PSY’s Gangnum Style YouTube Video Earns $1.65 Million In Ad Revenue

PSY’s Gangnum Style YouTube video has not just accumulated 812,794,421 views (as of this writing), but lost in the news that the music video has surpassed Justin Bieber’s “Baby” for YouTube’s most watched video is the fact that, along the way, it’s gained revenue from the ads placed on it. In fact, by this blogger’s estimate based on experience as a YouTube Partner, PSY’s earned almost $2 million in Google AdSense revenue since it was first posted on July 15th.

That estimate is based on a common, known rule of thumb that a video which gains 1,000,000 YouTube video views will pull in about $2,000 in Google AdSense revenue. Now that doesn’t happen every time the video plays. For example, the TRX / YouTube ad video is paid for by YouTube, and not by the fitness equipment company (they got the deal because YouTube execs liked the videos TRX was making on the video sharing channel). But those “freebies” are not common – the rule is that the ads gain revenue that’s shared with PSY.

And on that basis, since about 68 percent of the revenue is shared with the video maker, Google / YouTube keeps another $520,188 above what PSY gets, which is actually $1,625,588 as of this writing. That is about $406,397 per month, or about $101,599 a week, or $14,514 per day, or $604.76 per hour.

But before you compare that to the cost of a high-priced lawyer, keep in mind that what PSY makes is called “passive income” – it’s money he earns while he literally sits passively, if he choses to do so. He can eat, sleep, drink, pray, whatever, and meanwhile the money meter’s running.

Not bad.

The fact is, YouTubers are not supposed to share what they actually make in the video creation business as a YouTube Partner, but it’s OK to provide a rule of thumb that gives some idea of what a partner potentially makes. The estimates don’t take into account sponsorships, as well as other ad sales factors present in the Google AdSense system, that may be involved with a video, and can send the total revenue to over 100 percent higher than the estimate presented here.

But the bottom line is that PSY – if he wasn’t one before – is now a millionaire strictly from this one video. And the best news for him is the video view counting is not over, which means the revenue gains are not ending anytime soon. It also means that along with PSY’s YouTube video view record, he’s making an earnings record too.

So, for those who didn’t know one could make money from posting YouTube videos, it’s time to wake up. There aren’t over two million YouTube Partners for nothing.

Stay tuned.