Let’s be honest, monetizing a YouTube channel is something most video creators have dreamed about. But if you’re waiting to hit the necessary threshold of views and subscribers for display ads, don’t fret. That’s not the only way to do it. In fact, it’s not even the best way.

Go watch what Mr. Beast, Alex Hormozi, or Codie Sanchez do with their followings. They don’t just collect YouTube ad revenue. They build businesses that they own, create products, and take equity stakes in companies.

They’re thinking about building beyond YouTube. And so should you. In this article, we’ll show you how a YouTube audience can become the foundation for a community-based business.

Try the platform with the most $1 million communities.

Monetizing a YouTube channel means earning money from the audience, trust, and attention your YouTube videos generate. But often when people talk about monetizing a YouTube channel, they are actually talking about the formal monetization program through Google AdSense, which we'll talk a little about below.

But you're not limited to ads. And one of the most effective ways to monetize a YouTube audience is to build a community-based business around it. This means taking a small group of your YouTube subscribers and inviting them to a paid experience designed to help them achieve a specific transformation… off YouTube.

Scalable: If your community grows from 100 to 1,000 members, you don’t need to do 10 times more work! In fact, you may do less as members find each other and start conversations. You get an incredibly scalable business.

Less dependent on the algorithm: If you’ve been burned by this before, it hurts. Even if you have great months on AdSense, it doesn’t mean YouTube won’t change something. Too many creators have watched their businesses implode because of algorithm shifts.

Recurring: A paid membership can generate revenue monthly, while the community gives members a reason to keep participating. And you can also mix in additional offers, like coaching, courses, or events.

Ownership: If you build a paid community on a dedicated platform, you own it. If YouTube disappears tomorrow, you keep that business and those relationships!

A community-based business isn’t hard to start. And you can use your YouTube channel like the acquisition channel to build into a business that you own!

Unlike most other social media, YouTube functions like a search engine. That means that YouTube generates traffic in the same way that a website does: people type keywords into a search bar and find your stuff. The power of this for people who are creating content is that your content keeps generating returns year after year.

This makes it a powerful attention machine, and a phenomenal social media channel. If you create a quality, keyword-optimized video today, it can potentially keep bringing in views for years to come.

But most people make a mistake. They assume the attention YouTube brings means YouTube needs to be the business. In reality, making YouTube your acquisition channel, then building a real business that you own is a much smarter play.

Yes. It does. With over 720,000 hours of video uploaded every day, YouTube has a lot of people vying for eyes.

But since people watch an average of 1 billion hours of content every day, there's still a place for you.

If you already have a YouTube following, you've probably realized that the secret is to have a really strong niche. Focus on creating content in that niche and you can build a following.

You don’t need to win the views race. You just need to convert the views you already have–community helps you do this.

You don't need a million followers to make money with your YouTube channel. Well, actually, let's clarify that. You would probably need well over a million followers to earn a lot of money with YouTube display ads.

But taking a much smaller base and building a real digital product off of your YouTube following will work better for most creators, and get them free of the dreaded algorithm. And even if you have millions of followers (congrats!), these methods will just put more back in your pocket and help you give them more value.

We’ll show you below how 100 members could help you replace your day job.

Oh, did we mention this already? Monetizing with display ads has a ridiculously high threshold, which we'll talk about below. It's a much better strategy to focus on building in a niche, and using a better monetization method.

Even if you’re eligible for display ads, the average payout is $2-$5 per 1,000 views. It’s really hard to build an amazing business.

Display ad money is great pocket change, but it may not be enough to support a full-time business for many creators.

“Channel Memberships” is pitched as a built-in way to monetize a YouTube channel. Like with ads, you’ll need to have more than 500 subscribers and be in the YouTube partner program. You can then offer member perks like badges, emojis, live chats, and more for your paying members.

At face value, these features might seem like a gift to someone building a membership business:

• They’re built in. No friction. Just click a button and people are members.

• You have tier options and one-stop payment. You can create different support options.

• YouTube has built-in member tools like badges, members-only videos, and discussions.

But this membership comes at a serious cost:

• YouTube takes a 30% cut from all your membership revenue. Imagine earning $1,000 in revenue and paying $300 to YouTube. Or earning $10,000 and paying $3,000! You could be keeping that revenue.

• YouTube has very limited features. You can’t email your members. You post and hope they see things. And they might not.

• You don’t actually own the relationship. You don’t have members' emails (or any way to contact them). If you lose track of them, they’re gone.

For this reason, it makes more sense to build on a dedicated community platform. You can actually build quality relationships and a real business that you control.

YouTube memberships probably aren’t worth the work. And as we’ll cover below, the average community membership fee is $48/mo. It’s very hard to justify charging this on YouTube memberships–the experience just isn’t valuable enough.

You might have the foundations of a great community already. Are the people in your comments sharing stories? Are they talking to each other?

A lot of YouTubers notice this, and it’s a very good metric. This means that people care enough to show up and join a conversation. They don’t just want to be passive observers of your channel. They’re looking for spaces to belong.

That’s a great signal. But it’s not enough. You need to shift that energy into creating a paid, online community.

A paid community does not have to be just a discussion forum. It can be the home base for several different monetization models, depending on what your audience needs and how you want to deliver value. For YouTube creators, the strongest community-based models usually fall into four categories: memberships, courses, coaching, and events.

Memberships are the ultimate way to monetize YouTube. And we’re talking about off-YouTube memberships, not the built-in YouTube membership features. In this case, you choose a community platform that’s built for a membership business, and build there.

Here’s why memberships win: The math works.

Consider an average membership that charges $48/mo. That means that a paid membership off YouTube, made up of 100 members x $48/mo, can be serious income. 200 x $48 ($9,600/mo) is amazing. 1,000 x $48 ($48,000/mo) is a legit big business.

For some quick math. By comparison, you’d need well over 1 million views a month to earn this from AdSense. (But hey, nothing is stopping you from running AdSense and your membership!)

Courses can be a great way to monetize your YouTube following. If you have something to teach, you can turn that knowledge into a course. This could be pre-recorded or a live course, depending on your audience.

And you don’t need to have 10 million followers to create a thriving course off-YouTube. In fact, with the right niche, you can build a successful business with a couple hundred.

Usually courses work on a slightly different business model. You don’t earn recurring revenue like with a community. But you can charge a premium for a transformation that’s taught. That’s where courses still live.

Just a tip, we find that some of the best courses are specific to a very clear Ideal Student. For example, teaching “personal finance for retirees in Canada” might be better than “personal finance.” Specificity is clarity.

In the same vein, another way to monetize a YouTube channel is through selling coaching. Coaching is where you work closely with one person or a group to achieve a transformation. When you launch a community, coaching can happen inside. Often it goes along with the other activities of a community.

The great thing about coaching is that it gives you a high-value offer, meaning it can be easier to get your income up. People are often willing to pay more for 1:1 or group coaching.

And if you keep growing a community as you go, you’ll still benefit from the scale of that too.

Finally, a community can also have virtual events in it! You can host live or virtual events as a great spin-off to your YouTube work. Imagine getting together some of your fellow creators in your field for an awesome, dedicated time of learning. That’s what community events can do.

You can host events inside of your community. But you can also choose to charge for individual events.

For many people this is the hardest step. But you probably already have the idea. It's probably spun out of your YouTube channel, either your main focus or a related one.

This is the idea that will launch your community.

If you create content constantly about a topic, that’s the thing.

Next, look for somebody in transition. We call this person an Ideal Member. People in transitions make memberships work. These are people who are motivated to show up and grow.

Sometimes a transition is really obvious. For example, millennials starting their first online business. That's a really clear transition.

Sometimes it's more subtle, like people who love medieval history who want to go from amateurs to armchair experts.

Whatever your transition is, that's where your community starts.

One great way to find this person is to check your comments. If you have engagement on your videos, chances are you are already surfacing the person who could be your Ideal Member. You can even check YouTube Studio for members who are always commenting.

What are they saying? What questions are they asking?

Your goal will be to get a few of these people off YouTube. And that’s a challenge. But it’s not impossible.

Try this. Create a call to action in your content or in posts. Something like, “I’m creating a community for people who care about X thing and want to go deeper, OFF YouTube. If that sounds like you, join the waiting list.”

Then share a link to a sign-up sheet–Google Forms or Tally.io are good options.

Once people start joining the list, reach out to them to have a conversation. Ask them about their struggles, their hopes and dreams, or a transition they are struggling to achieve.

That’s going to help shape your Ideal Member.

If you can drop your Ideal Member into a time machine, and they land one year from now, what would be true for them? What would make them glad they joined your community?

That's called their “Best Year Ever.”

Remember, you're selling a transformation. The transformation has a destination. That's pretty much it. Build your community backwards from an ideal destination, and you've got the foundations of a stronger paid membership.

If you are doing the interview with the Ideal Members on your list, this should help. Ask them what would be true in 1 year if they had their Best Year Ever.

Is it the career path they want to be on? The personal breakthrough? The skill they’ve mastered?

The best way to find out is to ask them!

This part is hard for people. But it doesn't have to be. Here are a few things to think about when setting your price:

• The proper price isn't related to how much work you put in. It's related to how valuable the transformation is to your members.

• Your price needs to be high enough for people to pay attention. They need to have skin in the game. That helps them take engagement and transformation seriously.

• Your price needs to be worth your while as a Host. One of the problems with YouTube Channel Memberships is that the average price is only a few dollars. With a dedicated community platform, you can create a premium experience. This demands appropriate pricing.

With all this being said, here's a guide on how to price your membership. The average membership price on a Mighty Network is $48 a month.

At that price, how many members would you need to replace your day job?

You need a dedicated membership platform. There are a lot of community platforms out there, and we have lists dedicated to finding the right one for your business.

Here are a few things to watch for:

• Content tools: To create videos, posts, audio, downloads, or anything else you might care to have in your membership.

• Community tools: To get members talking, engaging, sharing their content and ideas, and keep them coming back.

• Engagement tools: To get people excited to keep coming back (e.g. gamification).

• Digital product tools: For adding courses, downloads, events, coaching, or any other experience or product you might want to add in.

• Monetization tools: For selling, bundling, and building a real business off YouTube.

• Branding tools: For building a community space that looks and feels like you want it to.

You don’t need 100. Getting 10 founding members to start this journey is perfect. This small group has time to connect and you can grow it from there.

A word to the wise. If you have a big enough YouTube following, the trap might be that everyone wants in. To meet you. But that doesn’t mean these are your founding members.

Be choosy. Pick people who you can actually help transform, Ideal Members who are on the right path for your community. Whether you use interviews or questionnaires to narrow it down, this is a great step.

If you want a platform that checks all of these boxes, here's why to consider Mighty Networks:.

• Native Livestreaming: You can livestream directly to your community, with 1080p, multi-speaker, and a high-velocity chat (you can bring members onstage with 1 click). The UX is intuitive. You can also embed YouTube videos, or host smaller meetings on a built-in Zoom connection if you prefer.

• True all-in-one: With community, courses, events, and chat/messaging built in, Mighty lets you do everything in one place. It’s the only other software you’ll need to monetize YouTube.

• Built for engagement: The Mighty platform comes with AI built for engagement, people magic that connects members to each other. You can also add in new member welcomes, automations, and unlocks. And Mighty’s gamification was designed by a top game designer to be collaborative, not competitive.

• Integrated business tools: Sell access to a paid community, courses, events, private Spaces, or bundle any or all of these.

• Native iOS and Android apps: The apps keep members coming back and make it easy to get notifications and messages right away. Established brands and communities can even opt for a completely branded app. (Learn More Here)

If you’re ready to take the steps of monetizing a YouTube channel with a community-based business, we hope this article has given you some ideas for how to do it. It’s still a great time to use YouTube to grow your business, and with a little work, it can be an awesome acquisition channel.

Ready to monetize your YouTube channel with a Mighty Network? Our community platform brings courses, community, content, and commerce together in one place. Come check it out for free!

Yes. As of 2026, YouTube's Partner Program has an option that unlocks fan funding, channel memberships, and Shopping at just 500 subscribers (plus 3,000 watch hours or 3 million Shorts views in 90 days).

But the better way to look at this is that you don’t need to be limited by YouTube’s internal monetization tools at all. You can use YouTube as an attention generator to build a real business–it’s the marketing arm to bring people somewhere that you own.

For most creators, a dedicated platform wins. As we said above, Channel Memberships are handy in that they’re built in. YouTube has added badges, members sections, member videos, and other ways to reward members.

However, you don’t actually own any relationship with your members. YouTube does. You can’t reach them by email, you’re just hoping they stay attentive to your YouTube work. That’s not a great business model. And with YouTube taking 30%, it’s a serious hit to your revenue too.

Fewer than most people think! Let’s take our $48/mo number from above. How much does your day job pay? How many members would it take to replace it? For most people, the answer is somewhere between 100 - 300 members.

Here are a few strategies that we’ve seen work:

• Add a call to action in the video itself, framing your Ideal Member and inviting them in.

• Include a link as a pinned comment, which is more visible than the video description.

• Host community showcases on YouTube that show off the work you’re doing there.

• Find ways to bring it in organically (e.g. “We were talking about X in the community and I wanted to make a video about it.”)

• Consider special launch events and open days when people can get a sense of what’s inside.

No. A small, dedicated following is enough. For most people, 500 - 1,000 subscribers is enough to get started.

Absolutely! And you should! If you qualify for AdSense, it’s a no-brainer to keep it turned on for a little extra money in your pocket each month.

Do the work we outlined above. It will be worth it to make sure you have your Best Year Ever and Ideal Member–these two pieces will give your community longevity. But your goal also isn’t just to create endless content in two places instead of one. That sounds like a recipe for burnout. Let your community be the place where discussions get started. Drop prompts. Encourage members to take part. A healthy community isn’t just a host posting content.

For most creators, no. We spoke to one creator who had 24 members for his Channel with 25,000 subscribers. That represented about $60/mo. For reference, 24 members in a $48/mo premium community would be $1,152/mo.