Man shares exact amount he earned after 10 years on YouTube and it's not what people expected
A YouTuber shared his earnings after 10 years - and people are shocked.
After spotting a gap in the market, Rag 'n' Bone Brown, real name Keith, began making videos in 2015 mainly building sheds and other projects from salvaged materials.
What started as a hobby soon turned into a business, with his main source of income coming from YouTube’s ad revenue.
He broke down his earnings to calculate how much he exactly earned per video.
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In his first year, Keith posted 22 videos and made a modest $765 (£626) - which breaks down to about £28 per video. This also considers the six months that it took for the video-sharing platform to monetise his videos, so he didn't start earning until the second half of the year.
By Year 2, he was still working a full-time job but managed to post 60 videos, earning $2,656 (£2,172).
Into his third year, Keith sad he potential to expand his business and started taking on 'woodworking commissions,' that involved 'making custom items and selling restored furniture.'
This added more income to his channel, as he also began selling items on Esty (a platform he later discovered to not be so cost-efficient) and launching a Patreon page for exclusive content.
At the end of Year 3, he again posted 60 videos and earned a total of $6,930 (£5,666).
Furthermore, in Year 7 (2021), coming out of the pandemic, he posted 52 videos and earned $33,683 (£27,521).
Fast forward to his 10th year (2024), the woodworker posted 40 videos and earned a whopping total of $61,307 (£50,100).
After 10 years of his YouTube business, his total earnings from YouTube have reached $228,633 (£186,595), with a lifetime total of 52.8 million views and 4.6 million watch hours.
This sounds like a pretty hefty sum, but after doing the maths, Keith found the reality to be a little less impressive.
On average, he makes $435 (£355) per video. And each video takes around 30 hours of work (including planning, filming, editing, and post-production).
When broken down, his hourly wage comes to just £11.83 per hour.
For context, the UK minimum wage in 2024 was £11.44 and is expected to rise to £12.21 in May 2025. After sharing his income breakdown, many fans were surprised at how little he actually makes for his hard work.
Keith acknowledged that there are other earnings and expenses that keep his business running, but at the end of the day, his true earnings are much lower than people expect.
"284,000 subscribers, millions of views, hundreds of hours of effort.... I thought it'd pay you more," said one user.
"Like the other commenters here, I really wish you've made more money doing this because you're obviously a prolific grafter and your content looks really good," another commented.
"Enough credit can't be given for the ten year grind you have shared," someone else agreed.