The TRUTH About How LTT Makes Money
Linus Tech TipsCited 3× on HN, 2025-2025
1.9M views · 1 year ago · explainer · dated
Linus Tech Tips breaks down the company's income streams, including sponsors, YouTube Premium, merch and other products. It gives percentages for each revenue source.
Used as a data source on how creators earn money, especially the share from YouTube Premium and sponsors in ad-blocking and advertising threads.
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3 comments from Hacker News
With the risk of sounding like a fanboy. LTT makes 9.2% of their revenue on In-Video Sponsors and 12.5% on Sponsored Projects (which are like full videos for a sponsor) I wouldn't call this the vast majority ▶ this video
YT Premium revenue goes to the same creators you watch otherwise but they get compensated more for your views than they do for any other person's views. e.g. Linus Tech Tips posted up their share of revenue from AdSense in 2024; YT Premium made up 37% of their revenue despite being 29% of their views. Source: ▶ this video Whether that makes a given creator more money versus Patreon depends on how much you watch them, frankly.
YouTube Premium dishes out your revenue to creators based on how much you watch. See Linus Tech Tips’ video on their income streams (skip to 4:40): ▶ this video Sure, YouTube probably takes more off the top than Patreon. But YouTube also splits it up based on who you’re watching. I probably watch 30+ YouTube channels per week, some of which I find on the explore page and don’t even know the name of. I would never subscribe to 30+ Patreons. I think YouTube Premium is a good compromise.