Setting Up a Profitable YouTube Horror Channel

Horror entertainment is profitable. This includes YouTube horror channels. There are channels with more than one millions subscribers and making good money from their channel. For example there is a YouTube horror channel that I found that is being put up for sale…

Let’s Analyze this Horror Website that is for sale

I found this unnamed YouTube horror channel being sold online in a website that sells digital properties. The website name is Trustiu Digital Properties.

-Click here to view details of the Unknown Horror Website being sold.

The unknown horror channel was started in 2015. It has more than 1 million subscribers and makes almost $470 per month according to this auction website. It is being sold for 10000 € which is around $12,000.

You might think that $470 per month is small but this website has made $185,000 since 2015. This means on average it made $37,000 a year or $3083 per month. So we can only conclude that things are not well for this channel at least currently.

But the good part is that it only has 145 videos. This horror channel was started in 2015 so on average the owner produced 2.4 videos a month. This means that for working a relatively short time the owner was able to earn good money.

Dividing the owner’s total income of $185,000 by the number of videos the owner produced which is 145 we get this summary: The owner made approximately $1276 per video. No matter how you look at it the owner made a good business move.

It says that the reason why the owner is selling the website is because they have no time to maintain the channel. Still, once the owner sells the channel they would have earned an extra $12,000 in their pocket.

What Kind of Horror Media Products are Out There In YouTube?

Full Length Movies

I have seen full length movies not just of horror but also action, romance, science fiction and so on. These movies could both be legally and illegally uploaded to YouTube. Why did I mention this? This is because these movies are your competition.

You should study the movies that are popular and analyze why they are popular that for example they get millions of views. If you are really serious you can report to YouTube the illegal ones. This could mean less competition for you and you might have to do the same thing when your own YouTube channels get pirated.

Audiobooks and Podcasts

Despite the increasing sophistication of YouTube story media contents where we have seen the rise of very polished videos complete with not only audios but also comes complete with animations.

You might have to do this someday if your story channel only contains audio. But you can rejoice that there are still many people who like consuming audio media content only. There are horror channels that have audio content only but have more than one million subscribers.

This might also be one of the easiest horror product to produce. As long as you can decently record an audio of a horror story then you have a horror video. Simply put in a scary image that could be used as a thumbnail and video background and you are set.

Assorted Horror Content

There are other horror channels that have other horror media products which may or many not include horror stories. There are for example horror channels that discuss horror movies. Then there are other channels that discuss frightening subjects.

You could also offer book reviews of horror novels and other books related to horror. This is especially useful if you are related to the book business. You can sell books or recommend them and get a commission.

This could include alleged haunted houses and other alleged haunted places. Sometimes the host of the channel would actually try to share to the viewers the experience of going to such haunted places.

The list of subjects for horror channels is nearly unlimited. The idea seems to be that if a subject is frightening or even gruesome then it is worthy to be classified as a horror subject. These could be real life events whether current or historical or any kind of object.

If you are thinking of how wide the topic base for horror media content is then just consider that there is a horror channel that reviews horror merchandise like toys, masks and so on. The channel is not at all scary as a media content but rather serves the horror fan costumers.

The Indian Horror Channel

The horror media entertainment market is huge. It is in fact global. I found out that there are many Asian horror channels that are for example very popular based on the number of subscribers they have and also by the number of views in their videos.

For example let us look at Koo Koo TV Hindi Horror with almost 2 million subscribers.

According to this channel’s statistics they are doing very well. The channel earns $450 at minimum each day up to $17,000 per day. Of course I have to warn you that these are estimates only by this statistics website.

But for an Indian channel this is very good money. Let us assume the worst that this channel only earns $450 per month which equates to $15 daily. $450 dollars is more than 30,000 rupees (Indian currency) which is already a good salary in India.

How good? For this amount of money an Indian could already afford to buy a new car. This is no slight or insult to Indians but if you are able to afford a car by yourself in India then you are considered relatively well off.

But I am not an Indian and is not an expert on Indian life. But even I can see that $450 per month is good money for an Indian. Just to remind you again, this channel does not make a minimum of $450 a month but daily.

This means that the owner of the channel is making good money and could even be rich in India. I do not know if the channel is owned by one or several persons or even a company. The clear idea here is the owner or owners have a profitable business.

Make no mistake. The production values of this channel is high. Besides audio there is animation as well. But the animation is not very high quality. However the animation is just enough to give a visual appeal to the horror stories.

If you ask me the animations could be done by any decent animator. If you plan to emulate this channel I vouch that you would not have to spend a lot of money hiring animators even freelance ones.

Another good thing about this channel is that although they just started their channel they already have more than half a billion views by 2020. How fresh is this channel? They joined YouTube on last November 27, 2019. A very Impressive performance for a new channel.

Other Horror Channels with One Million Subscribers

This Indian horror channel is not alone. There are still other horror channels from India that have over a million subscribers with videos that have more than a million views. Based on what I see from the many Indian horror themed videos I watched, Indians are very much interested in subjects that are horror related.

Besides India I have seen many horror channels from Asia like Indonesia and the Philippines. The horror videos in these Asian channels also get high view counts. Maybe not in the millions like the Indian videos but in the decent hundred of thousands.

I also checked several English language based horror channels. I also found that there are many of these channels similar in terms of subscription and viewership to the Indian horror channels. They also have millions of subscribers with their videos also get millions of views.

Fear: The Home Of Horror

The channel has 1.33 million subscribers. It joined YouTube last October 31, 2017. It has a total of 597,638,468 views or almost 6 million views. They managed to get this much number of views in only three years.

What is this channel all about? This channel shows horror movie clips. It features movie clips from old black and white movies as well as old colored movies. I found it interesting that these movie clips especially the old black and white ones still attract plenty of views.

This just means that there is a horror enthusiast community that is not only interested in watching the latest horror movies but also what we can already consider classic horror movies which are not at all scary by modern day standards.

This just means that these videos would still attract viewership many years from now and maybe even decades as horror enthusiast discover the historical part of horror movies. In fact, many of these old horror movie characters are still profitable as merchandise even today.

Rob Gavagan

The channel name is the name of the channel owner Rob Gavagan. He has 3.1 million subscribers which is impressive. However we have to take into account that his channel has been around since September 11, 2012.

Still, his channel has 566,215,915 views or approximately 566 million views. Not many channels have achieved this kind of viewership numbers even though they have been around for decades in YouTube.

His channel mainly deals with horror events and real horrible facts. He has listicles and according to his channel description his videos are composed of both tragedy and comedy which according to him is his channel’s difference from other channels.

Dead Meat

The channel has a very impressive 4.71 million subscribers. Not only is this figure very impressive by itself but they managed to achieve this within a short span of three years. They joined YouTube in January 7, 2017.

Still want to hear more impressive information? As of the February 15, 2021, they already have 1,603,372,339 views or 1.6 billion views. To be precise they achieved this in 3 years and 1 month. If five million subscribers and 1.6 billion views don’t qualify as success then nothing will.

The channel discusses horror films, have podcasts and other horror themed media products. They also have their trademark “Kill Count” videos.

This is clearly a good channel to study and perhaps even emulate. As their impressive subscription and viewership statistics clearly indicate they know hot to attract a lot of people using only a short time.

ALTER

They have 1.61 million subscribers and joined YouTube on May 22, 2018. By February 15,2021 they already have 228,938,909 views. To make it more simple, In only a span of 1 year and 7 months they have more than 200 million views. Impressive numbers.

What does their channel have? They have short horror films which gets them a large number of views. For example one of their short horror story videos titled “The Dollmaker” managed to garner 20 million views in only one year.

This channel has more possible opportunities available. These short films have a good chance of further monetization outside of YouTube. They can be compiled into complete movies or series and sold to film or television companies.

CreepsMcPasta

It has 1.99 million subscribers and joined YouTube on Mar 6, 2012. It has a total of 397,373,811 views as of February 2021. According to Social Blade estimates that The channel earns between $40 to $700 a day.

Though this channel is not as impressive as the other horror channels I mentioned it is still a good example of what a successful YouTube horror channel should be. The owner of the channel has uploaded 1,933 videos in a span of almost eight years.

This means that on average the owner or owners uploads approximately 22 videos a month. This is a lot of work. But what makes this work easy is that the videos contain audios only and are not hard to create. You could finish a video like this within hours.

Though I have made YouTube videos myself that are much more audio oriented than image oriented I can’t tell how much these channel owner or owners devotes in a day to creating their videos.

I can only say that based from my experience of creating YouTube videos it only takes me a few hours to create my audio. It is the creation of the images that takes up most of my time.

So this channel proves that you can still be successful even though you only have simple video production values. This is not a slight or insult to the channel owner or owners. I am just comparing the top horror channels and what they offer to viewers.

Conclusion

As these channels prove, you can create a popular and also profitable YouTube horror channel. This not only applies to channel creators from English speaking countries but also to channel creators from non-English speaking countries.

There are many subjects that you can use for horror. There is the ever popular horror movies and stories, places, objects and so on. As long as it is scary or gruesome it qualifies. Successful audio only horror channels proves that there is a huge appetite for horror.

One can start with audio only horror and proceed to videos with higher production values.

You may be interested in my Online Horror Market Article. It is titled: The Online Horror Market.