I Tried It: How To Earn Money Watching YouTube Videos: Earn $100 Per HOUR

Someone on YouTube promised you $100 per hour just for watching videos. You do not have to do anything difficult. You do not need a skill. You just open a few websites, press play, and the money rolls in. That sounds amazing, so I spent real time testing it so you do not have to find out the hard way.

My side hustles have brought in around $200,000 over the past year. I know what real online income looks like, and I know what a scam looks like. This particular claim belongs firmly in the second category. Here is what I actually found when I tested the four websites the original video recommended, and what you should do instead with your time.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The full breakdown of what the original “$100 per hour watching YouTube” video actually told people to do
A simple math test that exposes why this claim cannot be real
My step-by-step results from testing all four recommended websites, including one that redirected to a phishing site
The exact dollar amount I made after 10 minutes on the only website I could actually get into ($0.12)
Why low payout thresholds are a deliberate trap, not a beginner-friendly feature
Three legitimate income methods that actually put money in your account, including tiny digital products you can create free in Canva and sell on Gumroad
A quick quiz to find which online income path fits your current situation at finder.platformproof.com

What the Original Video Claimed

The original video promised $100 per hour by visiting four specific websites that host YouTube videos. The method was simple on the surface: open multiple browsers, run multiple screens if you have them, and let the videos play. According to the creator, you did not need to actively engage. You could just turn the videos on and walk away.

The video also acknowledged a few inconveniences. You would need four separate logins. You would need to keep the sites active, which meant periodically moving your mouse or scrolling so the sites did not time out. These were presented as minor friction points, not red flags. The pitch was that the money would more than compensate for the inconvenience.

This framing matters. The video was designed to make the work sound trivial and the reward sound enormous. That combination is the oldest manipulation in the book, and it is what I want to address before we even get into the results.

The Math Test You Should Run Before Trying Anything

$100 per hour. That sounds exciting. Let me show you what it actually means if you multiply it out.

$100 per hour times 8 hours equals $800 per day. $800 per day times 365 days equals $292,000 per year. That is more than most doctors in the United States earn annually, and you would be earning it by watching YouTube videos on four websites simultaneously.

Now ask yourself: if that were possible, why would anyone work? If you could make $800 a day just by having screens running, you would buy every device in your house, turn them all on, and scale to $1,600 a day, then $2,400 a day. Before long you would be a millionaire just by owning laptops. The fact that nobody has done this and reported it should be the only proof you need.

These videos prey on your emotions, not your logic. When you want money badly enough, $100 per hour sounds possible because you want it to be possible. The moment you step back and do the arithmetic, the claim falls apart completely. Do the math before you invest any time.

Website One: Sent Me to a Phishing Page

The first website I visited did not do what the original video said it would do. Instead of showing me YouTube videos I could watch for money, it redirected me to something entirely different. The page it sent me to looked like a phishing attempt. It had the hallmarks: vague promises, a call to “click here to make money,” no clear explanation of how anything worked, and a general feeling that something was being hidden from me.

I left immediately. I did not click anything, I did not register, and I did not enter any information. I made zero dollars on this website, and I think that was the right outcome. If a website redirects you somewhere that makes you uncomfortable, trust that instinct and close the tab.

Website Two: Already Gone

The second website simply could not be reached. “Site not found.” That is a common pattern with this type of scheme. A website goes up, makes big promises, attracts a wave of signups, and then disappears. A few days or weeks later, the same people who ran the first site open a new one with a different name and the same offer.

This cycle repeating is itself a red flag. Legitimate businesses do not constantly move between domains. They build a brand over time, they maintain a consistent presence, and they do not need to reset their reputation by starting over. The fact that these sites are here today and gone tomorrow tells you something important about what they are actually doing.

Website Three: The Registration Loop

The third website let me try to register, but it never actually let me in. Every time I tried to create an account, the page would time out. Then it would tell me to enable cookies, even though cookies were already enabled in my browser. Then it would appear to complete my registration, only to redirect me back to the registration page the next time I clicked anything.

I went through this loop several times before giving up. Zero dollars, and a few minutes of frustration. This is not a technical glitch on the user’s side. It is a pattern that wastes your time and, in some cases, collects your email address or other details in the process. I cannot prove that is what was happening here, but the behavior was strange enough to walk away from.

Website Four: The One I Actually Got Into

The fourth website was the only one I could successfully register for and use. Here is the important detail: it did not have anything to do with watching YouTube videos. The original video’s whole premise was watching YouTube content on these sites. This site did not offer that at all.

What it did offer was a list of 20 ads. I could click on each ad once per day. The ad would open in a new window, I would wait a set amount of time to verify I had seen it, and then I could move to the next one. That was the entire process. No YouTube videos. No passive watching. Just clicking through a queue of 20 ads and waiting.

I recorded the entire session so I would have an accurate record of my results. Here is what happened.

My Actual Results: $0.12 in 10 Minutes

I completed all 20 ads. It took about 10 minutes. At the end of the session, my account balance showed $0.12. Twelve cents.

Let me do the math on that. If I had been able to continue at that rate for a full 60 minutes, I would have earned approximately $0.72. Not $100. Not even a dollar. Seventy-two cents. That is $99.28 short of what the original video promised per hour.

There was also a catch that made even the $0.12 inaccessible. The minimum payout threshold on this website was $5.00. To reach $5.00 at $0.12 per day, I would need to come back every single day for about 42 days straight. And even after doing that for a month and a half, I would have earned the equivalent of a fast food value meal.

Not sure which online income path actually matches your situation?

Take the two-minute quiz at finder.platformproof.com to find the right starting point for where you are right now.

Why Low Payout Thresholds Are a Trap

The $5 minimum payout is not a beginner-friendly feature. It is a deliberate design choice. Here is the logic behind it.

The people running these platforms know that most users will not show up every single day for six weeks to collect $5. Life gets in the way. People get discouraged. People move on. When users abandon the platform before reaching the payout threshold, the platform keeps your earned balance and pays out nothing.

Setting the threshold low enough to feel reachable is the trick. If the threshold were $100, nobody would bother. At $5, it feels almost achievable. So people sign up, do a few sessions, earn pennies, and then quietly give up before cashing out. The platform collects free ad engagement data and user attention without ever sending a single payment.

Any website that requires weeks of consistent effort to reach a $5 payout is not paying you for your time. It is harvesting your attention for its own benefit. Do not give it to them.

Why I Make These “I Tried It” Videos

I want to be honest with you about what drives these tests. When I look at the comments on videos like the one I tested, I see a pattern. People asking “does this actually work?” People sharing their own failed attempts. People who are genuinely desperate for a way to make things better.

I know what that desperation feels like. When I found out my wife and I were expecting twins, I started hunting for every fast-money method I could find. I wanted to stockpile enough to cover two car seats, two cribs, two of everything. I followed steps exactly the way videos told me to and then felt like I was failing when the results did not match the promise. I blamed myself.

The truth I eventually figured out: it was not me. It was the method. These videos are built to look credible enough that viewers blame their own execution when the method fails. You watch it again. You try harder. Meanwhile, the creator is earning ad revenue on every view, including your frustrated revisit.

Our time is the one thing we cannot get back. Every hour you spend chasing a method that does not work is an hour you are not spending on something that could actually move your situation forward. That is what I am trying to protect.

Honest Drawbacks of Any Watch-and-Earn Scheme

Even in a version of this concept that is not a scam, the model has structural problems worth understanding.

You are the product, not the customer. Ad platforms pay fractions of a cent per view because your attention is worth fractions of a cent to them. The math will never scale to meaningful income for you as an individual viewer.
The platforms need activity signals, not genuine engagement. The fact that the original video told people to move their mouse periodically to avoid timeouts tells you these platforms know users are not really watching. That is not a sustainable relationship for anyone.
Income is capped by time. Even if the rates were reasonable, you can only watch so many hours per day. There is no way to grow this. You cannot hire someone to watch for you. You cannot automate it. You are permanently trading time for tiny amounts of money with no upside.
Site instability is a feature, not a bug. Websites in this space appear and disappear regularly. When a site goes down before you reach payout, you lose everything you earned. There is no recourse.
Your data has value. Registration requires an email at minimum. Many of these sites collect more. Your contact information is worth something to spammers and data brokers even when the site itself pays you nothing.

Three Better Ways to Actually Make Money Online

These are the three methods I recommend to people who want real online income. They take real work. None of them promise $100 per hour for passive effort. But they put actual money in your account and they can grow over time.

1. Tiny Digital Products ($5 to $10)

A tiny digital product is something small that solves a specific problem. It could be a workbook, an ebook, a mini course, or a live workshop. You charge $5 or $10 for it. The key is that it helps a specific type of person get a specific result faster than they could on their own.

You can create these products for free. Canva handles the design side at no cost. Gumroad lets you list and sell them also for free. Gumroad takes a percentage of each sale in exchange for hosting and payment processing, but your upfront investment is zero dollars.

The biggest advantage of digital products over ad-watching schemes: the money hits your account the same day you make a sale. With affiliate marketing you might wait 45 to 90 days. With ad-clicking you might wait months just to hit a $5 minimum. With your own digital product, you sell it, you get paid.

To attract buyers, pick a niche and create content on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram that helps people within that niche. When someone wants a faster result or more personalized help, they buy your product. The content does the marketing. The product does the monetizing.

2. Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing means recommending other people’s products and earning a commission when someone buys through your link. This is a real income stream that many online creators use as one part of a larger strategy.

The honest trade-off is the payment delay. Most affiliate programs hold earnings for 45, 60, or even 90 days before paying out. This is not a scam. It is a verification period that protects merchants from fraudulent referrals. But it does mean affiliate income is not a fast solution if you need money now. It is better suited to someone building a content presence over the medium term.

3. A Membership

A membership is a monthly subscription where people pay you recurring fees in exchange for ongoing help solving a problem. The problem can be small, like helping someone get their first sale online, or large, like helping someone build a business to a million dollars a year. The size of the problem generally determines what you can charge per month.

The advantage of a membership over one-time product sales is the recurring nature of the income. When you make a sale, that customer pays again next month if you continue delivering value. Over time, this creates a more stable income base than constantly chasing new sales.

Like digital products, a membership is best built on top of a content strategy. Pick a platform, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Reddit, or TikTok, and create content that attracts people facing the problem you solve. When they want deeper help, they join your membership.

Find Your X

The right starting point for online income looks different depending on your current situation, skills, available time, and what you already know. What works well for someone with an established audience is completely different from what works for someone starting from zero this week.

If you want a clear path matched to where you actually are right now, take two minutes at finder.platformproof.com. Answer a few short questions and you’ll get a specific recommendation you can act on today, not a generic list of everything that might work for someone somewhere.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you really make $100 per hour watching YouTube videos?

No. The math alone rules it out. $100 per hour for eight hours is $800 per day, which adds up to $292,000 per year. If that were real, everyone would be doing it. When I tested the four websites recommended by the original video, three were inaccessible or redirected to phishing pages. The fourth paid me $0.12 for 10 minutes of clicking through ads.

What actually happened when you tested the four websites?

Website one redirected me to a page that looked like a phishing site, so I left immediately. Website two said the site could not be reached. Website three appeared to let me register but kept looping me back to the registration page every time I clicked anything. Website four was the only one I got into, and it had nothing to do with watching YouTube videos. It offered a list of 20 ads to click through once per day.

How much did you actually earn in your test?

I earned $0.12 in about 10 minutes on the one website I could use. Extrapolated to a full hour, that works out to roughly $0.72. The minimum payout threshold on that site was $5, which would require coming back every day for more than six weeks just to collect enough to cash out.

Why do these types of videos keep getting made?

The creators earn advertising revenue from every view their video receives. Even people who watch the video, try the method, fail, and come back to watch again for guidance are generating ad revenue for the creator. The method does not need to work for the creator to profit. It just needs to attract clicks.

What is a low payout threshold actually signaling?

It signals that the platform knows most users will not stay long enough to cash out. A $5 threshold sounds achievable, which draws people in. But earning $0.12 per day means it takes over 40 days of perfect consistency to reach $5. Most people quit before then, and the platform keeps the unpaid balance. It is a business model built on abandoned earnings.

Are there any legitimate versions of getting paid to watch videos?

Some survey and rewards platforms do pay small amounts for watching videos or ads. Sites like Swagbucks have been around long enough to have a real payout history. The key word is small. These are worth using only if you are filling time you would otherwise waste, not if you are counting on them to generate meaningful income. Treat them as occasional pocket change, not a strategy.

What is the fastest legitimate way to make money online with no starting budget?

Tiny digital products sold through Gumroad are one of the fastest paths when you have zero budget. You create the product in Canva for free, list it on Gumroad for free, and when you make a sale you receive the payment quickly, often the same day. The limiting factor is whether you can attract buyers, which usually comes down to whether you are creating content that reaches people facing the problem your product solves.

How do I know which online income method is right for me specifically?

It depends on your available time, existing skills, how quickly you need money, and whether you prefer selling products, services, or content. There is no single answer that fits everyone. If you want a recommendation matched to your actual situation rather than a generic list, finder.platformproof.com walks you through a short set of questions and gives you a specific starting point.

Sources

Original YouTube video tested: “How To Earn Money Watching YouTube Videos: Earn $100 Per HOUR” (tested firsthand, results documented on video)
Alston Godbolt personal income disclosure: approximately $200,000 from side hustles over the prior 12 months, referenced in the video
Test session documentation: 10 minutes, 20 ads clicked, $0.12 earned, recorded on video
Gumroad platform: free listing and selling of digital products, available at gumroad.com
Canva: free design tool for creating ebooks, workbooks, and digital products, available at canva.com

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