With 400 million subscribers, American YouTuber Jimmy Donaldson, popularly known as MrBeast, is the highest-paid in the world. His YouTube channel, built on viral stunts and hair-raising challenge videos, has turned millions of views into a billion dollar media empire.
But this story isn’t about MrBeast.
It’s about why that level of success is far more complicated and nearly impossible for a Nigerian YouTuber.
Show me the Naira
In 2020, travel and lifestyle YouTuber Tayo Aina, according to a Fast Company article, admitted to making around $132 for a video that garnered over 1million views on his channel. That’s not a typo.
Aina’s $132 payout was “significantly less than a creator with a predominantly western audience would have received for the same performance metrics,” the article noted, pointing to the platform’s preference for western audiences over those from Africa. YouTube creators with a western audience would likely earn 10x of this amount, Aina disclosed, for similar performance metrics. The reason? Ad rates on YouTube are not created equal, and Nigerian creators are on the short end of the stick.
Even with these disparities, Nigeria still boasts a few high-performing YouTube channels leading the country’s local earnings chart.
In August 2024, Pastor Jerry Eze’s YouTube channel, was listed as Nigeria’s top-earning (earning ₦7 billion or $4.7 million from 2014 to 2024) YouTube channel, according to data sourced from Playboard (a YouTube analytics website) and reported by both Punch and Premium Times.
By March 2025, Pulse reported that Eze was racking up 7 million views daily, keeping him at the top of Nigeria’s YouTube earnings chart.
The figures make it easy to assume that more views mean more money for Nigerian YouTubers, but YouTube math does not work this way.
Views pay, depending on where the eyes are
The way YouTube pays is through CPM (cost per mille, or, simply put, cost per thousand views). “YouTube does not pay for subscribers or comments, only for views,” Nigerian YouTuber Omokha Sandra clarified in a 2024 YouTube video.
But not all CPMs are equal. Nigerian views don’t pay as much as western ones.
The reason is largely economic: advertisers in the US, UK, or Australia pay more to target viewers, which boosts the CPMs for YouTube creators in those markets. According to one YouTuber’s ranking, the US, Australia, and Norway are currently top on the list of highest CPMs by country.
Nigeria did not make the list.
Aina once put it bluntly: In Nigeria, CPM can be as low as $1 per 1,000 views while in the US, it can hit $10 for the same number of views. This means that a Nigerian creator living in Nigeria needs ten times more views than a US creator, or a Nigerian creator living in Europe or North America, to earn the same amount of money.
Numbers aren’t everything
According to Statista, Nigeria had 5.3 million YouTube users in 2021, and that number is projected to hit 12 million by the end of 2025. With a population of about 229.5 million people, that’s only 5.2% of the population. And while there’s still a long way to go in terms of internet penetration and content monetisation, but you can not ignore the fact that the low earnings on Nigerian YouTube channels are not a number-of-views problem.
A 2025 Business Day article reports that YouTube’s watch time in Nigeria has grown by over 50% in the last year, and that over 1.8 million Nigerians now watch YouTube via connected televisions.
This surge in viewership reflects a broader trend in the continent’s booming creator economy.
The African Creator Economy valued at $5.10 billion in 2025, is projected to reach $29.84 billion by 2032. In Nigeria alone, the sector is worth over $33 million. This further proves that the audience exists and is still expanding.
This expansion might account for the fact that in 2024 alone, the number of Nigerian YouTube channels earning between ₦10 million and ₦100 million ($6,700 to $66,000) doubled.
So, how do Nigerian YouTubers earn and compete with some 113.9 million other YouTube channels that exist worldwide?
How does a Nigerian YouTuber make money?
YouTube monetisation works the same in Nigeria as elsewhere, at least in theory. To earn from the YouTube Partner Program which allows creators to monetise their content, you need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in a 12 month period (or 10 million YouTube Shorts views in 90 days).
From there, YouTubers (whether or not they are part of the partner program) get paid through the AdSense program which allows creators to earn revenue from ads displayed on their videos. This program is straightforward: Link your channel to an AdSense account and begin earning a share of ad revenue generated by each content.
Beyond ad revenue, a Nigerian YouTuber has access to other monetisation streams such as channel memberships (though this requires 30,000 subscribers in Nigeria, vs. lower thresholds elsewhere), Super Chats (allows viewers to pay to pin a comment on live streams. This accounts for the bulk of Eze’s earnings), and YouTube Premium revenue (creators earn a share of the revenue from YouTube Premium subscribers who watch their videos). Earnings also come from affiliate marketing and brand sponsorships or deals, both of which allow creators to earn directly from brands.
These YouTube earning options do not come without their challenges. More often than not, payment infrastructure in Nigeria makes it difficult to receive earnings in dollars, access fan donations, or set up merchandise stores. In contrast, western creators enjoy seamless payouts, direct integration with banks, and a broader pool of sponsors with deeper pockets.
Beyond YouTube: The hustle is diversified
Because AdSense earnings alone aren’t enough, Nigerian YouTubers diversify. Some build content for the diaspora to tap higher CPMs in countries like the US, UK, and Canada, where advertisers pay more to reach audiences. Others land brand deals, mostly with local businesses or startups.
YouTube is trying to help. Its Made for You program, launched in parts of Africa, offers training on content strategy and monetisation. Yet, the Nigerian ecosystem is far less mature than in Europe or North America.
Here’s a good example. While YouTube ad reach in Nigeria sits at just 11.5% of the population, the platform has far deeper penetration in the UK. As of 2024, 79% of the UK population (54.8 million people) used YouTube. Ofcom also reported that YouTube was the most-used social platform among UK adults, with 94% (44.5 million) accessing it via smartphones, tablets, or computers in May 2024.
This contrast highlights both the revenue potential for creators in more saturated markets and the untapped growth in Nigeria.
Can a Nigerian YouTuber be the next MrBeast?
Back to our begining question.
In theory, yes. Nigeria has the population, talent, and growing digital infrastructure. But in practice, it’s not solely about creativity or hustle; it is about where your viewers are and what their views are worth.
*Exchange rate used is $1 to ₦1,500
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