MrBeast AKA Jimmy Donaldson has racked up 73.6 million YouTube subscribers after posting what can only be described as enormously charitable efforts — but many are wondering how can Mr Beast afford to give hundreds of thousands of dollars on a regular basis?
It’s not every day that you see someone giving away over $100,000, and it’s even less common for a 22-year-old to buy five stores and give away everything they have. MrBeast, on the other hand, is the one who is leading the way in viral philanthropy through such stunts.
Mr Beast made a name for himself by performing increasingly bizarre acts of kindness, whether it’s giving away a $100,000 diamond, making someone the proud owner of a $800,000 island, or breaking into a house just to leave $50,000. This comes at a personal cost, as he has foregone millions of dollars in order to become one of the most popular and well-known faces on the internet.
Given this, many are asking how much money MrBeast has, and how does he even have enough money to feed his family and himself? He has a few revenue streams that all help him not only to survive but also to continue his unwavering growth on the internet, and we’ll look at each of them here.
The first is MrBeast’s Viral Content, in which he needs to make a lot of money to keep making videos, and his original channel attracts new viewers and serves as a loss leader — it’s effectively a marketing spend. He’s set up other revenue streams to make this possible, with one overarching goal in mind, which we’ll discuss later in the article.
MrBeast’s most obvious source of income, as with any YouTuber who is a part of the platform’s partner program, is AdSense. On his content, he receives a cut from display, overlay, and video advertisements. This is determined by the number of views a video receives as well as the CPM rate, which is how much money YouTube pays him per thousand views. He gets a cut of the revenue generated by these ads on Google’s video platform.
Brand deals are another popular way to make money from YouTube videos. Companies of all sizes flock to relevant content to promote themselves, but if they want maximum impact, they should target MrBeast, who almost always receives over 30 million views on a video. His content is designed to catch people’s attention, and in a world where attention is everything, he’s the gold standard.
MrBeast was hired by Honey, a discount browser extension, to create a pre-roll advertisement for them, with the instantly recognizable YouTuber appearing before videos begin to explain why viewers should try the extension. We don’t know the details of this deal, but given that he’s trying to make as much money as possible, the chances of him doing it for free are slim.
He also has a set of income-generating YouTube channels that he uses to support himself while his main channel is losing money such as MrBeast Gaming, MrBeast Shorts, Beast Reacts, MrBeast 2, and Beast Philanthropy which are all created to allow his MrBeast channel to act as a loss leader, allowing him to get the most attention possible.
Twitch rounds out the video-related revenue sources. While he isn’t particularly active on the live streaming platform, when he does decide to go live, he attracts a sizable audience. He can monetize these viewers by running advertisements during a stream, and many of them will choose to subscribe and donate.
What good is a content creator if they don’t have anything to sell? MrBeast has a bespoke clothing line that includes everything from standard ‘Beast’ clothing to gaming-specific designs. For his MrBeast Burger venture, he even launched a clothing line.
He gave away $100 with every order placed at the first location he opened when he launched a burger chain across the United States. When the service became more widely available, he created a limited menu with a delivery-only option. It was a success, and his achievement in the world of YouTube creators, investing in new revenue streams, will undoubtedly inspire others to try something new.
An exclusive membership club could be next for MrBeast and his fans. A membership scheme typically provides exclusive perks such as additional content, behind-the-scenes insights, and early access to merchandise, as seen with Team Liquid, Envy, and Cloud9 in esports in recent months.
According to MrBeast, his secondary Twitter account would charge $10 a month for his fans to gain access to exclusive content such as “occasional random videos.” and “podcast” 100% of the money he would make from the hypothetical club would go toward his videos, advancing his mission.
For better or worse, there isn’t a precise figure we can point to when it comes to the YouTuber’s fortune. MrBeast’s net worth could be as high as $16 million, according to one website dedicated to celebrity net worths, while another estimates it to be around $8 million. Regardless of the disparity in these sums, one thing is certain: he is a multi-millionaire.
Now that we’ve established that MrBeast makes and gives away a fortune, it’s time to try to understand why he’s chosen this extreme genre of content, which comes at such an astronomical price. Spoiler alert: it’s all for show.
Mr Beast is a truly a true philanthropist, with a long-term goal of maximizing his earnings and then giving it all away. According to him, he wants to open “hundreds of homeless shelters” and “food banks” as vehicles for transferring his wealth, according to a tweet from August 2020. While he loses a lot of money on his main channel because of the stunts he pulls, he’s able to command more and more money from advertisers who want to reach his ever-growing audience.