Alston was hesitant to make this video. Watching someone else’s income report can go two ways: it can spark something in you, or it can make you frustrated, even angry, and ready to close the tab. He chose to publish it anyway because the numbers are real, the process is repeatable, and someone out there needs to see that a regular person can build something meaningful on YouTube without a film degree or a trust fund.
In the first six months of 2023, Alston Godbolt earned $51,531.54 from his YouTube channel. The full year of 2022 had earned him $14,028.92. That jump did not happen by accident, and this post breaks down exactly what changed, what the numbers mean, and the specific content strategy that drove the growth.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- The exact YouTube revenue Alston earned in the first half of 2023, with context for what the numbers actually mean
- Why SocialBlade income estimates are consistently wrong and what metric you should actually pay attention to
- The “I Tried It” content strategy, step by step, including how to find video ideas that already have proven audience demand
- The two Chrome extensions that make topic research faster and easier
- What equipment you actually need to start (hint: probably far less than you think)
- A realistic timeline for what to expect in year one versus year four on YouTube
- A free tool to find which online income stream fits your specific situation: finder.platformproof.com
What 2022 Actually Looked Like: $14,028 in a Full Year
To understand where the 2023 numbers came from, you need the 2022 baseline. For the full calendar year of 2022, Alston’s YouTube channel generated just over 600,000 views, 32,000 hours of watch time, and 12,000 new subscribers. Total AdSense revenue: $14,028.92.
That works out to roughly $1,170 per month. It is a real, meaningful supplemental income, and it came entirely from one channel. It did not include revenue from digital products sold through his mailing list or on Etsy. It did not include affiliate marketing commissions. It did not include income from blogging or other platforms. The YouTube number was just the YouTube number.
That distinction matters because one of the biggest mistakes people make when starting an online business is treating a single income stream like it needs to carry everything. Alston has been building multiple prongs at the same time: YouTube ad revenue, affiliate marketing, digital product sales, and content on other platforms. None of them alone looks overwhelming. Together they add up to a real business.
The other thing worth noting about 2022 is that it was Alston’s best year to that point, but it came after four or five years of uploading. Early videos on the channel had 23 views, 40 views, 99 views. If he had stopped at 100 videos, there would have been no 2022 milestone and no 2023 explosion. The foundation was being built during those quiet years, whether it felt that way at the time or not.
This is the part most income reports leave out. The people sharing big numbers in year four are often the same people who had almost nothing in years one and two. The gap between those phases is not luck. It is the accumulation of content, trust, and platform-specific learning that only comes from staying in the game when the results do not yet justify the effort.
What SocialBlade Gets Wrong (and Why You Should Ignore It)
SocialBlade estimated Alston’s channel income at around $2,000 per month. That number is off by a wide margin. The reason is structural and worth understanding before you ever cite a SocialBlade number in conversation or let someone use one to make a point to you.
SocialBlade takes publicly available view count data, applies a low average CPM (cost per thousand views), and outputs a range. It has no information about the channel’s actual RPM (revenue per thousand views), the niche, the audience demographics, or the advertiser competition in that content category.
Two channels with the same number of views can earn very different amounts depending on what they talk about. A personal finance or make-money-online channel typically earns a higher RPM than a gaming or general entertainment channel, because advertisers in that space pay more to reach that specific audience. SocialBlade does not know which category a channel falls into at the granular level that would make its estimates accurate.
The practical takeaway is simple. If someone shows you a SocialBlade screenshot to make a point about how much or how little a creator earns, treat it as a rough directional signal at best, not a hard number. The actual figure can be two or three times higher or considerably lower depending on the channel. The only person who knows is the creator, and Alston is one of the few who shares it publicly.
The Real 2023 Numbers: $51,531.54 in Six Months
Through the first six months of 2023, ending around June 26, Alston’s YouTube channel generated 3 million views, 180,000 watch hours, and approximately 66,000 new subscribers. The revenue from those views came to $51,531.54.
To put those subscriber numbers in context: in all of 2022, the channel gained 12,000 subscribers. By mid-2023, Alston was adding that many in roughly a month to a month and a half, depending on how strong the month was. The growth was not linear. It compounded sharply once the content format clicked and the algorithm began recommending it more consistently.
The 3 million views figure is worth sitting with. That is not the result of a single viral video. It is 3 million sessions across six months where someone found a video, clicked on it, and watched. That averages to half a million views per month. In all of 2022, the entire year generated 600,000 views. The difference between one year and the next is not more effort. It is a better strategy applied with the same consistency.
Alston is also clear about what this number does not include. It does not count digital product sales, affiliate commissions, or blogging income. For someone building a multi-stream online business, YouTube revenue is one piece of a larger picture. The point of sharing it is not to suggest you can quit your job after six months of posting, but to show what becomes possible when the channel reaches a certain threshold of trust and traffic.
In 2022, Alston’s watch time was measured in the thousands of hours for the full year. By mid-2023, he was accumulating more watch time in a single day than an early-career month would have produced. When he first started, getting 3,000 hours or 4,000 hours of watch time felt impossible. By 2023 that number was happening on a daily basis. That kind of shift in scale does not come from grinding harder. It comes from compound growth that only activates after the platform understands what your channel is about and who watches it.
What Drove Over $51,000 in Revenue
The single biggest driver of the 2023 growth was the “I Tried It” series. The premise is exactly what it sounds like: Alston finds a video about a money-making method, actually tries the method himself, and then makes his own video showing the honest results. This format works for several specific reasons that are worth understanding in detail.
First, the topic has proven demand. If a video about a specific side hustle has already gotten 38,000 views in two weeks, the audience exists. People are searching for that content. You are not guessing. Second, the “I Tried It” frame sets honest expectations. Viewers know going in that they are getting a real-world test, not a tutorial from someone who has never touched the thing they are teaching. Third, the format is infinitely repeatable. New side hustle content gets published constantly across YouTube, which means there is always a next idea.
The second major driver was trending topics, specifically content around ChatGPT. When the whole internet started asking how to make money with AI tools, Alston made videos covering both the overhyped methods and the ones that produce real results. Riding a trend early, before the search results get saturated with similar content, gives any channel a meaningful head start and the algorithm tends to reward being first to a topic with genuine substance.
The combination of a proven content format and timely topics is what created the step change from $14,000 in a full year to $51,000 in six months. The channel itself did not transform overnight. The content strategy did.
The “I Tried It” System: How to Find Video Ideas With Proven Demand
The research process Alston describes is straightforward enough that anyone can replicate it this week. Here is the step-by-step version as he explains it in the video.
Step one: Go to YouTube and type in a broad keyword relevant to your niche. For a make-money-online channel, that might be “make money online 2023” or “make money with PayPal.” For a cooking channel, it would be the equivalent core topic in that space. The keyword should reflect something your target audience is actively searching for right now.
Step two: Apply filters. Click the filter button, set the upload date to “This Month,” and sort by View Count. This surfaces the videos in your niche that are getting real traction right now, not the three-year-old content that has had time to accumulate views slowly.
Step three: Look for videos with strong view counts from creators who are not massive channels. If a video from a mid-sized creator is pulling 30,000 or 40,000 views in two weeks, the audience wants that content. You are not looking for a video with 10 million views. You are looking for consistent demand signals, not viral outliers that are impossible to replicate.
Step four: Watch the video and actually try the method. This part is not optional. The “I Tried It” format only has credibility if you actually tried it. Your honest results, including when the method does not work or pays out less than claimed, are what builds the kind of trust that keeps people coming back to your channel over time.
Step five: Match the title and thumbnail closely. Alston uses VidIQ or TubeBuddy (both available as Chrome extensions) to pull the thumbnail from the original video. He right-clicks, saves the image, and uses it as the foundation for his own thumbnail with “I Tried It” added as a text overlay. He takes the original video’s title as the starting point and adds “I Tried It” at the front. The logic is direct: if that title and thumbnail combination already drove clicks for someone else, it has proven visual and conceptual appeal. You are not copying. You are competing for the same search intent with your own results.
Step six: Build a list of channels in your niche that regularly publish this type of content. Alston keeps a running collection of channels that consistently cover trending topics in the make-money-online space. When they post something new that performs well, he has an immediate starting point for his next video. This creates an idea pipeline that does not depend on inspiration or creative breakthroughs. It is research-driven content, which is far more sustainable than hoping you think of something good.
Equipment, Time, and What You Actually Need to Start
For research, VidIQ and TubeBuddy are both Chrome extensions with free tiers. Alston uses both, but you only need one to replicate the research process he describes. Either will let you pull thumbnails from other videos and see basic analytics on the competition.
For filming, you do not need what Alston uses now. The lights, the higher-end camera, and the upgraded microphone he shows at the time of this video were all purchased in the months leading up to it. Most of his earlier videos were filmed with a 1080p webcam that cost under $100. A current smartphone records at a quality level that is more than adequate for YouTube. Thrift stores and pawn shops will often have usable cameras and microphones at a fraction of their retail price.
For editing, basic cuts and text overlays can be done directly on a phone. You do not need a desktop computer or professional software to publish your first hundred videos. The upgrade path is clear and affordable once you have some revenue to reinvest. But the starting point is whatever you have access to today.
For time, Alston works at most two to three hours per day at his current pace, and some days he works none at all. But he is direct about what the early period requires. In the beginning, you need to treat building your channel like a job. Show up every day. Do something to grow it. The semi-passive phase, where you can back off without losing momentum, comes after the active-building phase. Most people try to skip to passive income before they have done the active work that makes it possible. That is why most people do not get there.
Not sure which online income stream fits your actual situation right now?
Answer a few quick questions and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.
Honest Drawbacks
The timeline is long before it is short. Alston has been uploading for four to five years. The $51,000 six-month period did not arrive in year one. It came after years of early videos with single-digit and double-digit view counts. Anyone presenting YouTube as a fast income strategy is not giving you the full picture.
You will not know if your content is working for a long time. Early videos may get 20 views. Alston reframes this as something worth appreciating: 20 strangers somewhere in the world found a video you made and watched it. But that reframe requires deliberate mental effort when the bigger channels in your niche are posting with thousands of views per video. The comparison will undermine you if you let it.
The “I Tried It” format requires actually trying things. That means spending time and sometimes money on methods that do not pan out, and being honest on camera about results that disappoint. If you are not willing to share when something does not work, the format loses the honesty that makes it worth watching.
YouTube AdSense alone is not a complete business. The $51,531 figure is real and it is impressive. But Alston is clear that it is one revenue stream inside a larger set. Digital products, affiliate marketing, and blogging all run alongside the channel. Depending on a single platform’s ad revenue creates real risk if the algorithm shifts, ad rates drop, or the platform changes its policies.
Most early videos go unnoticed and that is normal. Alston shows his oldest videos from five years ago: 99 views, 44 views, 23 views, 61 views, 40 views. Those numbers did not mean the channel was failing. They were the price of admission for everything that came later. Every large channel on YouTube started with videos that almost no one watched.
A Realistic Stage-by-Stage Timeline
If you are wondering what to expect at each stage, here is a framework based on what Alston describes from his own channel history.
Stage one (months one through twelve): View counts will be low. Most videos will get under 100 views. Watch time will feel impossible to accumulate. The goal in this stage is not revenue. It is learning what works in your niche, building the habit of publishing on a schedule, and accumulating enough content that the algorithm has something to work with. Revenue in this stage is likely near zero.
Stage two (year two and into year three): If you have published consistently and adjusted your content based on what gets traction, watch time and subscriber counts begin to grow more reliably. The YouTube Partner Program monetization threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours may come within reach. Revenue could be in the low hundreds per month. Progress feels real but slow.
Stage three (year three into year four): Alston’s 2022 was in this range, earning roughly $1,000 per month from YouTube alone. At this stage the channel has enough content, watch history, and subscriber base to appear in recommendations with some regularity. Growth starts to feel less like constant uphill effort and more like a system that is working on its own between uploads.
Stage four (year four and beyond): If the niche is right, the content is consistent, and the format has been validated over time, this is where the big jumps become possible. Alston’s shift from $14,000 in a full year to $51,000 in six months happened in this window. It is not guaranteed for every creator, but the conditions that allow it to happen are built entirely during the earlier stages. You cannot skip stages two and three and arrive here.
Find Your X
YouTube is one path. It is not the only path, and it is not the right path for everyone. The “I Tried It” format works for Alston because testing side hustles matches how he thinks and what he is genuinely willing to put on camera. Your version of that needs to match your situation, your skills, and what you are actually willing to do consistently for the next two to four years.
If you are not sure where to start, finder.platformproof.com is a free tool that asks you a few questions about your current skills, your time availability, and what kind of work you want to do online, then points you toward a personalized recommendation. It will not tell you YouTube is the right answer if it is not. The goal is to find the path that fits your actual situation, not the one that looked impressive in someone else’s income report.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much did Alston make from YouTube in the first six months of 2023?
$51,531.54 through approximately June 26, 2023. This is YouTube AdSense revenue only, from ad placements on his videos. It does not include digital products, affiliate marketing income, or revenue from other platforms he operates.
What was Alston’s full-year YouTube revenue in 2022?
$14,028.92 for the full year of 2022, across approximately 600,000 views and 12,000 new subscribers. That averages to about $1,170 per month, which Alston describes as a meaningful supplemental income rather than a primary income replacement at that stage of the channel.
Is SocialBlade accurate for estimating YouTube channel income?
No, not reliably. SocialBlade estimates are based on public view count data and average CPM figures that do not account for niche, audience demographics, or advertiser competition. SocialBlade estimated Alston at around $2,000 per month. The actual figure was considerably higher. Treat SocialBlade as a rough directional signal at best, never as a hard number.
What is the “I Tried It” content strategy and why does it work?
It is a YouTube content format where the creator finds an existing video about a money-making method, actually tests the method themselves, and then publishes their own video with honest results. The title and thumbnail are modeled closely on the original. The format works because it targets proven audience demand, sets clear expectations for the viewer, and is repeatable as long as new trending topics keep appearing in the niche.
Do you need expensive equipment to start a YouTube channel?
No. Most of Alston’s videos through early 2023 were filmed with a 1080p webcam that cost under $100. A current smartphone records at a quality level that is fully adequate for YouTube. Basic editing can be done on a phone with free apps. The equipment barrier is mostly a mental one. Consistency and content quality matter far more than gear in the early stages of a channel.
How long does it realistically take to make meaningful money on YouTube?
Realistically, several years of consistent publishing before revenue becomes significant. Alston’s best year before 2023 was 2022, which came after four to five years on the platform. Year one and two are largely about building habits, learning what resonates in your niche, and accumulating enough content for the algorithm to understand what the channel is. Overnight success stories exist but they are genuine exceptions, not the standard path.
What tools does Alston use for YouTube research?
VidIQ and TubeBuddy are the two Chrome extensions he mentions. Both have free tiers that are sufficient for the research process he describes. He uses them to pull thumbnails from other videos and to review basic performance data. You only need one of the two to get started with this method.
Is YouTube AdSense the only revenue stream Alston uses?
No. Alston runs several revenue streams alongside YouTube: digital products sold through his mailing list and on Etsy, affiliate marketing, and blogging. The AdSense number is one component of a larger online business. Building solely on ad revenue creates dependence on a single platform and a single income type, which carries real risk if ad rates fall, the algorithm shifts, or platform policies change.
Read Next
If you are building toward a real online income and want to understand what the longer arc looks like across multiple income streams and years of effort, this post covers exactly that.
I Tried Making Money Online for 10 Years (Here’s What Actually Worked) is the honest account of what did and did not produce results across a decade of testing. It gives the full context behind the YouTube numbers and the other income streams that run alongside the channel.
Sources
- Alston Godbolt, “How Much YouTube Paid Me In 2023 (6 Months) | How To Make Money On YouTube,” YouTube, 2023. https://youtu.be/_traAO8puG0
- YouTube Partner Program requirements: 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 public watch hours in the past 12 months. Details available at youtube.com/howyoutubeworks.
- SocialBlade public channel statistics tool: socialblade.com. Note: estimates are approximations based on public data and should not be treated as verified income figures.
- VidIQ Chrome extension for YouTube research: vidiq.com
- TubeBuddy Chrome extension for YouTube research: tubebuddy.com
Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.