What the Numbers Actually Say

Every generation has a new dream job that horrifies the parents. For a while it was rock musician. Then actor. Now it’s YouTuber—talking, pranking, gaming, doing whatever in front of a camera and uploading it, then watching the money appear. Kids say it with total sincerity. Parents go pale.

The YouTubers themselves never quite confirm the financial reality. They’ll tell you everything about their skincare routines, their anxiety, their drama with other creators—but the actual numbers stay tastefully vague. The lifestyle hints at wealth. The figures stay hidden.

So it was genuinely interesting when the German analytics firm Faktenkontor ran the math on what Google paid out to the biggest German-language YouTube channels in 2017. The top earner was Promiflash, a celebrity gossip channel, pulling in just under €917,000 in ad revenue alone. Bibi of BibisBeautyPalace—Germany’s dominant beauty and lifestyle creator—came second at around €514,000. Gaming channels Paluten and Gronkh followed at roughly €493,000 and €359,000 respectively. Rammstein’s official channel landed at number seven with about €410,000, which says something quietly interesting about the durability of back catalog in the streaming era.

These figures cover ad revenue only—merchandise, music sales, brand partnerships, and sponsorships are all separate and often larger. The actual annual incomes are probably multiples of what’s listed here. Which means the kids telling their parents they want to be YouTubers aren’t entirely deluded. It’s a real job. Whether it’s a stable one is a different question entirely.