So you did it. After much blood, sweat, and tears you made a successful YouTube channel. Now you are considering selling your channel and moving on to the next opportunity. The question is: How do you determine how much your YouTube channel is worth? What do you need to know about YouTube pricing so you can decide whether you should sell or not? To help you analyze the value of your channel, we put together a list of the main factors that a potential buyer will look at so you can figure out if selling your channel is the right decision for you.
Table of Contents
ToggleMonthly Income
You shouldn’t consider selling your channel until you are making money through ad revenue. The more income you are earning and the longer you’ve been earning it, the more you can sell it for. A channel that has been earning $2,000 a month for the last six-to-twelve months is likely to continue earning that amount of revenue. If you only have one or two months of income, buyers have less assurance that your channel will continue to earn.
RPM(Revenue Per Mille)
RPM is how much your channel earns per 1,000 views. It also is a good sign of how valuable your channel is to advertisers. The higher your RPM the more valuable your channel will be. RPM is affected by various factors from your niche to how long your videos are. If you want to increase your RPM before you sell your channel, Google recommends turning on monetizing for all your content, making longer videos so that you can play mid-roll ads, and using alternative monetization features like memberships and Superchat.

Number of Subscribers
Number of subscribers is the next most obvious metric. Compare two makeup tutorial channels that are both three years old. All else being equal, the channel with the bigger audience will be more valuable. When someone buys your channel they are also buying the audience you collected through subscriptions. Buying a YouTube channel with more subscribers means that they will have a larger audience they can connect with and monetize.
Traffic Source
While having a large number of subscribers is important, how you get those subscribers can seriously affect your channel’s value. The ideal audience is one that was gained organically. If you have a gardening channel with 2,000 subscribers, that means the buyer is purchasing access to 2,000 people who are interested in gardening and are eager to receive more gardening content. If you paid for subscribers the buyer is just purchasing 2,000 bots.
Viewer Geography
Where your viewers live can have a serious effect on the value of your channel. Most advertisers want to market to US audiences. So a large number of viewers in the US and Canada will be more appealing.
Viewer Age
The age of your audience strongly impacts a channel’s value. Usually people buy channels so that they can sell to the subscribers of that channel. An audience mostly composed of adults with disposable income will be more appealing than an audience primarily comprising pre-teens.
Youtube Channel Niche
A channel’s niche is extremely important. Compare two channels with 5,000 subscribers each. The first channel makes compilations of funny animal videos. The second one gives advice on how to make investments of a million dollars or more. The first niche will have a broader audience but it is much less valuable. This audience is there to be entertained. They aren’t looking for a purchase so will be more difficult to sell to. The second audience is probably made up mostly of business people with enough disposable income that they can consider million-dollar investments. This niche is far more valuable because it attracts a more lucrative audience.
Face Association
Usually, it is easier to sell a faceless channel where the creator of the channel is unseen than a talking head channel where the creator is talking directly to the camera. With talking head channels the audience is partially there because they like that creator. If the creator disappears the channel will become less appealing to that audience. This doesn’t mean you can’t sell a talking head channel but it does mean that you should expect a slightly lower price because the buyer will have to contend with the loss of subscribers and revenue when you leave.
Copyright Violations
A channel with original content is more valuable. The more copyright violations and strikes the channel has the riskier it is to purchase. If a YouTube channel receives three copyright strikes the channel can be terminated and all the videos you made will be removed. A buyer isn’t going to be interested in a channel that is likely to be terminated.
Additional Assets
If your YouTube channel comes with an accompanying website, other social media accounts, an email list, or other assets, it can increase the price. A channel that has multiple accounts associated with it is much more valuable because it has a bigger audience and business infrastructure.
Is It Time to Sell Your YouTube Channel?
If your analysis shows that your channel has significant value or you think someone else can make more money with it than you can, It might be time to consider selling it. At Motion Invest we make the process effortless. Contact us today if you are ready to sell or check out our free YouTube channel evaluation tool if you want a second opinion on your channel’s worth. You have created something of value that people enjoy. Congratulations! If it’s time to sell, we are here to help you get the best value.