How much is a YouTube channel worth?

Short answer

YouTube channels typically sell for 24 to 42 times monthly profit in 2026, which is roughly 2 to 3.5 times annual profit. A channel netting $5,000 a month usually fetches $120,000–$210,000, with evergreen, non-face niches at the top of the range and news or trend channels at the bottom.

Channel valuation multiples by content type

Channel type	Multiple of monthly profit	Why
Evergreen, faceless	34–42×	Transferable, stable traffic
Educational / how-to	30–38×	Long content half-life
Product review	28–36×	Strong affiliate income
Personality-led	20–28×	Hard to transfer
News / trend-driven	16–24×	Revenue decays fast

How to read this table

Evergreen, faceless sits at the top of the table (34–42×) — transferable, stable traffic. If your situation looks like this row, plan against the upper half of the range rather than the midpoint.
News / trend-driven anchors the bottom (16–24×) — revenue decays fast. Treat this as the conservative case you should still be profitable at.
The gap between the top and bottom row is roughly 2.6×. That spread is why a single blended average is close to useless here — pick the row that matches your setup instead of averaging the column.
Most rows are ranges, not single figures. The low end usually reflects a weaker month, a softer audience geography, or an unoptimised setup; the high end reflects a well-run, well-targeted operation of the same size.
With 5 reference points in the "channel valuation multiples by content type" table, the fastest way to use this page is to find the closest row, take its multiple of monthly profit, then stress-test it ±30% before you build a plan on it.

Context

Buyers pay for durability, not peak earnings. Diversified revenue, a back catalogue that still pulls views after twelve months, and no dependence on one on-camera personality all push the multiple up. Concentrated income — one sponsor, one viral video, one platform — pushes it down hard.

What moves this number

Revenue concentration

Most creator income is concentrated in one or two streams. The healthy target is no single source above roughly half of total revenue.

Audience size versus audience intent

Buying intent beats raw reach. Small, specific audiences convert to paid products at rates large general audiences never reach.

Platform take rates

Platform cuts, payment processing, and taxes typically remove 30–50% of gross before anything reaches your account.

Time cost

The right comparison is revenue per hour of production, not revenue per post — many high-revenue formats lose on that basis.

Methodology

Multiples reflect 2026 marketplace and broker transaction ranges for content businesses, applied to trailing twelve-month average monthly net profit rather than revenue.

Assumptions and caveats

Figures are gross before platform fees, processing, and tax.
Medians hide a long tail — the distribution is heavily skewed toward the top decile.
This page was last reviewed on 2026-08-12. Ranges are updated as new data lands, so re-check before using them in a contract or a plan.
Use these numbers as a starting range, not a guarantee — your own historical data always beats a benchmark.

Frequently asked questions