Top 20 Richest YouTubers in The World Right Now

YouTube has long evolved from a mere video-sharing platform to a place for serious money-making business. Forbes opened our eyes to how much YouTube vloggers earn when they published their debut list of the world’s richest YouTubers in 2015. Since then, we’ve seen the rise and fall of the earnings of these stars, however, a handful of them have remained consistent like American makeup artist Jeffre Star, who is one of the world’s richest YouTubers.

Considering how the earnings of these YouTubers fluctuate (due to many factors), it is quite difficult to tell exactly how much each of them is worth. A lot of these YouTubers have also gone ahead to surge their earnings via merchandise sales, sponsorship deals with top brands, touring, and even acting. Without further ado, here are the richest YouTubers in the world right now.

1. Jeffrey Lynn Steininger Jr. (aka Jeffree Star)

  • YouTube Channel: jeffreestar
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 16.2 million
  • The Total Number of Views: over 2.5 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $15 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $200 million

Jeffree Star is a makeup artist, entrepreneur, and former singer-songwriter who took advantage of his successful YouTube career to establish his cosmetics line known as Jeffree Star Cosmetics. According to Star, his love for makeup began right from when he was a child. At that time, he would experiment with his mom’s makeup and convince her to allow him to wear it to school when he was a junior high school student. Upon his graduation from high school in 2002, he moved to Los Angeles, and there, he took care of himself by taking on different jobs that had to do with music, makeup, and modeling.

Jeffree eventually began his music career in 2007 and in 2009, he released his first and only studio album titled Beauty Killer. Everything seemed to be going well with his music career until 2010 when he unceremoniously abandoned that career path not too long after he signed to Konvict Muzik. As revealed by Star in a docuseries by Shane Dawson, the death of his music career left him with nothing in his bank account as he had used what was left of his savings to establish his makeup brand, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, in 2014.

To promote the brand, he took advantage of YouTube where he published videos about his products. Meanwhile, before then, the 38-year-old had already created his YouTube channel, jeffreestar, on 14, 2006, posting his first video, which was to promote his music career, in 2009. Because he was already popular on several websites, one of which was MySpace where he was a superstar and had a huge fan base, Star was able to grow his channel quickly. Thanks to his hard work and consistency, Jeffree Star Cosmetics now rakes in an estimated $100 million per year. He also makes millions of dollars from his YouTube endeavors as a 2018 report by Forbes disclosed that he made $18 million that year, putting him on the 5th spot among the highest-paid YouTubers that year.

2. Ryan Kaji

  • YouTube Channel: Ryan’s World
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 31 million
  • The Total Number of Views: over 48.6 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $29.5 Million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $50 Million
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Ryan’s world is a YouTube channel for kids between the ages of 2 to 6 years. Initially known as Ryan ToysReview, the channel features a 13-year-old boy named Ryan Kaji, his mother Loann Kaji, his father Shion Kaji, and sisters Emma and Kate. Kaji’s YouTube journey started after he watched other channels where toys are reviewed and asked his mother why he was not on YouTube when all the other kids were there. He eventually joined the platform on March 17, 2015, and started making videos.

Being fully in support of her son, Kaji’s mother, who was a high school chemistry teacher, quit her job in order to work on the channel full-time. Meanwhile, prior to going live on YouTube, Kaji’s family dropped their actual surname, Guan, and adopted the on-screen surname Kaji. The family publishes a new video on Ryan’s world every day and among the channel’s videos, the one titled Huge Eggs Surprise Toys Challenge is the most viewed. It has garnered more than 2.53 billion views as of November 2021, giving it a spot among the 60 most-viewed YouTube videos. The channel is also among the 10 most-subscribed YouTube channels in America.

Ryan’s review of toys has influenced the toy industry as his videos cause an increase in the purchase of toys. Apart from his YouTube channel, the young man also makes most of his money from merchandising (he has a line of branded clothing and toys also known as Ryan’s World) and sponsored videos. The child influencer also signed a deal for his own television series on Nickelodeon in 2020.

As revealed by Forbes, the Texan-born Kaji made $11 million from his YouTube channel between 2016 and 2017 and took the eighth spot among the highest-paid YouTubers within the period. He is also listed as the highest-paid YouTuber in 2018 and 2019 with an earning of $22 million and $26 million respectively raked in from not only his videos but also his line of products. A December 2020 report by The Guardian also revealed that the young boy made $29.5m from his channel that year and an estimated $200m from Ryan’s World branded toys and clothing.

3. Felix Kjellberg

  • YouTube Channel: PewDiePie
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 110 million
  • The Total Number of Views: Over 28 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: Unknown
  • Estimated Net Worth: $40 Million

Swedish national, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, known by most people online as PewDiePie, became famous as a YouTuber for his Let’s Play videos as well as his comic formatted videos and shows. The 34-year-old got his YouTube channel registered on the 29th of April 2010 and basically uploaded Let’s Play videos of action and horror videos games. Being one of the first set of gaming channels at the time, it was no surprise that PewDiePiE grew substantially in popularity in the years ahead. It grew so fast that it was even counted among the fastest-growing channels in 2012 and 2013.

It also went further to become the most-subscribed YouTube channel on the 15th of August 2013. Despite the huge popularity which his Let’s Play videos earned his channel, Kjellberg felt the need to delve into producing other kinds of content such as vlogs, music videos, comedy shorts, and formatted shows. From 2015 to 2018, his content moved away from the Let’s Play videos that he was primarily known for and as a result, he was trailed by a lot of media controversies.

In 2019, Kjellberg’s channel, PewDiePie, lost its “most-subscribed Youtube channel” title to an Indian record label known as T-Series following a public competition between the two channels. That notwithstanding, his channel is still one of the most subscribed YouTube channels and the most-subscribed channel run by an individual. Due to Kjellberg’s fame on YouTube, coupled with his immense media coverage, he has become one of the most remarkable online personalities and content creators. In 2016, he was named on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

4. Mark Fischbach

  • YouTube Channel: Markiplier
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 30.3 million
  • The Total Number of Views: over 16.8 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $19.5 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $35 million

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Game freak Mark Edward Fischbach joined YouTube on the 6th of March 2012 with the creation of his channel, “Markiplier”, and uploaded his first video almost a month later. He kicked off with sketch comedy where he would portray every character in all the sketches. This was how the name “Markiplier”, a blend of Mark and multiplier, came to be. After he played several video game series, including Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Penumbra, and Dead Space, Fischbach’s AdSense account was banned by YouTube and as a result, he created another channel named markiplierGAME on May 26, 2012. Two years after he created his second YouTube channel (in 2014), it made it to the 61st spot on NewMediaRockstars list of top 100 channels.

Also in the same year, he announced his intention of moving from Cincinnati, Ohio, to Los Angeles, California, in order to be closer to other content creators, YouTube Space, and other resources he needed for his channel to grow. Following this move, he shifted from sketch comedy to Let’s Play videos, frequently of survival horror video games. In August 2014, he started his Five Nights at Freddy’s playthrough which turned out to be his most popular playthrough till today. Thanks to the huge success the series enjoyed, Mark went ahead to play other games in the FNAF franchise. The following year, he was assigned the 6th position in a list of 20 most influential celebrities among U.S teenagers.

In collaboration with fellow YouTuber Ethan Nestor (aka CrankGameplays), Mark launched a new channel known as Unus Annus on November 15, 2019. On the channel, they posted one video each day for one year after which both the channel and the videos were deleted. Within its first five days, the channel gained 1 million subscribers, and just a few minutes before it was deleted on November 14, 2020, at 12:00 a.m. PST, it had garnered 4.56 million subscribers.

In addition to his YouTube career, Mark also co-founded a clothing company known as Cloak with Jacksepticeye, who is also a YouTuber.

5. Daniel Middleton

  • YouTube Channel: DanTDM
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 25.7 million
  • The Total Number of Views: over 18.4 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: Unknown
  • Estimated Net Worth: $35 Million

All hail the king – Daniel Robert Middleton, the brain behind DanTDM. He began his YouTube journey in 2012 with the creation of his gaming channel called TheDiamondMinecart. Daniel eventually changed the name of his channel two more times, first to “TheDiamondMinecart // DanTDM” and most recently to “DanTDM”, on the 12th of December 2016. The channel originally had its focus primarily on the popular game Minecraft, but subsequently included the playing of reaction videos, community Discord challenges, and random video games such as Roblox and Pokémon. Not ready to stop there, Middleton launched DanTDM Shorts, a channel solely meant for Minecraft videos below five minutes, on March 24, 2021.

The English YouTuber produces content that is basically for children and currently, he makes his videos in his home studio in Wellingborough. Thanks to the massive popularity of his channel, it has been named as one of U.K’S top YouTube channels while Daniel was also listed among the world’s most popular YouTubers by viewership in July 2015. In April 2015, Daniel inked his name in the Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition with the title for “most views for a dedicated Minecraft video channel.” That aside, he has also set a Guinness World Record for “most goals scored in a game of Rocket League for a team of 2” and “most goals scored in a game of Rocket League for a team of 3”. Additionally, he has several Kids’ Choice Awards as proof of his hard work and online fame.

In the year 2017, Daniel Middleton made his way to the top of the list of Highest-Paid YouTube Stars compiled by Forbes with his earning of $16.5 million, which he made in a year. In 2019, The Sunday Times ranked him 41 on its list of UK’s Top 100 Influencers and also estimated him to be worth £25 million. In addition to his career as a YouTuber, Daniel is also a musician and an author.

6. Rhett McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln “Link” Neal III

  • YouTube Channel: Good Mythical Morning
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 17.2 million
  • The Total Number of Views: over 7.5
  • 2020 Earnings: $20 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $32 million combined

Rhett James McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln “Link” Neal III have been friends since their childhood. They met for the first time on the day they started first grade at Buies Creek Elementary School in Buies Creek, North Carolina on September 4, 1984. Many years later, they wrote a song about this meeting and also produced a documentary about it titled Looking for Ms. Locklear. Speaking of how the name of their YouTube channel came about during an interview on The Tonight Show, the duo said that they were caught writing swear words on their desks and as a result, they had to stay in while others went for recess. Their punishment was to fill out coloring books given to them with mythical creatures, hence the name of their channel, Good Mythical Morning.

The duo remained friends even as adults, attending the same college – North Carolina State University, and sharing the same room while studying civil engineering (Rhett) and industrial engineering (Link). After their graduation, they landed jobs as engineers in their respective fields, and while at it, they performed comedy sketches and made videos for a Christian group known as Cru. During this time, they started to develop their unique style of comedy and subsequently decided to take up entertainment full-time. Consequently, they quit their jobs and shifted their focus on their evangelism with Cru.

Later on, they moved from making comic videos for Cru meetings and conferences to making hilarious YouTube videos as a full-time job having created their YouTube channel in 2008. Since then, they have created diverse content, including sketches, comedy songs, and a YouTube Premium series, among others. The friends have also gone on to become authors and venture into film and television, release music albums, launch their podcast, establish a production company, etc

7. Cory and Coby Cotton, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones, and Tyler Toney

  • YouTube Channel: Dude Perfect
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 56.8 million
  • The Total Number of Views: over 13.7 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $23 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $30 million

If the earnings of the Dude Perfect channel were to be shared among each of her 5 members, then none of them would have made the cut for this list, so good a thing that they operate as a group. The five-man team is made up of former Texas A&M University roommates Tyler Toney, Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert, and twin brothers Coby and Cory Cotton. The group creates content that is predominantly made up of videos showing stunts, stereotypes, and shots. That aside, they also post fun videos of competitions between/among members.

Dude Perfect channel was created on March 17, 2009, and by the next month, it drew a lot of attention following the release of a video that showed the group performing trick shots at Tyler Toney’s ranch. This was the group’s first video and it garnered 200,000 views within one week. Not long after, they released their second video, which garnered more than 18 million views, and for each hundred thousand views the video got, Dude Perfect promised to sponsor a kid from Compassion International. Subsequently, ESPN reached out to Dude Perfect sequel to the video going viral and this resulted in some clips from the channel appearing on different ESPN shows.

A sports and comedy channel, Dude Perfect is very popular with over 56 million subscribers and more than 13 billion views. They also have quite a presence on Instagram with over 11 million followers. Among sports channels on YouTube, Dude Perfect is the second most subscribed and the twentieth most-subscribed channel in general. The channel currently holds 14 Guinness World Records, including the longest basketball shot, longest barefoot Lego walk, most Ping Pong balls stuck on a person’s head using shaving cream, etc. The channel has also birthed two other YouTube channels named Dude Perfect Plus and Dude Perfect Gaming.

8. Evan Fong

  • YouTube Channel: Vanoss Gaming
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 25.6 million
  • The Total Number of Views: over 14.2 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: Unknown
  • Estimated Net Worth: $25 Million

31 year old Evan Fong, who goes by the name VanossGaming or just Vanoss online, began his YouTube journey on 15 September 2011 when he created his channel, deriving its name from “VANOS”, a variable valve timing system made by the popular automobile company BMW. Before Evan adopted the name, his father already went by the alias “vanoss62”. Fong is one of the YouTubers who abandoned his college education to focus completely on his YouTube channel and thankfully, it has paid off.

A greater percentage of content on VanossGaming are montage-style videos of Evan and other video game commentators playing different video games. He is able to pull this off because he met many YouTube creators during his early years on the platform and subsequently, they became frequently featured in his videos. His channel became popular shortly after he started out and by January 2015, it could boast of more than 10 million subscribers. Also in 2015, Evan’s channel was ranked among the top 25 most subscribed channels on YouTube.

As a result of his content, Evan Fong has received two award nominations – The Game Award for Trending Gamer and a Shorty Award for Tech and Innovation: Gaming. He has also been identified as a driving force in the subculture of Let’s Play videos, with publications tying his fame to the authentic nature of his content. As of April 2020, his channel was the 95th most subscribed YouTube channel with more than 12 billion views.

9. Tyler Blevins

  • YouTube Channel: Ninja
  • Total Number of Subscribers:  23.9 million
  • The Total Number of Views: over 2.4 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: Unknown
  • Estimated Net Worth: $25 Million

The American internet star graduated from Grayslake Central High School and went on straight to playing video games professionally. He entered tournaments, joined professional organizations, and live-streamed his games. He started streaming by joining different esports teams in competitive play for Halo 3, and slowly rose to fame in late 2017 when he began playing Fortnite Battle Royale.

In March 2018, Tyler played Fortnite with American rapper and record producer Travis Scott, NFL star JuJu Smith-Schuster, and Canadian celebrity musician Drake on stream, and it marked his rise among mainstream media as he set a peak viewer count record on Twitch (635,000 live audience outside of tournament events). Also in 2018 (December), the internet personality estimated that he had earned around $10 million that year, most of which came from Twitch.

Although Tyler began his career on Twitch and is very popular there, he has also been able to build a strong presence and following on YouTube. He has more than 23 million subscribers on the platform as of November 2021 and in 2018, he recorded nearly 100 million views in one month on his YouTube channel and gained more than 2 million subscribers. As of April 2021, he revealed that he was raking in more than $500,000 every month from streaming Fortnite.

10. James Charles

  • YouTube Channel: James Charles
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 24.5 million
  • The Total Number of Views: 3.5 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: Unknown
  • Estimated Net Worth: $25 Million

24-year-old James Charles Dickinson is a makeup artist. He kicked off his journey in the beauty industry as an amateur hairstylist and later began doing makeup after a friend asked him to help her do her makeup for a school dance. He subsequently started teaching himself how to apply makeup and not long after, he mastered the art and began doing it as a profession, beginning with girls in his area.

On the 1st of December 2015, Charles created an eponymous YouTube channel where he posts makeup tutorials. In October 2016, the then-17-years-old makeup artist was made an ambassador for CoverGirl, making him the first male to serve in that position for the cosmetic brand. He made his first appearance for the company in advertisements for its So Lashy mascara. Around the beginning of 2019, he had gained 10 million subscribers on his YouTube channel. In the same year, he was reported to have an estimated net worth of US$12 million.

In 2020, he co-produced, directed, and served as host of the 1st season of Instant Influencer, a YouTube Original reality competition series, which debuted on his channel. His work on the show earned him a Streamy Award for Show of the Year in 2020, however, in March 2021, YouTube announced that he would not be the one hosting the show’s second season. Since James Charles YouTube channel was launched, the beauty guru has produced several videos in collaboration with different celebrities such as Charli D’Amelio, Kesha, Avani Gregg, and Kim Kardashian among others.

11. Preston Blaine Arsement (aka PrestonPlayz)

  • YouTube Channel: Preston 
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 18.4 million
  • The Total Number of Views: Over 5.8 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $19 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $20 million

Preston Arsement, more popularly known as PrestonPlayz, is a YouTuber, gamer, vlogger, and content creator famous for the channels TBNRFrags and Preston. His type of video content includes pranks and challenge videos, as well as Roblox and Minecraft streaming.

After completing high school, Preston worked briefly as a guard before getting into college. After a really rough summer in college, he dropped out and decided to take YouTubing seriously. His channel, TBNRFrags, which had been created back in 2010, already had 200 subscribers and he began to stream games daily on it. It was a huge success and soon, he was bagging endorsement deals. He has since gone on to create several more channels to accommodate his numerous gaming addictions. He has gained followers by faithfully streaming games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and later, Fortnite Rage.

One year after he started streaming, he was signed by the multimedia giant, Machinima, and began to stream weekly game shows for them. It was while working with them that he got popular and slowly, his YouTube subscribers started growing. His main channel, PrestonPlayz was created in 2013 and featured videos of games like Minecraft, Far Cry, and Super Crate Box. By 2015, Preston had reached his first milestone – one million subscribers. Currently, Preston has almost 40 million subscribers across his many channels, all of which are heavily monetized. As it stands, Preston is worth over $30 million, a net worth that is ever on the increase.

12. Anastasia Radzinskaya

  • YouTube Channel: Like Nastya
  • Total Number of Subscribers: 80.4 million
  • Total Number of Views: Over 64.2 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $18.5 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $20 million

Anastasia Yuryevna Radzinskaya is a Russian American YouTuber who was born on the 27th of January in 2014. The 10-year-old and her parents run a couple of YouTube channels created for children with the most popular channels being Like Nastya, Like Nastya Vlog, and Like Nastya Show. The channel, Like Nastya, was created by her parents when Anastasia was just 2 years old. At first, it was a toy un-boxing channel, but later started to showcase amusement parks (and the like) visits.

In May 2021, Like Nastya was the 5th most viewed channel on YouTube. She also became one of the world’s highest-paid YouTubers with videos being broadcast in seven languages, including Russian, English, Spanish and Chinese. In 2020, Anastasia made about $18 million from ad revenues on her channel. She is the most popular children’s video blogger in the world while her major channel, Like Nastya, is the 8th most-subscribed channel in the world currently.

13. David Julián Dobrik

  • YouTube Channel: David Dobrik
  • No of Subscribers: 18.3 million
  • Total Number of Views: Over 6.3 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $15.5 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $20 million

Slovak-American YouTube star David Julian Dobril, popularly known as David Dobrik, began his video blogging career on the now-defunct video app, Vine. Vine was an app that featured a lot of short video clips and the trick was to make people laugh in as little time as possible. After Vine, he moved to YouTube where he joined a collaboration channel called Second Class. He grew his brand with this group but later broke off and created his own YouTube channel called David Dobrik in 2014. David gained over a million subscribers in less than a year, making him the fastest YouTuber to hit that milestone. The YouTuber has uploaded over five hundred videos at the moment. His brand of comedy includes pranks, sing-offs, and parody sketches.

In 2017, he created a second channel called David Dobrik Too, where he uploaded videos of bloopers and challenges. This channel amassed over 4.6 million subscribers in less than a year, proving that David understands how to pull a crowd. In the year 2017, Dobrik was nominated for a Streamy Award in the category of Audience Choice Creator of the Year. In 2020, he won a Kids Choice Award for Favorite Male Social Star. Meanwhile, the previous year, he had won three Steamy awards for his collaboration channel, ‘Vlog Squad’ and his video with Kylie Jenner. With a net worth of over $15 million, David is the 5th most viewed video blogger on YouTube.

14. Jake Paul

  • YouTube Channel: Jake Paul
  • No of Subscribers: 20.4 million
  • Total Number of Views: Over 7.1 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $15 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $20 million

Jake Paul is the younger brother of popular YouTuber, Logan Paul. Aside from YouTube, Jake is also a musician, actor, and professional boxer. His most popular video is the ‘It’s Everyday Bro’ video which was widely disliked across the streaming platform. Nevertheless, it amassed over 70 million views in just one month of its upload.

Before his foray onto YouTube, Jake was one of the most popular vloggers on the Vine app alongside his brother, with over 5 million followers and close to 2 billion views on the platform. His YouTube journey started after a failed acting career after his contract with Disney was botched. Jake then took to music and collaborated with a group of friends who called themselves ‘Team 10’. Since his first video went viral, Jake has consistently featured in all the highest-paid lists on YouTube to date.

15. Lilly Singh

  • YouTube Channel: Lilly Singh
  • No of Subscribers: 14.7 million
  • Total Number of Views: Over 3.4 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $8 million
  • Estimated Net Worth: $20 million

Lilly Singh is a YouTube personality of Indian descent. Born on the 26th of September, 1988, the 35-year-old star is a stand-up comedian, rapper, motivational speaker, and author. She is one of the few video bloggers to have received YouTube’s Diamond, Gold and Silver play buttons. Singh has worked with a host of celebrities including John Legend, Amber Rose, Will Smith and Dwayne Johnson (The Rock), whom she has been a huge fan of.

Her YouTube channel, Lilly Singh, features comedy sketches about a plethora of topics ranging from relationships to spirituality. She is especially known for her hilarious impersonations of her strict, conservative parents whom she calls, ‘Manjeet’ and ‘Paramjeet’, and has gone on to start a trend of ‘Parents React’ videos. Lilly has received tons of awards for her work, including 2 Teen Choice Awards, Streamy Awards, and one People’s Choice Award. She currently hosts the late-night talk show, A little Late with Lilly Singh, an NBC show which she also produces. She became a talk show host for the show in September 2019.

16. Logan Paul

  • YouTube Channel: Logan Paul
  • No of Subscribers: 23.2 million
  • Total Number of Views: Over 5.8 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $11 million
  • Net Worth: $19 million

Logan is the older of the infamous Paul brothers. He is a YouTuber who, like many others before him, got famous from the popular Vine app where he uploaded random high school and college skits. After he dropped out of high school, he decided to pursue a career in acting and starred in a now-deleted scene in the movie Baywatch. He then dabbled into music and dropped a song with popular boxer and actor, ‘The Rock’.

His viral moment on YouTube came after his song, ‘Help me Help You’ was uploaded to his Official Logan Paul channel as the song hit No. 1 on YouTube’s trending lists. He is also known for participating in a well-publicized beef with his brother, Jake. The altercation spawned several hits from both parties, including Logan’s ‘The Fall of Jake Paul’ which is Logan’s most popular song to date. Logan Paul hit the 3-million subscriber mark back in June 2013. This made him the third YouTube personality to do so in just under a month. Others who have achieved this include YouTube Spotlight, T-Series, Ninja, and PewDieDie.

17. Jimmy Donaldson

  • YouTube Channels: MrBeast
  • No of Subscribers: 75.8 million
  • Total Number of Views: Over 13.3 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $24 million
  • Net Worth: $16 million

Jimmy is better known online as MrBeast. Born May 7, 1998, MrBeast is an American YouTube blogger and philanthropist known for his expensive and time-consuming challenges. His content consists of him making videos of himself performing one arduous task or another. This relentlessness he has shown in his videos has made him one of the most popular YouTubers worldwide. He is also very generous and has been known to give away huge sums of money, even encouraging his fans to do the same.

Jimmy joined YouTube in 2012 when he was just 13, and at that time, the platform was a fledgling one and began uploading simple ‘Let’s Play’ videos. His content consisted of random stuff like estimating the net worths of famous people by counting to ridiculously high figures. He went viral in 2017 after one of such videos, ‘Counting to 100,000’ got over a million views. All the videos he released since then have been internet sensations. The “MrBeast” brand is a huge one and is managed by about 30 people, including some of his childhood friends.

Currently, his main channel MrBeast boasts an impressive 75 million subscribers and is the ninth most subscribed channel as of November 2021. Jimmy is the founder of the MrBeast Burger fast-food restaurant. He is also a member of the Arbor Day Foundation, a charity organization for which he fundraises for. Last year, he was nominated for the 2020 Streamy Awards in the categories of Creator of the Year, Live Special, and Non-Profit Organization Category, and he won all the awards.

18. Steve John

Blippi was born on the 27th of May 1988 and is an American children’s entertainer and educator on YouTube. Although he first got famous on YouTube, Stevin has since taken his content to other well-known platforms like Hulu and Amazon Video. Everything about Blippi spells originality, from his colorful and bright signature blue-and-orange outfits to his curious, energetic, and almost child-like persona. His videos consist of educational content for children on topics like colors and shapes, handcrafts, and even baking!

Blippi doesn’t just make videos for the children, he also writes and produces the songs that accompany these videos. He has two main channels; ‘Blippi-Educational Videos for Kids’ and ‘Blippi Toys’. Blippi happens to be one of the most popular children content creators on YouTube and what makes him very different is the fact that he is an adult who makes content for children by becoming a children’s character himself.

19. Olajide Olayinka Williams Olatunji Jr.

  • YouTube Channels: KSI
  • No of Subscribers: 23.6 million
  • Total Number of Views: Over 5.7 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: Unknown
  • Net Worth: $15 million

Olajide William Olatunji, better known as KSI, is an English YouTuber, rapper, comedian, and actor. He established himself on his YouTube channel, which he created in 2008 to record his FIFA games, and has since reached over 4 billion views worldwide. He has severally said that the initials KSI were acronyms of the words, Knowledge, Strength and Integrity. Olajide dropped out of high school to pursue a YouTube career, a decision that was highly frowned upon by his traditional Nigerian parents who believed strongly in education. He, however, went on and after a lot of dedication and hard work, he is currently worth $15 million dollars.

The 28-year-old is also a professional boxer and is popularly remembered for his two-time fight with fellow YouTuber, Jake Paul. His main channel, KSI, is the second most-subscribed YouTube channel from the UK, invariably making him the most subscribed person of color on YouTube. In 2011, he decided to go into music and has currently released several rap songs on both iTunes and on his channel.

20. Roman Atwood

  • YouTube Channel: Roman Atwood Vlogs
  • Number of Subscribers: 15.5 million
  • Total Number of Views: 15.5 billion
  • 2020 Earnings: $2 million
  • Net Worth: $14.5 million

Roman Bernard Atwood is a YouTube Vlogger and prankster. On the video streaming platform, he has two different channels: Roman Atwood, for his prank videos, and Roman Atwood Vlogs, his main video blogging channel. His first viral video was called, ‘Cops Get Owned! – Epic Pee Prank’ and featured Atwood’s friend pretending to urinate near some police officers. The video immediately became a YouTube sensation and has hit over 30 million views as of 2020. Atwood’s most popular video, however, remains the video titled ‘Anniversary Prank Backfires!’, where he attempts to prank his girlfriend, claiming he had cheated on her.

In a satisfying twist, she pranked him back and ‘confessed’ that she had cheated also. The video was an immense success and has gathered over 100 million views. He has since retired from making prank videos and just showcases regular videos on his vlogging channel which has amassed over 2.5 million subscribers since it was created in 2013. Atwood is the second of only two YouTubers who have received diamond play buttons for two different channels.

How We Ranked The Richest YouTubers In The World Right Now

Going by the list above, it is obvious that Jeffree Star is the richest YouTuber in the world at the moment, thanks to his net worth of $200 million, which came mostly from his YouTube career and his cosmetic line. You would also observe that the richest YouTubers are those that leveraged their popularity on the video-sharing platform to branch outside of YouTube and establish other businesses.

Meanwhile, in case you are wondering how we arrived at this list, this is it…The top criteria for the compilation of this list were that each YouTuber listed is currently active on the video blogging platform, makes most of their earnings from YouTube, and are all full-time YouTubers. So, we curated a ranking system after taking several factors into consideration like their subscriber and viewer statistics, and their earnings from both YouTube and other ventures they launched as a result of their massive followings.

Chidimma Eze
Chidimma Eze
Chidimma is a Mass Communications graduate with about 4 years experience. She has a flair for all things entertainment and when she's not writing, you would most likely find her either spending time with her family, binge-watching whatever television series that holds her interest at the time or silently editing other people’s grammar.

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