7 Weird YouTube Channels Making 5 Figures A Month (Nobody Talks About These)
Chapters12
The chapter discusses a short, six-minute video that went viral, earning millions of views and substantial ad revenue, and uses it to introduce the broader topic of simple, profitable YouTube channels.
We break down real money — and the hacks behind it — from seven atypical YouTube channels that pull in five figures monthly with simple, well-menteded videos.
Summary
Shane Hummus showcases a lineup of surprisingly lucrative, niche channels to prove that you don’t need blockbuster production to make serious money on YouTube. Real Life Lore racks up 30-90k per month with concise science-focused videos like The Ocean is way deeper than you think, which hit 50 million views and earned around $250k. Scott Manley earns 22-67k monthly through space-centric content and a Patreon with roughly 5,000 members, illustrating the value of diversified monetization. Canadian Prepper and City Prepping demonstrate how dedicated hobby channels can monetize beyond AdSense by selling gear and guides on their own sites. Living Big in a Tiny House dominates the tiny-house niche, with a single video pulling 51 million views and roughly $250k in revenue, while the channel as a whole nears hundreds of millions of views. JCS Criminal Psychology stands out in true crime as a highly educational channel, with top videos like What pretending to be crazy looks like reaching tens of millions of views and six-figure earnings. Throughout, Shane emphasizes a core takeaway: personal-brand channels tend to outperform faceless ones because trust accelerates growth and monetization, and education-based content generally scales more reliably than pure entertainment. He also teases a live training event to teach niche selection, monetization strategies, and how to prove profitability without chasing viral views.
Key Takeaways
- Real Life Lore earns an estimated $30k-$90k per month by delivering science-based, entertaining, educational content with multiple revenue streams beyond AdSense.
- Tiny-house and prepper niches can amass massive views (e.g., Living Big in a Tiny House with a 51M-view video) and substantial income through ads, sponsorships, and product sites.
- Faceless channels can work, but require a specific approach—personal-brand channels often monetize more easily due to trust and viewer loyalty.
- Patreon and direct product sales (e.g., Canadian Prepper, CanadianPrepper.com) significantly boost earnings beyond AdSense alone.
- Diversified monetization (ads, sponsorships, merchandise, affiliate links, and own products) is common among the example channels, not just ad revenue.
- Educational content tends to be easier to grow and monetize than pure entertainment, making it a safer path to sustainable income.
- Real-life examples show channels growing from modest subs to $20k–$50k per month by focusing on niche expertise and consistent value.
Who Is This For?
Aspiring YouTubers and content creators who want practical, real-world ideas for growing and monetizing niche channels without chasing viral bells and whistles. Great for those considering personal-brand channels and multi-channel monetization strategies.
Notable Quotes
"This channel made a simple six-inute video that got 50 million views and made $250,000."
—Illustrates the revenue potential of a single viral, short-form video.
"it's significantly easier to monetize those channels effectively."
—Helps justify focusing on education-focused channels.
"Have you ever made a purchasing decision from a faceless channel? Probably not, or very rarely."
—Underscores the trust advantage of personal-brand channels.
"it's way easier to make money with a personal brand channel just simply because of the trust factor"
—Direct comparison between faceless and personal-brand monetization.
"I mean, think about it. Have you ever made a purchasing decision from a faceless channel?"
—Reiterates the practical impact of branding on monetization.
Questions This Video Answers
- How do real-life niche channels monetize beyond AdSense on YouTube?
- What makes a personal-brand channel outperform a faceless channel for revenue?
- Can tiny-house channels reach 6-figure earnings per month, and how?
- What are the best strategies to monetize science education channels on YouTube?
- How does Patreon complement YouTube income for science and prepper channels?
YouTube monetizationReal Life LoreScott ManleyCanadian PrepperCity PreppingLiving Big in a Tiny HouseJCS Criminal PsychologyEducational content on YouTubeFaceless vs. personal brand channelsNiche channels monetization
Full Transcript
This channel made a simple six-inute video that got 50 million views and made $250,000. And we're going to be talking about this channel and a bunch of other weird YouTube channels that make five figures a month with simple videos. Now, this video should be educational, inspirational, and motivational. So, if you appreciate me making this type of content, let me know by gently tapping that like button. And let's jump into it right now. So, the channel is Real Life Lore, and this channel makes about $30 to $90,000 a month. Their most popular video ever is The Ocean is way deeper than you think.
Ocean is really, really deep. Deeper. In fact, that video got 50 million views and made over $250,000. And this channel basically just breaks down real life lore. It's basically exactly what the channel is called. Now, sometimes they do dabble in geography and a little bit of geopolitics and that kind of thing, but they typically stay science-based. So, they're an education channel, but they make education very entertaining. And this is something I typically recommend to people. It is significantly easier to get views, get subscribers, and make money with education channels. And one of the main reasons for that is because it's just significantly easier to monetize those channels effectively.
So, this channel is making $30 to $90,000 a month, but the truth is they're probably monetizing in many other ways. They probably have links, they probably have a good amount of sponsorships, etc., where they can make far more than just the AdSense money alone. Now, this is a faceless channel, and I'm not totally against faceless channels. However, there's a particular way of doing a faceless channel that makes it work, and this is something I'm going to be revealing in my live training that I'm doing this week. All right, quick break, guys. I'm hanging out with my brother Zach right now.
He is not a tech guy at all and he just made $214 in a single day, one month after starting on YouTube. And this week on Sunday at 900 PM Eastern time, we are hosting a free live workshop called the YouTube content advantage for making money in 2026. It's happening on April 5th, 2026. So, make sure you mark that down. So, click the link in the description and the pin comment below to check it out. And for everyone who shows up live, we are giving away the niche validator pro 2.5, which will help you pick your niche or dial your niche in.
All right, we are only offering it to those who attend the live workshop. So, make sure to show up. 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 click this link, right? This is the this is the link for you. Click the link in the description in the pin comment below. And uh once you register, hit add to calendar so it actually shows up in 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 in the pin comment below because we may be doing another live workshop.
Okay? So you'll also be able to ask me questions live. So I'll see you Sunday this week. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming. All right. So on the same topic as science, there is tons of great science channels and one of them is Scott Manley. So he's basically a rocket man. Okay? Not like the song, not exactly, but he's all about rockets, satellites, spaceships, etc. and he basically talks about it in a clear accessible way that everyone can understand. And he's making about 22 to $67,000 a month doing this. Now, his most viewed video ever is movies always get this simple thing wrong about space.
Whenever Hollywood needs to send astronauts to space, their first got 9 million views and made $48,000. Now, he does have a Patreon, so he does have alternative methods of monetization. Looks like he has about 5,000 members in his Patreon and he likely has different tiers. It's kind of hard to tell how much he's making from it. And I'm sure he makes money from sponsorships, etc., but he's making really, really good money from this channel. And in my opinion, generally speaking, it's best to just choose a personal brand channel over a faceless channel, unless you make the faceless channel in a very specific way that makes it work.
Because personal brand channels are just way, way easier to grow, way easier to monetize, etc. I mean, think about it. Have you ever made a purchasing decision from a faceless channel? Probably not, or very rarely. Have you ever made purchasing decisions from personal brand channels where you're seeing another human being? Probably hundreds of times. So, it's way easier to make money with a personal brand channel just simply because of the trust factor, but because of many other things as well. All right, there's tons of great science channels out there, but let's get away from that for a sec.
Let's go to a very weird niche, which is Canadian prepper. And it's all about prepping for doomsday type situations. Now, it says this channel is making about $2 to $5,000 a month. And that's just from AdSense alone. Whenever you see this on view stats or Vid IQ, etc., it's only estimating the AdSense alone. And if you look at his most popular video ever, the best invention you don't know exists, toilet paper tablets, which is actually pretty cool. I did not know that invention existed before this video that I'm recording right now, toilet paper tablets. And that video was showing the it got about 6 million views and made him about $32,000.
Now, one thing I always like to mention on these videos is it's not about how much money you make from AdSense. Because there's some types of channels out there that can only make money from AdSense, and therefore it looks like they're making more money. But I wouldn't be surprised if this channel is making just as much money as the ones that we talked about before. And that could come from sponsorships, affiliate marketing, or selling his own products and services. So, for instance, he has this website, canadianpreparedness.com. And on this website, he's selling all kinds of different prepper related stuff.
So, he's got an entire company that he's basically built off of this YouTube channel. And I'm sure he's making a ton of money from that company. I wouldn't be surprised if he's making millions and millions of dollars a year. Now, we've got this other channel that's pretty similar that's called City Prepping. And this channel is all about kind of the same stuff, but in cities instead of in general, I guess. And he's got videos like three rules to become a greyman. Not sure what a greyman is. And another video called How to Survive the First 90 Days After the Collapse.
So, these videos kind of look like how to survive a zombie apocalypse or something similar to that. The concept of the grey man can be boiled down to this. Now, according to view stats, he's making $4 to $11,000 a month. And that's just from AdSense alone, like I said. And his most popular video, the three rules to become a greyman got 5 million views and made $26,000. But again, that's not all he's doing to monetize. He's got city prepping.com where he's selling all kinds of good stuff on there for the prepping community. So yeah, another channel absolutely crushing it.
And to be honest, there's a bunch of different random niches when it comes to prepping and a bunch of different prepping channels on YouTube that are all making really good money. Now, if you want to know how to monetize correctly, again, attend the live training this week. Click that link in the description in the pen comment below. That's going to be one of the biggest things that we go over because we don't want you to have to have millions of views to make a full-time income. So, just as an example, you see this, you see 3 to 9K and you think, "Hey, this channel's making pretty good money." But what you don't see is on the back end how much they're making.
And so, just as an example, when you see this channel right here, Isaiah Harris, this is one of my clients. You see $68 to $24 if you have the Vid IQ extension, and you think he's definitely not making any money. when in reality, he actually made it to around $30,000 a month with his channel without having to get a lot of views. And that's because he's monetizing correctly. So even though he has a tiny channel, only $16,000 subs. I can verify that he made it up to around $30,000 a month. And I know that because he literally just did a video for our channel where he talked about it.
And he actually attended one of the last times that I did the same live training, which you can check out by clicking the link in the description in the pin comment below. and he was able to make it to over 20K per month just by listening to what I told him to do in the live training itself. Okay, so super valuable live training. Definitely check it out. Do not miss out on this. And Isaiah had an absolute takeoff standout video that got over 300,000 views about 4 months ago, which really blew up his channel. And his channel is all about singing for pros, right?
How to treat singing like a pro. Hey, my name's Isaiah Harris. I'm a vocal coach and my And it's kind of the same as my channel. My channel is all about treating YouTube like a pro. And I know that 99% of people who watch my videos are just going to enjoy them. They're going to attend my live training. They're going to get a lot of value out of that. And I love that. I'm going to give 10 times more value to my audience than I ever receive. And that's completely fine cuz 99% of people are never going to work with me and my team.
But there's 1% of you out there that really want to treat YouTube like a professional. You really want to give yourself the best chance of success. And more than that, get there faster and do it better, make more money. And if that is you, then go ahead and book a call with me in the description or the about section on my channel. So, basically, the only types of people that we work with, we turn away almost everybody who tries to work with us, but the only types of people we work with are business owners who want to get more leads and grow their brand on YouTube.
YouTubers who are getting views, but they're struggling to monetize. We help them do that. YouTubers who are already making a ton of money and crushing it on YouTube, but they want to make even more money and crush it even harder. Or people that want to treat YouTube like a professional. They want to treat YouTube like a business. and they're willing to start right now and they want to put in the work to get results on YouTube. So, if you're one of those types of people, go ahead, click that link in the description in the pin comment below to book a call.
We only accept about 18% of people who try to work with us, but go ahead and click that link and we'll see if we're a good fit to work together or not. All right, this next channel is one of my mom's favorites. She absolutely loves these tiny house channels, so shout out to mom. But this channel is living big in a tiny house and they make about $9 to $28,000 a month. And this is exactly what it sounds like. It's all about tiny houses. Of course, the person who owns the channel also has an awesome tiny house.
But the most viewed video on the channel is this ultra modern tiny house will blow your mind. That video got 51 million views and generated $250,000. Absolutely insane. Now, the channel as a whole has generated over $800 million views. And this is just from AdSense alone. I'm guessing they've probably made $5 to $10 million. And if they're monetizing correctly, they've probably made way more than that in other ways. So, yeah, there's a lot of other channels that have kind of this tiny house thing going on. I think this is one of the bigger ones, but a huge niche.
A lot of people are really into it and it can be a great way to make money. And finally, I'm going to go over a legendary channel called JCS Criminal Psychology. Used to be called Jim Can't Swim, which is kind of a weird name. I have no idea why they call it that, but this channel makes about $14 to $41,000 a month. And this is a legendary channel in the true crime niche. Now, this channel is not pure entertainment. To be completely honest with you, when it comes to pure entertainment in the true crime niche, I'm not sure how I feel about that because you're basically monetizing people's suffering.
But this is a very educational channel that actually teaches people about things, which I think is great. Now, the most viewed video on this channel is what pretending to be crazy looks like. This is 26-year-old Dawson McGee sitting. That video got 66 million views and made $331,000. Absolutely crazy. Totally legendary channel. It kind of goes back to the thing that I said, which is you can do entertainment, but I think you should try to make it educational. Educational channels are just they're easier to grow. They're easier to make money from. If you're just doing pure entertainment, you're basically competing with Mr.
Beast. And that is not a good place to be cuz Mr. Beast is a beast. He's really good at YouTube and you do not want to compete with him. So that's why I always tell people to throw in an element of education into their content because it pays more even just from AdSense. It's also easier to sell stuff. And it's also easier to differentiate yourself from purely entertainment channels. Now, by the way, check out the video I did interviewing Isaiah, who was able to grow on YouTube immediately, stop running Facebook ads cuz he hated sending money to Mark Zuckerberg, and grow his business completely on YouTube.
And you can check that video out by clicking right here.
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