Once the creator with the most subscribers on YouTube, Felix “PewDiePie” Kjellberg is internet royalty. With that sheer scale of audience comes a lot of monetization possibilities, and PewDiePie is well aware of that.
The Swedish YouTuber is sitting at 109 million subscribers on YouTube at the time of publication, and it wasn’t too long ago he was sitting atop the rest of the entire competition. Racking up millions of views with ease, ad rates alone helped him to amass a serious amount of wealth.
He may now own the fourth-most-subscribed channel, no longer occupying the throne, but over his years of creating content he’s been setting up new revenue streams to either bolster his income or secure himself outside of the platform.
Let’s take a look at PewDiePie’s net worth, as well as the exact revenue streams he’s devised — from clothing brands to creating his own games.
What is PewDiePie’s net worth?
PewDiePie’s net worth is widely speculated and estimated based on industry averages and reported figures from established publications. It’s reported that he made $15.5m in 2018 and $13m in 2019. A study claims that he makes almost $8m — $6.8m from merchandise and $1.1m in advertisement — per month.
The most common result you’ll find for his estimated net worth is $40m, though some claim as high as $70m.
How PewDiePie makes money
Content and brand deals
Let’s get the obvious one out of the way: advertisements in his video content. On YouTube, the average CPM — the amount of money paid per 1,000 views — is $2. This varies based on several factors, and Google keeps 45% of the revenue generated, so it can be hard to sustain yourself from this alone. Regardless, PewDiePie is a big draw for viewers and will easily earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per month this way.
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In addition to advertising revenue, he offers memberships to his channel that offer varying perks. £1.99, £4.99, and £6.99 tiers are all available as monthly fees, and in return members can receive exclusive access to loyalty badges, custom emojis, a community Discord, and live streams. Each month he gifts revenue from his streams to a variety of charity organizations, an example is a $133,169 donation to the Blue Cross Foundation for money generated in January 2021.
The third and final source of income PewDiePie generates directly from YouTube is an exclusive deal he signed with the Google-owned platform in May 2020. He previously held an exclusive deal with blockchain-fueled streaming site DLive. Financial details of the exclusive signing were not disclosed, but he can’t have been a cheap creator to lock down.
Another of his revenue streams is a standard one among content creators, and that’s brand deals. Sponsorships with the likes of Arkade, Mountain Dew, and Legendary Pictures pay him to advertise products (and even movies in some cases).
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Affiliate campaigns are common among brand deals and he has his fair share of links in his YouTube video descriptions that he earns a commission on. He has affiliate links for his chair, keyboard, mouse, and NordVPN. PewDiePie also has his own G FUEL flavor and collection of shakers, energy drinks, and powder tubs — he even earns a commission from this business partnership, too.
Apparel brands
PewDiePie has gone deep into the world of apparel, opting to go beyond the typical move on having a self-branded line of merchandise with a third-party platform. Don’t get us wrong, he does have his own merch line with Represent — he just has more in place.
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He owns a unisex line with his wife Marzia Kjellberg called Tsuki, a brand that “creates thoughtfully designed and ethically made products.” There are several lines under Tsuki, including a basic collection and one inspired by space programs.
In November 2020, PewDiePie also launched a brand that manufacturers and sells “high level, wearable offline gaming equipment.” Based currently offers caps, pullovers, trousers, hoodies, and t-shirts.
Other business ventures
As well as working alongside G FUEL, PewDiePie has several partnerships in place. He has his own collectible figure which is a self-proclaimed “monumental piece of history” in collaboration with Vidglo, a collection of phone cases designed alongside RhinoShield, and a collaborative merch collection with adventure sandbox game Terraria.
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In 2015, PewDiePie released his debut book. Described as a “book full of useless quotes” by one reader on Amazon, ‘This Book Love You’ is a parody of self-help books that he released with Penguin in October 2015. It became a New York Times Bestseller, and reportedly sold over 112,000 copies as of January 2017.
The YouTuber turned into a games designer per se in 2015 when he released his first video game with Canadian developers Outerminds. PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist was released on iOS and Android, and is currently priced at £4.99 on Apple’s app store.
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Since then, he has released three more games — PewDiePie’s Tuber Simulator, PewDiePie’s Pixelings, and Poopdie — and even consulted with Goat Simulator developer Armin Ibrisagic on his game Animal Super Squad. All three of the aforementioned games under his ownership offer in-app purchases, following the trend of game developers making hefty amounts on free titles through micro-transactions.
As has become evident, PewDiePie has been business-minded throughout his lengthy career in an attempt to create multiple revenue streams that operate independently from the turbulent world of content creation. We’ll be sure to keep this article updated as and when he expands into new areas of business.