What it costs to get 1 million subscribers on Youtube (we analyzed 1.859.291 channels)

In our third data study we wanted to gather precise data to understand what it takes to grow from 0 to 1 million subscribers on YouTube. Check out our previous 10K study and 100k study to compare statistics.

Out of the total amount of channels we analyzed, we extracted 637 channels worldwide who recently reached 1 million subscribers, the following numbers are based on this data sample.

Here are our findings:

• On average, it takes 2750 days to reach 1 million subscribers, that's 7.5 years. It's interesting to compare that to the average time it takes to get to 10K subscribers or 100K subscribers because these number are quiet close (10k takes 2123 days, 100K takes 2286 days - on average). It shows that how you work to grow a channel makes all the difference.
• On average YouTubers needed to produce 1231 videos to reach 1 million subscribers. That's about one video every 2.2 days

Let's look at the present study in detail, from 0 to 1 million subscribers on YouTube.

How many days to reach 1 million subscribers?

We know it takes important amounts of work to grow a succesfull channel, but how much work exactly ?

On average, it takes 2750 days to reach 1 million subscribers ; the median is 2562 days. Let’s look at the graph in detail:

Note : on the horizontal axis, the number of days needed to reach 1 million subscribers

Some performance metrics :

• top 5% best performers : 760 days
• top 25% best performers : 1856 days
• 50% : 2562 days
• and lowest 25% : 3643 days

It's very interesting to compare results : it takes 433 days on average to reach 10K subscribers ; if we compare this to how much it takes to reach 1M it's about the double. The effort is 2x long, but the return over investement is just about 100x. That indicates that the way to work to produce 1M subscribers is very different than the way to work to get to 10K subscribers.

Interestingly, we found 9 channels that managed to reach 1M subscribers under 500 days, that's 1.4% of our sample. Keep in mind that this is not a global representation of all YouTube channels that reached 1M, as we were looking only at 637 channels that recently reached 1M subscribers. Globally more channels managed to reach that number under 500 days, that beeing said, we take the percentage as a reference.

Here's the data sample of the top 9 channels, in all languages (some channel names shorted for readability):

channelId	channelTitle	subscriberCount	Country	delta_date	videoCount
389	UCGMl5BwvpzTVXJJFzLHdqsA	FAST OMG	1010000	IN	206	279
431	UC8lPjTzRiG37n1Q2kpz3Rfg	Disney+ Hotstar 1010000	IN	374	1217
509	UC2B9yH5OZO65zm3PcdnCWKw	Respect Master	1010000	None	194	147
565	UCrI4iNMPZ2vT_G-TqRO6yrw	VTV Thể Thao	1010000	VN	304	1446
611	UCAxrbrvlrDF0qF6oTXkIZQg	Qué Perro Hilo!	1010000	MX	235	138
3	UCOaQsQIByJYHyETtw48l_Vw	Free Fire 	1000000	BR	450	327
287	UC4FfvCwtzJk1v71Wp_1utWw	dogsbylogan	1000000	None	386	258
340	UCnfqVnnIFzBrOVDvep6K2Ow	Thraaz facts	1000000	IN	497	250
350	UCa8DgBmCnnamAeI1v6pqBdg	SEVER	1000000	KZ	356	19

How many videos to reach 1 million subscribers?

On average YouTubers needed to produce 1231 videos to reach 1 million subscribers. That’s about one video every 2.2 days if we divide the amount of days on average it takes to reach 1M subscribers.

Note : on the horizontal axis, the amount of videos published to reach 1M subscribers

Than we looked at how many channels managed to reach 1M subscribers under 50 videos. We found only 25, that's 3.92% of the sample.

Here’s are the channels:

channelId	channelTitle	subscriberCount	Country	delta_date	videoCount
705	UCa0YfMRjgEMnCX1zk3QtNvg	Cowbelly	1010000	US	2590	24
413	UCHcgFneOU0qvJZB_Sh8wgFw	Daughter	1010000	GB	4402	28
693	UCJdvJWfd-ef1KuPcpCDpCew	TSC Shorts	1010000	None	847	48
684	UCgyqXAXNnNzxj8f76R5iAFQ	Jimena Reno	1010000	US	2425	25
636	UC3109t0t4n1cVN44udm-yrA	CHD Channel	1010000	VN	2053	20
631	UCh7kXF6HwKgX--ByiWfN7-w	SalmanXavier	1010000	AU	3644	39
602	UC0UK9eo_m6v4DDGXQKQf5Ww	ANDREI PETROV	1010000	RU	2863	21
549	UCvzPPaitFkyuJIrDv1NUBVw	Satisfying Places	1010000	US	2481	39
533	UCHxeeTDB9VnEUnJri374Yfg	DANYA POD	1010000	BY	606	43
485	UCE4lvosTdnjQVPVNx-Bmq9Q	Orange Shell	1010000	None	2759	43
452	UChPT9RrQ7WriA5Xmkw2wfhg	Prime Action Movies	1010000	IN	2542	9
445	UCJNR5MAFL1Kd4HZrukx0UbA	Kendra Motion Pictures	1010000	NP	2377	46
40	UCdpOfl7dZTTcClJxcZ5F-hA	shayne ward Official	1000000	None	5660	45
148	UCA66vNjkHxsrsg_c24tPCMA	Savage Rechords	1000000	IN	1917	19
341	UCs8iRmQ3BwmimaLzyiC0ZAQ	KeepVilla	1000000	IN	640	26
336	UCMCYt757guFpN5vrhJzfJ8w	Jysl Sunny	1000000	IN	526	17
333	UChky9YtjBIMeCxUKppluISA	CroesBros	1000000	None	2346	31
329	UC4_UmiOIjwmxArd6UobpRIg	Kristina&Arina	1000000	TH	1165	29
296	UCVXxPtzDFf9cRgWeSFJoPAg	BoBoBerry -	1000000	US	2257	12
268	UC0yUR_jRemyO8X88CkURfLA	Crbecker	1000000	MX	1178	20

Here are some other statistics about the amount of videos needed :

• under 100 videos : 70 channels, about 10% of the sample
• under 200 videos : 138 channels, about 21% of the sample
• under 500 videos : 316 channels, about 49% of the sample

Here we have the same effect as we had on the study for 10K, or 100K subscribers is that the long trail drives the statistics down. In reality about 50% of the channels manage to reach 1M subscribers under 500 videos, but the average amount of videos to reach 1M is much higher. This is caused by a group of channels that need to produce a very high amount of videos to reach 1M.

Conclusion

What do you think of this data ? We were surprized by the difference in time reaching 10K subscribers, 100K subscribers and 1M subscribers on average. If you are looking to accelerate your growth, take a look at our keywords tool to help you find high growth keywords for YouTube. Tell us your thoughts, and what kind of other types of data studies you would like to see next !