YouTube reveals insane revenue for first time proving it's bigger than streaming giant Netflix
YouTube's yearly revenue has been revealed by parent company Alphabet for the first time ever, giving users of the video-sharing platform a glance behind the curtain of the second most-visited website on the internet.
Much of the money discussion when it comes to YouTube surrounds the creators themselves, as viewers often wonder quite how much their favorite channels are making each year, and only rarely do we get to find out the specifics.
Certain influencers have shared how much money their most popular videos have made – often with rather deflating results – and we've previously been informed how much YouTube pays all of its users collectively.
However, never before have we been given a sense of how much money YouTube generates as a platform. That is, until now.
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In a surprising turn of events, the latest earnings report from Google and YouTube's parent company revealed the latter's yearly total revenue for the first time in history, and the numbers themselves are jaw-dropping.
Across money generated from adverts, subscription fees, and other revenue streams, YouTube as a website earned a staggering $60 billion in total across 2025, beating out many of its key rivals despite being a free-to-access platform.
As shared by Dexerto, one intriguing comparison is with Netflix – which has reached a point of ubiquity that can easily rival YouTube for many – yet the streaming service 'only' generated $45.18 billion across 2025, matching just 75% of YouTube's total income.
Unsurprisingly, a large proportion of that still comes from ad revenue, with $11.38 billion generated in the fourth quarter of the year alone from video advertisements, although it's unclear how much of that will be 'lost' in payouts to creators.
One thing that could end up threatening the site is the increasing number of laws across the world that limit the features of ads, as some countries have placed a cap of just five seconds on unskippable ads, which could jeopardise ad spending from companies.
YouTube still makes a considerable amount from subscriptions to its Premium service, with more than 325 million registered across all of Alphabet's services – including YouTube Premium, YouTube TV, and Google One – and you'd have to imagine that the former is making up a considerable portion of that figure.
This could only grow as YouTube starts to limit further features to the paid tier too, including recent rumors that this will happen to the playback speed feature, although some have speculated that it would drive people off the site altogether.