Forbes listed out the top-earning YouTube stars of 2020, with estimated total earnings of over $200 million from June 1, 2019 to June 1, 2020. Nine-year-old Ryan Kaji, YouTube sensation from the United States, tops the list with an estimated earning of $29.5 million.
Here are the list of the highest-paid YouTubers of 2020 according to Forbes.
#10 | Jeffree Star
Earnings: $15 million | Total Subscribers: 16.9 million
Total Views (from June 2019 to June 2020): 600 million
Jeffrey Lynn Steininger Jr., known professionally as Jeffree Star, is an American entrepreneur, makeup artist, YouTuber, singer, and the founder and owner of Jeffree Star Cosmetics. In 2009, Star released his first and only studio album, Beauty Killer, which included songs such as “Lollipop Luxury” featuring Nicki Minaj. In November 2014, he founded the company Jeffree Star Cosmetics. In 2018, Star earned $18 million from his YouTube endeavors alone, according to Forbes, making him the fifth-highest-paid YouTube star as of December 2018
#9 | David Dobrik
Earnings: $15.5 million
Views: 2.7 billion | Subscribers: 18.6 million
David Julian Dobrik (born July 23, 1996) is a Slovak YouTube personality. He found early success on the video-sharing platform Vine, before starting his vlog on his YouTube channel in 2015. Dobrik is known for being the leader of the popular YouTube ensemble The Vlog Squad, which features prominently in his vlogs and comprises rotating selections of his friend group. As of September 2020, Dobrik’s vlog channel had accumulated 18 million subscribers and 7.7 billion views. The channel was the fifth-most viewed creator channel on YouTube in 2019, with 2.4 billion views that year. In March 2020, he was called “Gen Z’s Jimmy Fallon” by The Wall Street Journal.
#8 | Blippi (Stevin John)
Earnings: $17 million
Views: 8.2 billion | Subscribers: 10.7 million
Stevin John (born May 27, 1988, as Stephen J. Grossman), better known by his alias Blippi, is an American children’s entertainer and educator on YouTube, Hulu, and Amazon Video. The Blippi character which John portrays has a childlike, energetic, and curious persona and is always dressed in a blue and orange beanie cap, blue shirt, orange suspenders, and a bow tie. John was formerly a gross-out comedian known as Steezy Grossman.
#7 | Nastya (Anastasia Radzinskaya)
Earnings: $18.5 million
Views: 39 billion | Subscribers: 65.8 million
The six-year-old Russian YouTuber goes by “Nastya” on her channel, which features her and her father playing with legos, doing household chores, and explaining viruses. The videos are colorful, expressive, and don’t feature much-advanced language, making them perfect for her global audience of tots. Since her debut on the list last year, Nastya has branched out: She’s become a popular kid on TikTok with 3 million followers and will launch her licensing program next year.
#6 | Preston Arsement
Earnings: $19 million
Views: 3.3 billion | Subscribers: 15.4 million
The pixelated world of Minecraft continues to be a goldmine for Arsement, 26. He rose to YouTube stardom off his videos exploring the animated cosmos and has since branched out to several other gaming-focused YouTube channels. On one, he plays Roblox. Another is called TBNRFrags—the acronym standing for “the best never rest,” the last word gaming slang for slaying an opponent. TBNRFrags features his exploits on the violence-filled military shooter Call of Duty. Arsement operates several lucrative Minecraft servers, where users pay to access Minecraft worlds he’s created and for in-game items; he runs another YouTube channel, PrestonCosmic, devoted to his time playing on his servers.
#5 | Markiplier (Mark Fischbach)
Earnings: $19.5 million
Views: 14.6 billion | Subscribers: 27.8 million
Mark Edward Fischbach (born June 28, 1989), known online as Markiplier (formerly as markiplierGAME), is an American YouTuber, gamer-commentator, actor, and comedian. Originally from Honolulu, Hawaii, he began his career in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is currently based in Los Angeles, California. He is also the co-founder of clothing company Cloak, along with fellow YouTuber Jacksepticeye.
As of December 2020, his channel has over 14.6 billion total video views and over 27.8 million subscribers
#4 | Rhett and Link (Good Mythical Morning)
Earnings: $20 million
Views: 1.9 billion | Subscribers: 16.8 million
Good Mythical Morning (abbreviated as GMM) is an American comedy, talk and variety YouTube series created by Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal. The show first aired on YouTube on January 9, 2012, and continues to be uploaded every weekday. As of November 2020, the show has eighteen regular seasons and four summer seasons, one being part of season 11 and three being standalone seasons. The YouTube channel has over 16.8 million subscribers and more than 6.8 billion total video views.
The show has featured many celebrities and Internet personalities, including Daniel Radcliffe, Felix Kjellberg, Hank Green, Kobe Bryant, Joseph Garrett, Gus Johnson, Megan Fox, Coyote Peterson, Kevin Smith and Linkin Park.
#3 | Dude Perfect
Earnings: $23 million
Views: 2.77 billion | Subscribers: 54.5 million
Dude Perfect (DP) is an American sports and comedy group headquartered in Frisco, Texas, United States. The group consists of twins Cory and Coby Cotton, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones, and Tyler “Ty” Toney, all of whom are former college roommates at Texas A&M University. The channel is the second most-subscribed sports channel on YouTube, and the thirteenth most-subscribed channel overall.
Content created by Dude Perfect predominantly consists of videos depicting various trick shots and stunts. The group also regularly uploads videos of “battles,” in which the individual members of Dude Perfect compete against one another in a good-natured game or contest, incorporating different sports and a unique set of rules. They also do Overtime, which is a series where the dudes have a bunch of segments, which includes Wheel Unfortunate, Cool not Cool, Betcha, Mail Time, Game Time, Taste Test, and Bloops.
#2 | Mr. Beast (Jimmy Donaldson)
Earnings: $24 million
Views: 3 billion | Subscribers: 48.2 million
Jimmy Donaldson (born May 7, 1998), more commonly known by his online alias MrBeast, is an American YouTuber notable for his expensive stunts and philanthropy. He has been credited with pioneering a genre of YouTube videos that center on expensive stunts. He is also the co-creator of Team Trees, a fundraiser for the Arbor Day Foundation, which has raised over $22 million
#1 | Ryan Kaji
Earnings: $29.5 million
Views: 12.2 billion | Subscribers: 27.6 million
Ryan’s World (formerly Ryan ToysReview) is a children’s YouTube channel featuring Ryan Kaji, who is nine years old as of June 2020, along with his mother (Loann Kaji), father (Shion Kaji), and twin sisters (Emma and Kate).
The channel usually releases a new video every day. One of the channel’s videos, titled as Huge Eggs Surprise Toys Challenge has over 2.0 billion views as of November 2020, making it one of the 60 most-viewed videos on YouTube. As of November 2020, the channel has over 27 million subscribers, and its videos have garnered over 43 billion views. The channel is one of the Top 100 most-subscribed YouTube channels in the United States.
The Verge has described the channel as “a mash-up of personal vlog and ‘unboxing’ video, a blend of innocent childhood antics and relentless, often overwhelming consumerism.” According to Forbes, Kaji earned $11 million between 2016 and 2017 and was the eighth highest-paid YouTuber; and in 2018 and 2019, was listed as the highest-paid YouTuber, earning $22 million and $26 million respectively from his videos and product line.
METHODOLOGY: All earnings estimates are from June 1, 2019, through June 1, 2020. Figures are pretax; fees for agents, managers and lawyers are not deducted. Earnings estimates are based on data from Captiv8, SocialBlade and Pollstar as well as interviews with industry insiders.
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