I had to talk about this topic because there’s a lot of misconception about who the best YouTubers are, who has the biggest numbers. And this blog post is solely about riches, about money that YouTubers make.
What Matters on YouTube
Now I understand that YouTube is not only the way that YouTubers can make money, but I’m basing this blog post on what Nigerian YouTubers must have made. I’m not talking about who has the highest number of subscribers, because your number of subscribers really has no correlation with the amount of money you can make on YouTube.
What really matters regarding how much YouTube pays you is the amount of views that you have, and also the CPM of your channel. The CPM is also dependent on the location of the people who are coming to your channel.
So you might be shocked to find some artists or some people that you think are better than the others, but they actually didn’t even make my list in the first instance. To start off with, we are now going to start talking about these people.
I have removed Wizkid, Davido, and Burna Boy from this list, they are big, and their inclusion will make this list tilted too much towards musicians.
1. Family the Honest Comedy
Family the honest comedy has been around since 2017, and they are in the comedy category with a total view count of 5.7 billion views. Now I don’t know how many of these views are short or long-form contents, and their subscriber count is more than 6 million—6.1 million subscribers precisely.
Family the honest comedy, may not be the most funniest comedy company out there, but one thing they rank very high on is the sheer amount of content that they churn out. They have churned out a staggering 4,547 videos, as at when I was writing this blog post. The only channel that churns out this much videos are usually the news companies, like Channels Television for example has over 200,000 videos.
So family the honest comedy, they have been doing a fantastic job of being very consistent, and this has brought them a staggering amount of views over time. I estimate that family the honest should have earned around $5 million from YouTube alone since they started. It could be more, it could be less, but that is a rough estimate.
2. Mark Angel Comedy
Mark Angel is run by Mark himself and Emanuella, the girl who made this whole channel popular. They used to be extremely popular, like the number one at some point, but you can see right now they are number two, and they started this whole comedy thing in 2013.
They have the highest subscriber count as far as Nigeria is concerned with 8.9 million subscribers. Mark Angel Comedy has around 2.2 billion views, which means they should have made around $2 million from this channel. Emanuela is a big girl, and have lost her childhood charm; we hope to see her on the big cinema screen.
3. CKAY
He is one of the better musicians that we have in this country. Even though he has a very tiny video count of 99 videos, CK boasts 3.8 million subscribers with 1.2 billion views.
CK is somebody I like so much, I can relate to almost all of his music and I play them almost every time on my Bluetooth. And he should have made at least $1 million from his YouTube channel. It could be more, or less, but that is the ballpark, based on the fact that the RPM of Nigeria is expected to be around $1 for 1,000 views.
4. Channels TV
Channels TV, are definitely the best television channel in Nigeria. They have 2.8 million subscribers with 1.2 billion video views, which means that Channels TV has made around a million dollars from YouTube.
But most of these views come from the astronomically huge amount of content that they churn out. Over 200,000 contents have been churned out by Channels TV on their YouTube channel. They talk about the latest politics, they are well-trusted by even the opposition and the people in government, and they’ve been in existence since 2011.
As a matter of fact, Channels TV is one of the channels in Nigeria that got into this YouTube thing very, very early. They saw the future and it paid off for them extremely well.
5. PSquare
P-Square used to be together; they started a YouTube channel in 2011. They have over 1.1 billion views, and 2.3 million subscribers. P-Square should have made at least a million dollars from YouTube alone with just 104 music videos.
P-Square is one of the best people that we used to have in Nigeria before they decided that they wanted to be enemies and split up. We really miss the duo, and we hope that someday they might come together.
6. Kizz Daniel
Kizz Daniel is one of the craziest Nigerian artists we have out there. He just has a way of doing his things. I usually call him the king of live music in Nigeria because he knows how to handle the live crowd, which is not something you get for a lot in Nigeria.
Kizz Daniel’s channel, which he had to start in 2019 when he split off from his record label, has quickly raked up 2.6 million subscribers with 912 million views from 144 videos. Kiss Daniel is a huge celebrity in Nigeria, even in Africa, and he’s done well for himself. We expect Kiss Daniel earns at least a million dollars from YouTube alone.
This has nothing to do with Spotify and Apple Music and all the other music streaming channels where he also rakes in a ton of money.
7. Nollywood Pictures TV
Nollywood is huge in Nigeria and even all around the world, and there are a lot of YouTube channels that come and make full-length home videos and post them on YouTube. I think that is a really risky thing to do, but a lot of channels have been successful with that model over time.
Nollywood Pictures TV is one of them, with over 2 million views and 832 million subscribers. This channel has 8,000 videos on it, which they started in 2012. So these are the early adopters of YouTube, and they are making money from it.
8. Mavin Records
Mavin Records is owned by Don Jazzy. He used to be together with the Dbanj before they split up and definitely, such splits always has something to do with money.
This channel has over 165 videos as Mavin Records puts all of their artists’ videos under this one umbrella. This channel have 2.2 million subscribers from all over the world and 817 million views thus far.
9. Best of Tonto Dikeh
This channel has been showcasing Nollywood movies since 2013. They have over 2,000 videos, which is huge, and around 750,000 views from 2.7 million subscribers.
This channel is doing very well for themselves. They are going from strength to strength and we hope to see more from them over time.
10. Omah Lay
Omar Lay is one of the best musicians we have in the country. This channel started in 2014, and he has raked up 1.7 million subscribers thus far from more than 9 videos. Omar Lee is very popular all across African countries, and he is very loved by girls. He has had more than 600 million views across his channel, which means that he should have earned around $600,000 from YouTube alone, not to mention other streaming platforms. Omar Lee is one of the better guys out there. He represents Nigeria everywhere he goes.
11. Pato Ranking
This is another musician who is also making waves. It seems that the top YouTube channels in Nigeria are by musicians actually. Pato Ranking has 1.5 million subscribers from just 66 videos and he should have raked in around $500,000 from YouTube alone from his 530,000,000 views. PatoRanking is doing well for himself although we have not seen him sing all these days.
I mean he is making a lot of money from streaming, so I think he can just relax and enjoy his money while he decides whether or not he wants to continue singing.
12. Rude Boy
He split from P-Square and he has had just 19 videos but that doesn’t mean that his fans are not with him as 1.6 million of them subscribed to his YouTube channel and they’ve garnered over 450,000 views on YouTube. This means that he has earned at least $400,000 from his YouTube account which he started just three years ago.
So Rude Boy is one of the better Nigerian artists that we have there although I think he is getting tired of the music these days and is just relaxing to enjoy the money from his YouTube royalties as well as from other streaming platforms.
13. Ada Ehi
Ada is not someone I was even familiar with until I started doing research for this article and I realized that Ada has 1.6 million subscribers. The gospel artist is always churning out videos. She has gospel songs that have gone crazy viral over the years. She is not the typical artist that you would think.
Ada is making very good money from YouTube videos. From just 93 videos, Ada has been able to make almost $450,000, which means that Ada is a really rich girl based on her 450,000,000 views
14. Oficial Timaya
Timaya is very well known in Nigeria, although his subscriber count is not as high as other guys that we have on this platform. At 440,000,000 views, Timaya is definitely one of the higher-viewed artists in Nigeria.
Like I said from the beginning of this video, this article is not about the people who have the highest number of subscribers, as Timaya has just around 833,000 subscribers, but it is about people who are making a lot of money from YouTube, and Timaya is definitely one of them and should have made at least $400,000 from YouTube alone.
15. Editorial Skin Doctor 556
Editorial Skin Doctor is not someone you really know. You know Nigeria is really big on skincare and make up and Editorial Skin Doctor is one of the best people in that content space out there.
Editorial Skin Doctor is just on the verge of getting 3 million subscribers, but these views don’t really correlate with the number of subscribers as Editorial Skin Doctor only has 392 million views that should have earned $390,000. Editorial Skin Doctor is definitely doing well, she teaches people how to do makeup and the women really love her she has garnered over 2,800 videos from the first time she started posting videos in 2016, definitely one of the bigger YouTube channels that made our top 15.
Thank you.
Author
Abbey Johnson has a Masters degree as an engineer and has over 3 years of teaching and research experience. He is happiest when on a bike and is also interested in electric energy and computer Science.