem-solution niches do.

The short-to-long funnel is the most powerful strategy on the list, but it is also the most demanding. Mastering one content format is hard. Mastering two simultaneously, while also building an income funnel inside the long-form content, is a multi-month investment. The payoff is real, but the timeline is honest.

Find Your X

You now have the full ranked picture of how YouTube Shorts monetization actually works, with real numbers, real creator examples, and honest drawbacks. The next question is which of these five methods fits where you are right now with your channel, your audience, and your available time.

Platform Proof built a free tool that answers that question in about two minutes. Answer six short questions about your channel and your situation, and you will get a personalized recommendation showing which income path makes the most sense for you to start with today. Visit finder.platformproof.com to get your result.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many views do you need on YouTube Shorts to get into the Partner Program?

You need 10 million views on your Shorts content within the last 90 days, along with at least 1,000 subscribers. The 90-day window rolls continuously, so you need to sustain that pace, not just hit it once. Once you meet both requirements you will be eligible to apply for the YouTube Partner Program through the Shorts monetization path.

What is a good RPM for YouTube Shorts?

According to the video, the RPM for Shorts sits between $150 and $200 per 1,000 qualified views depending on your niche. Finance content typically earns toward the higher end of that range because advertisers in the finance space pay premium ad rates. Entertainment and lifestyle content tends to land closer to the lower end.

Can you do affiliate marketing with a small YouTube Shorts channel?

Yes. Affiliate marketing does not have a follower minimum. You simply need to apply to a program, get accepted, and place your link in your video descriptions. A small channel with a highly engaged, niche audience can generate affiliate commissions even before reaching 1,000 subscribers. The key variable is not audience size but audience intent. If your viewers are actively looking to solve a problem, they will click and buy.

How many subscribers do you need to get brand deals on YouTube?

Alston states in the video that you can start landing brand deals and sponsorships with as few as 3,000 subscribers. Brands are increasingly interested in micro-influencers because niche audiences convert at higher rates than massive general audiences. A focused channel with 3,000 highly relevant subscribers is more attractive to certain brands than a general channel with 100,000 casual viewers.

What kind of digital products work best for YouTube creators?

The best digital products solve a specific, painful problem for a defined audience. Templates, workbooks, ebooks, and guides all work well because they are straightforward to create and easy for buyers to use immediately after purchase. The tools mentioned in the video for creation include Canva, Google Docs, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel. For selling, Gumroad is free to start and GBolt Systems runs $9 per month. The product category matters less than how clearly it solves a real problem your audience has.

Does the short-to-long-form strategy actually work for small channels?

It works, but the click-through rate from Shorts to long-form is genuinely low. Many viewers will watch a Short and keep scrolling without clicking through to your full video. That means you need a consistent volume of Shorts driving traffic before you see meaningful long-form viewership. Small channels should expect to wait several weeks to a couple of months before the funnel produces real income, but the compounding effect over time is real. Every long-form video you publish becomes a permanent asset that keeps earning.

Is the finance niche too saturated to enter in 2025?

Saturation is real in every high-paying niche, but it does not mean opportunity is gone. The finance niche on YouTube Shorts rewards specificity. A channel about budgeting for single parents, investing on a $500/month salary, or making your first income online competes in a far smaller pool than a generic personal finance channel. The creators who struggle in saturated niches are usually the ones being generic. Narrow your focus and the competition shrinks considerably.

Can you combine multiple monetization methods on the same Shorts channel?

Yes, and the most successful creators in the video do exactly that. Charlie Chang runs three faceless channels combining ad revenue with other income sources. L Guy stacks short-form traffic into long-form content and earns from multiple streams through that long-form content. Dave Nick combines digital products with YouTube automation. The ranked list in this post is not a pick-one situation. It is a build-up sequence. Start with the method that fits your current situation, then add layers as your channel grows.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “5 Ways To Monetize Youtube Shorts Automation Channel In 2025,” YouTube, https://youtu.be/qvg-TRR8-AM
YouTube Partner Program requirements for Shorts: 1,000 subscribers and 10 million Shorts views in the last 90 days
Charlie Chang: faceless YouTube creator, 3 channels, $250,000+/month via YouTube Partner Program
Penelope Sheets: Reddit user earning $2,000+ via YouTube affiliate marketing
HowToBasic: faceless YouTube automation channel, $2 million+ earned via brand deals and sponsorships
Dave Nick: digital products and YouTube automation, $160,000+ earned
L Guy: short-to-long-form funnel creator, $20,000+/month
GBolt Systems: sales page platform referenced for digital product creators, $9/month

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.