Linus Media Group makes $19 Million per year in revenue. Explained... (Corrected)

[Ajmal Zahir]

This is my first post hear after years of lurking. This question has been put around too many times and even Linus recently said to figure it out if we can, he also said that many have come very close.

 

Linus has already given us a ton of leads which we can use to derive this number.

 

The easiest number to derive here is the floatplane revenue. It's simple.

 

Floatplane - 

 

Subscription in Linus' channel alone - 19000

Fee per sub - $5  (Minimum fee is $5, Maximum fee is $10 but we are going to only take the minimum sub fee for better accuracy)

Total Floatplane - $1,140,000 Per year. (The actual revenue is higher since LTT isn't the only channel there and we didn't/can't account for $10 subs)

 

That's all we need, we now have the Graph from Linus' video, we just have to apply the percentage and find the rest of the revenue.

 

Revenue per 1% -

 

Float plane accounts to 6% revenue so..

 

Floatplane Revenue / 6 = 1% revenue.

1,140,000/6  = 190,000

 

So, 1% in the above chart means $190,000

 

Revenue from each department -

 

In-Video sponsor spot - 27% x 190,000 = $ 5,130,000

YouTube ad-sense - 26% x 190,000 = $ 4,940,000

Merchandise - 15% x 190,000 = $ 2,850,000

Sponsored projects - 14% x 190,000 = $ 2,660,000

Amazon associate - 9% x 190,000 = $ 1,710,000

Floatplane - 6% x 190,000 = $ 1,140,000

Other associate - 2% x 190,000 = $ 380,000

Other revenue - 1% x 190,000 = $ 190,000

 

Revenue isn't Profit -

 

Revenue is not Profit it's just Revenue, there are other cost and taxes that should be deducted to get the profit.

 

LMG has 30 employees, Linus stated years ago that they pay more over the minimum wage for their employees.

Minimum wage is $11, lets take $20 for good measure.

 

Salary per year - 

Per month - 8 hours x 25 days x $20 = $4,000

Per year - $4000 x 12 = $48,000

 

Employee salaries -

 

$48000 x 30 = $ 1,440,000 per year in Salaries.

This is just the salary, there are other expenses too, Tax, Server, Equipment, Maintenance, Building, Utility and etc... 

 

Total Revenue - 

 

Taking the YouTube ad-sense Revenue of $4,940,000 for 1,000,000,000 views kind of makes sense and shows that he has a CPM of $5 on average. There was a leak in one of MKBHD's (Similar channel to LTT) that showed that he earned a $3 CPM for 40 million views that specific month. There are tons of other YouTubers who have released their earning and have a higher CPM than $3 this year, search YouTube for those. 

 

Considering everything and comparing other channel's revenue per year on YouTube I'd say this number is very close to the actual Revenue. May be if Linus or the Team see's this they can correct me if I am wrong.

 

LMG's Total Revenue for 2020 = ~ $ 19,000,000 

 

 

Edit -

I am corrected that Floatplane is a separate company and LMG only gets a small % of the Revenue like other platforms. @Spotty guesstimated that if they would get paid around $2.5 per subs which would cut this revenue guess by half  and at around $9,500,000 and with the leaked CPM from MKBHD (similar channel) this year which shows he has a CPM of about $2.7 and applying that to LTT's 1 billion view which divided by 26 and multiplied by 100 would bring a Total Revenue of 10,384,615 per year.

 

The reason Linus increased the floatplane price is to help other creators so I guess it's fair to assume that the split is 70/30. So if we assume that all those subs are $3 and assume a 70/30 split then the Total Revenue comes to about $8,000,000 per year

 

To give y'all a fair answer, and to anyone who cares, I am absolutely sure that LMG's Revenue for 2020 would be over $5,700,000 this is by assuming a 50/50 split with a $3 min sub on floatplane and this is highly unlikely because Linus always talked about creator getting paid enough.

 

Which means with @Spotty's calculation of $9.5 million, My MKBHD theory and the 70/13 split calculation, the actual amount would be somewhere around $9 million per year. 

[Elisis]

oh, ok

[Ajmal Zahir]

Maybe, @nicklmg @CPotter or @LinusTech was I close? NVM... Don't tell, I'll find it out when LMG goes public in 20 years. 

[Ankh Tech]

41 minutes ago, Ajmal Zahir said:

Maybe, @nicklmg @CPotter or @LinusTech was I close? NVM... Don't tell, I'll find it out when LMG goes public in 20 years. 

interesting, I always wondered, so it could be more, if we take the max numbers, thanks for the info

[PiberiusWilde]

Interesting.... how long did you took to do this???

[Ajmal Zahir]

1 minute ago, PiberiusWilde said:

Interesting.... how long did you took to do this???

Not much. I've always wondered too why and how @LinusTech employ 30+ people for a YouTube channel because there isn't another YouTube channel on YouTube that does this, MKBHD, UnboxTheraphy, Jays2cents and etc... all doesn't employ this many people. Even the non tech channels just have a few editors and some other doing merch. 

 

It's that Linus have found a good way to integrate sponsors and a good model for business, more over he likes to make this a company and not a "YouTube Channel" that is currently providing for 30 family. Interesting insight. LMG is definitely a unique channel on YouTube.

[RasmusDC]

but is floatplane only earning because of the 19.000 viewers, or is it also the amount of money they earn from the other partners... what about the cost of running floatplane..

 

or is that company another entity.

[pythonmegapixel]

Oh, not another one of these threads...

Half of these numbers are just pulled out of thin air; you've missed out a load of factors, and it's not even clear whether you're actually calculating revenue or profit.

 

LMG seems to have quite a lot of money, and he doesn't even try to hide it. (He's not "in-your-face" about it either for what its worth). How much exactly? I don't really care. especially considering that Linus and the team seem to have put in a good amount of work to get there.

 

I'd say they have enough that I'm not going to go out of my way to pay them money - especially at the outrageous prices LTTstore.com charges. But in return, I can say that if they decided to stop producing YouTube content and go fully paid, I wouldn't be at all disappointed.

[IntMD]

1 minute ago, RasmusDC said:

but is floatplane only earning because of the 19.000 viewers, or is it also the amount of money they earn from the other partners... what about the cost of running floatplane..

 

or is that company another entity.

He's talking revenue, not profit. There is a difference.

 

Also, he hasn't taken in to account things like the number of grandfathered old pricing on floatplane in to account, which may or may not be offset by the larger cost plans etc.

[Spotty]

1 hour ago, Ajmal Zahir said:

Subscription in Linus' channel alone - 19000

Fee per sub - $5  (Minimum fee is $5, Maximum fee is $10 but we are going to only take the minimum sub fee for better accuracy)

Floatplane is not Linus Media Group. They're separate companies.

There's also the grandfathered $3 plan.

You're also failing to take Floatplane's cut and payment processing fees out of the subscription cost. A $5 subscriber on Floatplane does not give LMG $5. Probably somewhere around $2 to $3.

 

So if LMG makes around $2.50 per Floatplane subscriber with 19,000 monthly subscribers that works out to be 570,000 per year. If Floatplane is 6% of their revenue then based off those assumptions and estimations their revenue would be around $9.5M annually.

 

Even then that's probably not even remotely accurate though, and at best it's a guess. I don't really care how much they make, I just thought it was important to point out the mistakes in what you were basing your calculations on.

[Ajmal Zahir]

1 minute ago, RasmusDC said:

but is floatplane only earning because of the 19.000 viewers, or is it also the amount of money they earn from the other partners... what about the cost of running floatplane..

 

or is that company another entity.

No, I only considered the 19,000 subs for good measure. and the minimum sub amount of $5. Floatplane revenue is probably more than this. Mind that Revenue means just the income without expenses/cost subtracted. So yes, there is a cost to run Floatplane and I think it comes under LMG? I am not sure tho, maybe you can tag Luke hear to ask that question.

 

This post is just about Revenue and profit calculations are not included here.

[PeachGr]

you didn't even count the electricity or the rent... Expenses are not an easy thing to counter. Linus said that he spend 10.000 to adobe premier alone every year, also on that video he said how much he pays average each editor

[Ajmal Zahir]

7 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

Oh, not another one of these threads...

Half of these numbers are just pulled out of thin air; you've missed out a load of factors, and it's not even clear whether you're actually calculating revenue or profit.

I mean without shit talking, be my guest, what factors? and the post clearly says this is just the Revenue and not Profit. Also he clearly says find the Revenue if we want to and there is enough information to find it.

[Ajmal Zahir]

4 minutes ago, PeachGr said:

you didn't even count the electricity or the rent... Expenses are not an easy thing to counter. Linus said that he spend 10.000 to adobe premier alone every year, also on that video he said how much he pays average each editor

I have clearly mentioned in this post that this is purely Revenue and not profit. Revenue doesn't equal to Profit. It's just the Total income without anything deducted. If you want to find the profit that is when you calculate the stuff you said here.
 

Quote

Revenue is not Profit it's just Revenue, there are other cost and taxes that should be deducted to get the profit.

 

[IntMD]

Your average wages are almost certainly quite a bit lower than in reality.

 

I assume that was also LMG income, not including floatplane income. They take a cut of each of the USD5.00, there will also be plenty of people grandfathered in at the old rate ($3 iirc).

 

If that is just LMG income and not the umberella corp, including FP, your revenue is too high, wages too low. I'm not saying they are on the breadline or anything, but I would suspect revenue in is much closer to $10million than $20mil in reality and wages in the range of $2-$3mil pa.

[pythonmegapixel]

2 minutes ago, Ajmal Zahir said:

I mean without shit talking, be my guest, what factors? and the post clearly says this is just the Revenue and not Profit.

The main problem is that you've literally just made up the staff wages. How do you know that the staff are on $20 per hour, and how do you know that they all work 8 hours 25 days a month?

 

Secondly, Floatplane. Your entire argument rests upon knowing the revenue from Floatplane. But you've only counted one of 5-ish LMG channels, you've not counted the fact that some people pay more for high-resolution streaming, and - most importantly - you've not counted the overheads associated with running Floatplane - paying the developers, running servers, charges collected by payment providers etc. Since Floatplane appears to be a separate entity - Floatplane Media Inc - these aren't LMG's overheads.

 

And you've extrapolated MASSIVELY from that Floatplane value. Because Floatplane only makes up a small proportion, a tiny error in your initial calculations could make a huge difference to the end result.

[Ajmal Zahir]

10 minutes ago, Spotty said:

Floatplane is not Linus Media Group. They're separate companies.

There's also the grandfathered $3 plan.

You're also failing to take Floatplane's cut and payment processing fees out of the subscription cost. A $5 subscriber on Floatplane does not give LMG $5. Probably somewhere around $2 to $3.

 

So if LMG makes around $2.50 per Floatplane subscriber with 19,000 monthly subscribers that works out to be 570,000 per year. If Floatplane is 6% of their revenue then based off those assumptions and estimations their revenue would be around $9.5M annually.

 

Even then that's probably not even remotely accurate though, and at best it's a guess. I don't really care how much they make, I just thought it was important to point out the mistakes in what you were basing your calculations on.

Thank you for this information. I didn't know this. 

 

Then one might have to do some research if they really need the correct amount but also they could go by the CPM from other tech channels.

 

MKBHD's $2.7 CPM = if we apply it here then it's  $2.7 Million for 1 billion views on LTT which divided by 26 and multiplied by 100 would bring a Total Revenue of 10,384,615 per year.

 

Which means with your calculation saying $9.5 million and mine, the actual amount would be somewhere around $10 million per year. 

[Master Disaster]

One question, why do you even care?

[Ajmal Zahir]

27 minutes ago, pythonmegapixel said:

The main problem is that you've literally just made up the staff wages. How do you know that the staff are on $20 per hour, and how do you know that they all work 8 hours 25 days a month?

That calculation is not relevant here at all, it's just another mini discussion about in what range he might be paying salaries.

 

Quote

Secondly, Floatplane. Your entire argument rests upon knowing the revenue from Floatplane. But you've only counted one of 5-ish LMG channels, you've not counted the fact that some people pay more for high-resolution streaming, and - most importantly - you've not counted the overheads associated with running Floatplane - paying the developers, running servers, charges collected by payment providers etc. Since Floatplane appears to be a separate entity - Floatplane Media Inc - these aren't LMG's overheads.

 

And you've extrapolated MASSIVELY from that Floatplane value. Because Floatplane only makes up a small proportion, a tiny error in your initial calculations could make a huge difference to the end result.

You are right here. I have corrected this a made my guess a bit more fair in the edits.

[Ajmal Zahir]

28 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

One question, why do you even care?

Just something that I used to wonder about How much large YouTubers make. Just a post based on that and Linus' video but to ask you a question?

 

Why does it matter to you? It's just a post, if you don't like it then you can move on. It's not a bad thing to guess how much big YouTubers make consider it a big industry now. This is similar to asking the question, "How much a doctor makes?" "How much does Samsung make per year" "How much does a software engineer make a year?" "How much does a big YouTuber make a year?"

[Master Disaster]

1 hour ago, Ajmal Zahir said:

Just something that I used to wonder about How much large YouTubers make. Just a post based on that and Linus' video but to ask you a question?

 

Why does it matter to you? It's just a post, if you don't like it then you can move on. It's not a bad thing to guess how much big YouTubers make consider it a big industry now. This is similar to asking the question, "How much a doctor makes?" "How much does Samsung make per year" "How much does a software engineer make a year?" "How much does a big YouTuber make a year?"

Its one thing asking the question, its another entirely to take an uneducated guess based on number you pulled out of thin air then proceed to post that information on their personal site and tag them in it.

 

It doesn't matter to me at all but it doesn't have to matter for me to have an opinion on it.

 

The simple fact is, if Linus wanted the public to know then he would have told us, he hasn't which is a direct implication that he doesn't want us to know and that's his prerogative.

 

Now that said, I'm like 99% sure that Linus enjoys reading these types of post and doesn't actually care about them existing.

[Ajmal Zahir]

17 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

Its one thing asking the question, its another entirely to take an uneducated guess based on number you pulled out of thin air then proceed to post that information on their personal site and tag them in it..

He clearly said in the video that if you need to know then try make an educated guess at it. I am sure he is fine, it is you who is here acting like you own this platform. I don't know how else to put it.

[Rohith_Kumar_Sp]

given he has 40 employees, it's nothing compared to what he invests back to the company

[Ajmal Zahir]

1 minute ago, Rohith_Kumar_Sp said:

given he has 40 employees, it's nothing compared to what he invests back to the company

What do you mean? You mean like give back to the employees through the company rather than enjoying the money? If so I agree, Linus doesn't seem money hungry.

 

Also, LMG website says there is only 30 employees, where did you get your info?

[Master Disaster]

17 minutes ago, Ajmal Zahir said:

it is you who is here acting like you own this platform. I don't know how else to put it.

Care to explain how respecting other peoples right to privacy is in any way akin to "acting like I own" anything?

 

Since we're going down this route, there's a little thing in life called boundaries. Some people like to set them in different aspects of their lives and its up to everyone else to respect them.

 

Linus doesn't want us to know, you should respect that. Taking an uneducated guess based on numbers you made up is, in my opinion, not respecting Linus's right to privacy.

 

If you take issue with that then I'm sorry but that's your issue to deal with.

 

If you can't accept criticism for your actions then its probably not a great idea to post them on a public forum.

 

Edit - And to quote Linus verbatim from his last video on the topic

Quote

Its non of your damn business

(To be clear, I'm not attacking you personally here, your simply means everyone except him, his wife and employees)