Can You Monetize Meditation Music YouTube Channel in 2022
Easy money — right?
There are so many people all over social media giving you these amazing tips about starting a meditation music YouTube channel. Make millions of dollars. You don’t have to show your face, and it’s practically passive income.
Like these kinds of numbers:
These numbers refer to what you COULD be paid via YouTube’s partner program (YouTube ads).
In this article, I’ll go over one of many the layers to the faceless meditation channel side hustles — Monetization.
Can you monetize a meditation/relaxation YouTube channel now in 2021?
I’m specifically looking at getting monetized if you were to create your channel and videos following the exact (easy) steps you were told in any of the hundreds of videos you come across on TikTok, YouTube, and elsewhere on social media.
That is:
1. Create your YouTube channel
2. Find royalty-free music or rain sounds e.g. from the YouTube library, and use that as the audio for your video.
3. Go to pexels.com and download nature or ambient type video clips.
4. Make your 1st video, loop the sound and the video for 1-8 hours.
5. Upload and publish on YouTube.
6. Repeat steps 2 – 5.
The TLDR answer to the question following the steps above is NO.
Denied. Denied. Denied.
YouTube may not give you the green light to monetize your channel. And even if you do squeak in, you may face demonetization quickly as the YouTube algorithm and reviewers catch on.
Why you may NOT be able to monetize your channel
1. Repetitious Content
YouTube channel monetization policies specify repetitious content as one of the reasons YouTube may stop your channel from getting monetized, AND if you already have a monetized channel, it can get the whole channel demonetized. Ouch.
This includes repetitive content on YOUR channel and BETWEEN many channels.
If you use the same audio and video clips as thousands of others, yes thousands, your videos are practically almost identical to hundreds or thousands of other channels.
Here’s an example of audio downloads from a popular free website.
These screenshots are from just ONE popular royalty-free audio website (called Freesound).
Do you see how many people have downloaded these files?
8848, 8488, and 15777!
A lot of people appear to be following the same ‘advice’ for a meditation music channel.
If that’s not enough:
If you use similar audio and video clips on ALL of your videos, your channel content is basically the same across the board.
❌ Repetitious Content channels can and will get demonetized
This is from YouTube’s Adsense Policies:
“When a channel’s content consists of similar content, it can frustrate viewers who come to YouTube for appealing and interesting videos. That means channels where content is only slightly different from video to video are not allowed to monetize. In other words, your channel shouldn’t consist of content that’s automatically created or produced using a basic template.”
YouTube also gives examples of what is not allowed to monetize:
“Similar repetitive content, or mindless content with low educational value, commentary, or narrative
Image slideshows or scrolling text with minimal or no narrative, commentary, or educational value.”
2. Reused Content
The second big issue why your channel may not be able to get monetized is reused content.
YouTube specifies reused content as using somebody else’s content without really adding any value to it.
“Reused content refers to channels that repurpose someone else’s content without adding significant original commentary or educational value.”
And here’s the thing.
We are not talking about just one video. The policy applies to your whole channel — all of it.
YouTube can remove monetization from your channel completely.
If you use the same copyright-free video clips and the same royalty-free audio as thousands of others, your channel and its meditation videos will fall under this category.
This means that your meditation music channel will not get monetized.
Royalty-Free does not automatically mean or guarantee that you are eligible to monetize your channel.
Here’s more from a Reddit thread:
DonSasha answers that they tried a few years ago.
Today, it’s even more difficult (and it didn’t work then).
He continues to say that he was denied three times. You can find the thread here if you are interested.
There are other issues why you may not make any money from a meditation music YouTube channel; this is just an issue with this ‘make millions with a faceless YouTube channel without having to put in a lot of work.’
The bottom line.
Creating a YouTube channel and the videos required to even be considered for monetization involves A LOT of work and know-how. For starters, you need 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time to be even considered for monetization. After all that effort and hope for payment from YouTube, which by the way, will be a few dollars, is it worth it to you to only find out that the channel is not eligible for monetization?
Alie | The Moneymakr