6 Simple YouTube Channels Making 6 Figures in 2026
Chapters13
The video introduces the idea that ultra-simple YouTube channels can earn six figures, and promises a reveal of six such channels along with a note on the realities of YouTube success and a live workshop offer.
Six simple YouTube channels prove you don’t need a big team to pull six figures in 2026, and Shane Hummus lays out practical monetization paths and niche ideas.
Summary
Shane Hummus showcases six creators who earn six figures on YouTube in 2026 with remarkably simple formats. He highlights meme compilations on Meme Sheep, deal rundowns on The Deal Guy, shopping insights on Costco-focused content, and educational angles from Alex Shep and Josh Madakor. Each example emphasizes low-friction production, smart thumbnail and title choices, and strong monetization beyond AdSense (affiliates, sponsorships, digital products, and software like UniBoost). Shane stresses that success isn’t about production heft but about solving real problems for specific audiences. He also teases a free live workshop and a niche validator AI to help beginners find profitable niches quickly. The message is clear: you can scale with straightforward content and smart monetization, even if you’re starting from zero. Throughout, he reframes “views equals money” to “value delivered equals money,” especially in educational channels. Expect concrete numbers, actionable tactics, and a candid reminder that most attempts fail without systemized strategies.
Key Takeaways
- Meme Sheep reportedly earns roughly $7,000–$20,000 per month from AdSense, with some estimates as high as $29,000 monthly, driven by long-form meme compilations and thumbnail optimization.
- The Deal Guy can plausibly monetize at seven figures annually by combining AdSense with email marketing, affiliate links, sponsorships, and a dedicated website plus a likely large email list.
- Alex Shep demonstrates high-value, niche education by helping people graduate college faster, leveraging courses, certifications, and a proprietary tool (UniBoost) to create a multimillion-dollar potential, even if recent views are modest.
- QuizPlug shows how a simple quiz-format channel can generate $3,000–$8,000 monthly from AdSense, with a viral 15-million-view video illustrating the potential of low-effort content when paired with smart topics, like logo quizzes or emoji challenges.
Who Is This For?
Aspiring YouTubers and creators who want to build a profitable channel with simple formats, plus entrepreneurs exploring YouTube as a lead-gen or sales engine. This is especially valuable for those who crave practical monetization strategies beyond high production values.
Notable Quotes
"All right, guys. It's 2026 and there're YouTube channels out here making six figures that are so simple, it's actually disrespectful."
—Opening hook establishing the premise that simple content can be highly lucrative.
"these are six channels that you absolutely need to see right now that are dead simple and they're making six figures a year at least."
—Core claim of the video’s structure and value proposition.
"I literally just makes video compilations of memes, changes them up just a little bit, adds a little bit of commentary here and there and just uploads massive amounts of them"
—Description of Meme Sheep’s simple production model.
"I would be shocked if his email list doesn't have hundreds of thousands or even potentially millions of people on it."
—Commentary on The Deal Guy’s monetization ecosystem beyond AdSense.
"Josh was one of our clients and he even left me a testimonial saying that he made $185,000 in a single month from this exact channel."
—Concrete success example to illustrate monetization potential.
Questions This Video Answers
- How can you monetize a simple YouTube channel beyond AdSense in 2026?
- What are effective niches for low-effort YouTube content that still monetize well?
- How do educational YouTube channels like Alex Shep generate six-figure incomes with modest views?
- What makes a reaction-channel stand out enough to be highly profitable?
- What is a niche validator AI and how can it help you pick a profitable YouTube niche?
YouTube monetizationAdSense optimizationfaceless channelseducational YouTubereaction channels differentiationniche validationaffiliate marketingbrand sponsorshipsYouTube workshopsUniBoost software
Full Transcript
All right, guys. It's 2026 and there're YouTube channels out here making six figures that are so simple, it's actually disrespectful. We're talking about content that looks like it took less effort than making a bowl of cereal. And these creators are out here earning more than doctors and lawyers with no fancy setups, no film degree, no team of editors, just laughably simple videos that print money month after month. And if you don't rethink your entire career after watching this, I genuinely don't know what will convince you. So, these are six channels that you absolutely need to see right now that are dead simple and they're making six figures a year at least.
So, if you appreciate me making these types of videos, let me know by gently tapping that like button and let's jump into it right now. But first, very quickly before we get into these, I always like to give a disclaimer. I'm going to be showing you some amazing examples and this is basically going to motivate you, going to inspire you and of course going to educate you on how you can do it yourself. With that being said, I like to be brutally honest. Just like with any business out there, the majority of people who try to have success on YouTube fail.
And I do not want you to fail, which is why I also, on top of doing these free videos, I'm also doing a live workshop this week, which you can check out by clicking the link in the description and the pin comment below. All right, quick break right now. Sitting here with my brother Zach. He had never made a single YouTube video before in his life and he made $214 in a single day on YouTube. And I just wanted to let you know that this week we are hosting a free one-time live workshop. So, one thing that people struggle with the most is finding their niche and that is why we actually created an AI called the niche validator that's going to help you find your niche or help you dial in your niche if you already have one.
And we're going to be giving away this niche validator this week at a live workshop. And it's called the YouTube content advantage for making money in 2026. If you're struggling to find your niche or you don't want to commit months or even years to a niche that ends up not being profitable, then this is for you. So, click the link in the description and the pin comment below. And once you register, hit add to calendar so it shows up on your Google, Apple or Outlook calendar. And if for whatever reason you're watching this in the future, still check the link in the description and the pin comment below cuz we may be doing another live workshop in the future and it'll tell you when.
Now, you'll also be able to ask me questions live, so I look forward to meeting you and you'll also get an update on how this guy is doing on YouTube as well. So, see you this week and back to your regularly scheduled programming. So, first one is going to be the meme sheep. Now, I'm a big fan of memes myself. Sometimes I even meme in my videos a little bit, put that in the, you know, the videos here and there. But this is a channel that literally just makes video compilations of memes, changes them up just a little bit, adds a little bit of commentary here and there and just uploads massive amounts of them, usually in very long videos as well.
Now, this channel is making about $7 to $20,000 a month according to VidIQ and according to ViewStats, they're making about $10 to $29,000 a month. Now, the channel is not in its heyday. It has had better days in the past and you can see that when you see that it has had 474 million total views. And judging by how many long-form views they're getting, it looks like it's all long-form. And one of their highest viewed videos is you laugh, you lose, but it's actually funny. And this video made $102,000 and got 20 million views. Just doing some basic math here, 20 million views, they've gotten almost, you know, 25 times more than that or so.
And so, if you multiply this by 25, they've made at least $2.5 million from the channel and that's just from AdSense alone. Now, one thing I'll say about this as well as all of the other channels we look at today, usually these tools like ViewStats and VidIQ underestimate how much channels are making. So, chances are it's more than this. And additionally, this is only just the money they're making from AdSense, right? This doesn't count affiliate marketing, sponsorships, any other type of monetization. It doesn't count any of those. And YouTubers are notoriously bad for monetizing their channels correctly.
I've helped YouTubers literally like 15x the amount of money that they're making with proper monetization. So, guys, I I can't really understate how simple this channel is. They literally just take compilations of different memes across the internet, they add them together. The one thing that I suppose this channel does really well is picking thumbnails. So, picking the right memes and the right titles to basically attract people to get the clicks. But other than that, it's just adding memes together, pretty simple. So, really this channel is insanely simple. The only thing they had to get kind of good at is understanding what kind of combinations of titles and thumbnails work well and that's really what differentiates them from every other compilation channel on the internet.
Now, one thing I want to say is this is obviously an entertainment channel and this is obviously a compilation entertainment channel. I am not by any means telling you that you need to make a channel exactly like this. In fact, copying somebody else's channel one-for-one is one of the worst things that you can do. What you really want to do is take a few things from a bunch of different channels and then make something unique. Additionally, I'm not telling you that you have to do mindless brain rot entertainment content. In fact, it's actually significantly easier to monetize educational content.
So, let's go over an example of an educational channel. All right, so the next channel is The Deal Guy. The Deal Guy is a channel that is aptly named because he literally just finds deals for people that shop at commonly known stores like Costco or Sam's Club or Dollar Tree, etc. should be buying at Costco this February 20 And his channel makes about $9,000 to $26,000 a month according to VidIQ and according to ViewStats, he's making about $12 to $34,000 a month. So, in his case, he is very clearly giving a ton of value to his audience because he's making them aware of deals and he's saving them a ton of money.
And so, he's making a really good income just from the AdSense alone on his channel. So, this is something that we have a lot of people do is they have YouTube as their mother platform and then they can syndicate the content to other platforms in pretty much automated or semi-automated ways that don't take a lot of extra work, so you're not having to reinvent the wheel every single time that you start posting on other platforms. Now, if you look at his about section, you'll see he has a link to The Deal Guy website here. You go on his website, he gets you on his email list.
I would be shocked if his email list doesn't have hundreds of thousands or even potentially millions of people on it. And on his email list, that's probably where he sends out other opportunities to monetize, so affiliate marketing opportunities, digital products, courses, etc. But even before that, he also has this check out Costco February ad here and he has that in his description. And then when you click on that, that is going to go over a lot of the Costco deals. Now, you can see that he's actually tracking who clicks on the links with Bitly. And there's a very good opportunity that he's already or could be receiving payments from some of these companies to talk about some of their promotions.
And that would be either from a sponsorship, brand deal, lead generation or affiliate marketing perspective. Either way, I can very confidently say that he's making at least three times more than what he's making from AdSense from these other monetization methods. So, he's likely making seven figures a year from this channel alone and then he's syndicating the content to other platforms and making even more from that. So, this is an example of more of an educational channel, right? He is solving people's problems. He's helping them to save money, helping them to solve problems and typically it is significantly easier to monetize these types of channels than to monetize entertainment channel.
Additionally, this is also a personal brand, so he actually shows his face, whereas the channel before, they didn't show their face. That also makes it significantly easier to monetize because people know, like and trust you. Now, if you still want to do a faceless or a YouTube automation channel, there is a way that we recommend that you do that. That's something we're going to be going over in our completely free live training that we're going to be doing this week. So, click the link in the description and the pin comment below to check that out.
Now, his most popular video was 10 shopping secrets Costco doesn't want you to know. That got about 6 million views and made about $29,000 in AdSense. However, it probably also generated a bunch of money from the links in his description with proper monetization, of course. So, which is something that I specialize in helping people with, so click the link to attend the workshop to know about how to properly monetize as well. But yeah, he probably made like $100,000 from this video with proper monetization. Now, this content is obviously relatively easy to reproduce. He literally just looks at the deals that you can actually look up online.
You don't even need to go to the stores usually to look these up and then he just goes over the deals. Extremely simple content to reproduce. But you might be thinking, well, Shane, you know, I don't want to have to get millions of views because he does get millions of views. I don't think I'm super charismatic like this guy. I don't think I can get those views. So, how do I make money? Well, let me introduce you to Alex Shep. If you look at Alex Shep's channel, you might not realize that he's actually making really good money from this channel.
It says he got about 12,000 views in the last 7 days and it says that he earned around $69 to $206 over the last month. And then if you go to his ViewStats, it'll say that he got about 50,000 views over the last month and he made a couple hundred dollars, basically. And by the way, what he does with this channel is he basically just helps people to graduate from college faster. So, it's been quite a while. So, I do try to come out with And he does that by recommending a multi-pronged approach where you test out of certain classes, you get certain certifications and you go to certain types of universities that have transferable credit where you can just get the classes out of the way really quickly.
And it's very interesting and it's very cool stuff that he talks about on this channel and he literally has helped people get jobs in like less than a year before. Like jobs that require a bachelor's degree and he helps them get the bachelor's degree and land the job, which is pretty epic, right? And he actually backs this up and he says that he helps people graduate college in 2 to 12 months and he did his bachelor's degree in 12 months and then his master's degree in 2 months. So he did it himself and then he shows other people how to do it, too.
Now you might be thinking, "Well, Shane, that's all cool, but he's just making a few hundred dollars a month doing this." Well, actually he's making at least $15,000 a month because in his testimonial that he did for me So I make 15,000 a month off YouTube. That is Yes, that's real. I do make that much money from YouTube and that is from uh AdSense and uh you know, sponsorships. Which was last year, that's how much he was making and the channel was much smaller at that time. So I'm guessing he's making significantly more than that now.
And he does this through proper monetization. He had a problem in his past which he wanted to get a better job, but he did not want to spend 4 to 5 years and $100,000 on a college degree. He figured out how to solve that problem and get a degree much more affordably in a much shorter amount of time. And then he just helped other people solve the same problem. And when you solve problems for people, when you make educational content, especially problems that save people $100,000 and 5 years of their life, well, guess what? You created a ton of value and therefore the market is going to reward you in the form of money.
And that's exactly what happened to Alex. So between his job, which he got with the degree of course, and the channel itself, he's making well over $250,000 a year. So he of course makes money through affiliate marketing, he has his own products and services, he even created his own software called UniBoost. And if that software takes off and does well, that's obviously going to be probably a 10 million plus dollar exit. So it's safe to say that Alex is absolutely crushing it with this channel where he's not getting that many views. So when you look at channels, don't just assume that because they're not getting views, they're not making money.
Because you really want to think how much value is this channel creating, right? You can either help a million people a tiny little bit or you can help a small amount of people a lot. It's kind of like the difference between a general practitioner doctor and a brain surgeon. Brain surgeons can probably only do one procedure per day, but they're saving people's lives when they do it, whereas general practitioner doctors might see 50 or 100 patients a day and most of them they're just helping out a tiny little bit. It's the same exact thing with YouTube.
You can make money with both of them, but generally speaking the brain surgeons make a lot more money for the amount of people that they have to work with. And by the way, what makes Alex's channel so simple is that he just tracks stuff that's freely available online, but he just keeps people updated on how to use it and what the fastest routes are. All right, the next channel is going to be QuizPlug. And this channel literally just makes quizzes and usually these are very simple quizzes like guess the food in 3 seconds or guess the movie by emoji and then makes videos from those quizzes.
And then you just kind of follow along and it's sort of like a trivia type game. Now this channel is making about 3 to 8,000 dollars per month just from AdSense alone and their most popular video from 2 years ago, guess the logo in 3 seconds, got 15 million views and made over $21,000. And they just upload one simple video per week. And these videos are dead simple and easy to make. They may or may not be uh monetizing in other ways. I'm sure they could monetize if they were doing it correctly, but if they have sponsorships or affiliate marketing or something like that, they're likely making money in other ways, too.
So yeah, just a dead simple channel. I mean, it could not get much simpler than that. All right, so remember earlier that I went over the reaction channel and that channel was faceless. Now the truth is it is pretty difficult to make reaction channels work these days just because there's so many of them. And so typically what you need to do is figure out a way to differentiate yourself. And that is exactly what this creator, Jeffrey X, did. So Jeffrey X has a reaction channel where he reacts to funny memes very much similar to the other channel that we looked at, but he actually shows his face and he does it in a very interesting way.
And because of that he's making 123 to $370,000 a month according to VidIQ. Now the thing that makes him different is one, he's showing his face and two, he has this funny expression on all of his thumbnails where he's got a bunch of water in his mouth and he just starts spitting it out. Hi, how are you? Hello. Send it back. No. And his whole thing with the videos is it's basically like a try not to laugh challenge where he has water in his mouth and whenever something makes him laugh, he spits the water out.
So there's always some kind of suspense on how funny the thing is going to be that's going to make him spit the water out. And his most viewed video got 11 million views and made about $6,000. So yeah, this content is obviously extremely simple. He just has to compile a bunch of memes and then watch the memes and the videos are edited together in a pretty simple way. But more than that, the lesson here is differentiating yourself. Him basically putting the water in his mouth made his channel different than every other reaction channel. And in my opinion, that's one of the main things that's made him so successful.
Now one of the big problems with those types of channels is they're so easily replicated. And by just simply showing your face, it gives you a moat because nobody can copy your face and your personality. But almost anybody can copy a bunch of reaction videos put together. And also you don't have to get that many views to make money. And let me show you an example of that with Josh Madakor. So if you look at Josh's channel, you'd see that he's getting about 160,000 views over the last 28 days and he's making about 500 to 1.2 thousand dollars a month.
So you would think that he's not making any money at all from this channel. Why is he even wasting his time? But actually Josh was one of our clients and he even left me a testimonial saying that he made $185,000 in a single month from this exact channel. And we helped him get from almost zero all the way up to 185,000 in a month. acting on the advice you gave me, I recently had a $186,000 month, which is really, really crazy. And so this is just another example of how you cannot judge a book by its cover.
Most people would say that this channel's not making money, you know, it's getting about 160,000 views a month, making a few thousand dollars a month maybe from AdSense. But if you monetize correctly and if you basically make sure that you're solving people's problems, you can make a ton of money. And basically the way that Josh did this is he would make content that's extremely useful for IT and cybersecurity professionals or people that are trying to get into IT or cybersecurity. The format of this video is going to contain a step-by-step And really it comes down to one, picking the right niche, two, making the right type of content for that niche.
So that involves like picking the right video ideas and basically making sure that you're actually helping them solve problems. And then three, once you're getting views and you're building an audience, monetizing the audience in a way that's win-win with you and your audience. And that's exactly what I taught Josh how to do. That's also exactly what I'm teaching in this live training that we're doing this week. So click that link in the description and the pinned comment below to learn exactly how to do it. Because as much as these channels are awesome and as much as we've gone over some really cool examples here, the truth is most people watching this video are going to try to do this and they're not going to actually get results.
And that's simply because they just don't know the systems that work. So make sure you attend this completely free live training and learn the systems that actually work. Click that link in the description and the pinned comment below and I look forward to seeing you there. Additionally, we do have a coaching program where we work with people who are very serious about growing and making money on YouTube. So let me just lay out the types of people we work with. One, YouTubers who are already crushing it and they want to crush it even more. Two, YouTubers that are getting views, but they're struggling with monetization.
Three, business owners that are already crushing it, but they want to use YouTube as a way to build their brand, get more leads, and crush it even more. Or four, people who really want to take YouTube seriously. They want to treat it like a business from the very beginning. If you are one of those four types of people, you can go ahead and apply to work with us by clicking the link in the description and the pinned comment below and this will be a one-on-one coaching program. If it's not in the description and the pinned comment below, you can uh check my about section on the YouTube channel as well.
But again, only apply to work with us if you're very serious about doing this. And this is a very limited program and it is expensive. It's going to cost you money because we have 15 people working in either client-facing or on the back end with our coaching program and that is very expensive. And that's because we created a high-touch program that makes it as easy as possible for you to get results. Okay? So only apply if you're aware of that, you are very serious about growing and making money on YouTube, and you're ready to start right now.
Not a month from now or 2 months from now, but right now or right away. We only accept about 15% of people that try to get into the program. So if you're not a good fit for the program, we will not accept you. But if you are, go ahead, click that link in the description and the pinned comment below and that'll lead you to a strategy session where you will get actual value from the strategy session. Many people actually choose their niches on that session and we'll also see if we're a good fit to work together.
Additionally, watch this video right here where we go over a recent client case study success story. This client was able to make a full-time income on YouTube after years of trying to make money with Facebook ads almost immediately. So click right here to check them out.
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