Does youtube big channels like LTT or similar tech channels, make enough money to buy and review every product they showcase, from company own profit?

Average_Gamer · April 8

Does youtube big channels like LTT or similar tech channels, make enough money to buy and review every product they showcase, from company own profit? Instead of sponsors. Thinking of starting own small youtube channel.

Mihle · April 8

Could LTT afford it?

Yes, most likely.

Could all other reviewers buy all of them?

No, depend on the size.

Do LTT buy all of them?

No, they do not. They are sent product from a lot of companies to review. Its the only way they can review for example GPUs on NDA day, it's not possible to buy yet. Not true with all of their reviews, like si think LTT has said they have to buy the Apple products for example.

Will a company give review products to someone will zero subs?

No, they will not as far as I know.

Or if you find someone that do, you are probably lucky.

If you want to play around with making reviews, start with the products you do have.

Average_Gamer · April 8

how are you qualified to answer this with so surety? your own assumptions or real experience of any kind?

Mihle · April 8

1 minute ago, Average_Gamer said:

how are you qualified to answer this with so surety? your own assumptions or real experience of any kind?

No experience, but:

As of If LTT can afford it, they have a lot of money. Tons of employees, spending a lot of money on the lab etc. May have to spend little bit of something else but yeah.

As of of if LTT do buy all them:

They have said they don't multiple times before. For example on wan show. Including that they get review samples from AMD and Nvidia, but don't from Apple.

As if you could get review samples with zero subs:

It's what I have heard others say and it's very little logic for a company to give free stuff to someone that won't get much views. Maybe there is something for products that is very cheap or getting lucky but I have no idea about that.

Stahlmann · April 14

RTINGS.com buys EVERY product they review for retail price to further ensure they can provide completely unbiased reviews and have a real customer experience. So yes, it's possible. But RTINGS doesn't solely rely on ad revenue. They have their own Patreon-like support channels on their own website.

GamersNexus and Hardware Unboxed at least buy some of the products they review, but typical launch day CPU and GPU reviews still rely on review samples.

However, most Techtubers, big or small, still rely on review samples for most of their content. I mean it makes sense for them. But I definetly take these reviews with a grain of salt.

ThousandBlade · April 16

Also they can sell the product after the review. So even if one were to buy and review every product they showcase, it'll cost less than what people assume.

Great example would be GPU, for new GPUs you can pretty much buy them and sell them at the same price if you snag one up at launch. Might not work for every product, but will work for alot.

Also generally people start youtube channels at a hobby, usually meaning they spend money on their hobbies even without youtube.

So instead of spending X amount of money on one thing a month. They can spend X amount of money on buying reviewing and selling 5 things in a month.

Blue4130 · April 16

On 4/8/2025 at 11:10 PM, Average_Gamer said:

Thinking of starting own small youtube channel.

Start the channel because you enjoy making vid's/talking about tech. Don't plan on getting big, the chances are VERY slim if you start now. If you get to the point that you are getting sponsors that will send you free stuff, consider yourself very lucky.

wasab · April 17

Oh, lolololo, I can say one thing for sure, Linus and many of his company executives are doing very well for themselves. You should think of them more like your any other for profit corporation at this point.