David Dobrik Hasn’t “Made a Dollar” Off YouTube in Years, He Says
How much does David Dobrik make? See what the YouTube star with 18.2 million subscribers said about his income from the video-sharing site.
Jun. 14 2022, Published 2:50 p.m. ET
If you’re wondering how much David Dobrik makes from his YouTube fame, you’ll likely be surprised by the answer. Despite having 18.2 million subscribers on YouTube at the moment, Dobrik claimed earlier this year that he doesn’t make money from the video-sharing platform.
As Dobrik explained in a 2019 Men’s Health video, he saw his YouTube income plummet after the “ad-pocalypse,” in which advertisers pulled out of content that wasn’t family-friendly, Dobrik’s videos included. So, Dobrik went from getting $275,000 from the platform per month to $2,000 per month. “I’m actually making less money a month on YouTube than I was when I was waiting tables at a retirement home,” he said.
Dobrik claims his YouTube videos haven’t been profitable for years, but he won’t switch to a paid platform.
In an episode of his podcast VIEWS in January, Dobrik said that he isn't earning money from YouTube and hasn’t been for years. “For people that don’t know — I don’t think people a lot of people know — I haven’t made a dollar off YouTube [in], like, three, four years,” he said.
Dobrik said that he doesn’t want to put content out on a paid platform like Patreon or OnlyFans because it’s “so f--ked up to charge people.”
“Why would I want to put the greatest content behind a paywall?” he asked. “Like, I want to put the best content for free. Why would I make --t and then charge people for this s--t? … If I make something great, I’m not going to want to put it behind a paywall. I’m going to want to put it out so everybody can access it.”
David Dobrik estimates he would be making $1.5 million to $2 million per month now if not for the “ad-pocalypse.”
In another VIEWS podcast episode, released on YouTube a week later, Dobrik said that in his “best months,” about four years ago, he was making $275,000 per month from YouTube through Google’s AdSense program. “And it was crazy because back then, you [could] use any song, you [could] say any swear word,” he said. “Like, whatever it was, it would just get monetized to the full extent.”
After the ad-pocalypse, Dobrik’s monthly YouTube earnings “went from $275,000 to, like, $50,000, but my views multiplied by four or five, right?” he said. “So I know if I was getting paid the same way, I’d be making, like, $1.5 million to $2 million a month.”
Also, YouTube temporarily demonetized videos on three of Dobrik’s channels last year after a woman accused Dominykas Zeglaitis, then a member of Dobrik’s Vlog Squad, of sexual assault, according to Insider.
Dobrik does have other sources of income. In 2019, he judged the Nickelodeon show America’s Most Musical Family, for example, and in 2020, he hosted the Discovery Channel show Dodgeball Thunderdome. And last year, he starred in the Discovery+ docuseries Discovering David Dobrik.
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