The Unseen Cost of YouTube 💰

Carla Lalli Music struggles to profit through video

Author

Hannah Doyle
26 Feb

Good morning. YouTube creator Cleo Abram is set to drive a McLaren Formula E car during next week’s Evo Sessions event in Miami. 5 million subscribers in three years, interviews with top leaders in tech, and now this. That’s one impressive (and speedy) rĂ©sumĂ©.

— Hannah Doyle 

Why Carla Lalli Music Is Leaving YouTube

Cooking creator Carla Lalli Music made nearly 300 videos in four years on YouTube / Carla Lalli Music

Nearly five years ago, cooking creator Carla Lalli Music left the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen (along with a host of other cast members) to start her solo career.

She’s since released two books, made nearly 300 videos, and amassed 230,000 YouTube subscribers and 18 million views—but she’s yet to make a profit. So now, Lalli Music is leaving YouTube.

“It started to feel like a very high effort, very high expense, and very middling return,” Lalli Music told us.

In a recent Substack post, she detailed her YouTube stats as a solo creator:

  • $14,000 → cost per month to produce, shoot, and edit weekly longform videos in 4K with a five- to seven-person crew.

  • $4,000 → average gross earnings per month from AdSense (with a $29 CPM and $10 RPM)

Lalli Music said she sold brand partnerships starting at $3,500, but they weren’t enough to break even. 

“Even with my resources, my connections, my experience, I found it very difficult to figure out what my costs were going to be until I was actually in the cycle of shooting and editing,” Lalli Music told us, noting that editing was the biggest expense. “The things people were quoting were all over the map.” 

So she’s cutting her losses. Lalli Music will now focus on her podcast, newsletter, and a third cookbook.

  • She’s investing more time in Substack, where she generates the most income “by a sizable margin.” 

  • Lalli Music has an engaged audience of 42,000 subscribers with a 45% open rate.

As for video, she’s focused on connection instead of production value. 

“It’s like sometimes I want to go car camping, sometimes I want to stay in a hotel, but they don’t replace each other,” Lalli Music said, comparing iPhone videos to 4K productions. “So I think I could use the video tools that still allow me to connect to this subscriber base without feeling hemmed in [by larger production costs].”

‘Crime Junkie’ Podcast Creator Raises $40 Million

Ashley Flowers has run the weekly Crime Junkie podcast for 8 years / Ashley Flowers

Ashley Flowers, creator and host of the Crime Junkie podcast, has raised $40 million from VC firm The Chernin Group to fund the expansion of her podcast company, Audiochuck. The deal, announced this week, valued Audiochuck at about $250 million.

Breaking down Flowers’ audio empire, by the numbers:

  • $45 million → Audiochuck’s profit last year, reported by Bloomberg

  • 6 million → size of the audience Crime Junkie reaches, according to Edison Group

  • #2 → Crime Junkie’s rating on US podcast charts, second only to Joe Rogan

With the investment, Flowers plans to expand beyond podcasts (Audiochuck publishes other crime and mystery podcasts like The Deck and So Supernatural) into a media company with audio, video, merchandise, and live events. 

The first step: triple Audiochuck’s studio space to 30,000 square feet and double the size of the team to 130 people. 

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Adobe Photoshop Releases Free Mobile App

Photoshop is now available on iOS / Adobe

Creators and designers knee-deep in their fourth mask on Photoshop just got a big unlock. Adobe launched a free Photoshop mobile app which includes many of the advanced tools found on desktop.

  • Free features include Tap Select, Spot Healing Brush, masks, layers, and Generative Fill.

  • Features like Magic Wand, Object Select, and the Remove Tool are available for $7.99/month or $69.99/year for a mobile and web plan.

  • Creators can start working on a file on mobile, save it on Adobe’s cloud service, then access it on desktop (and vice versa). 

Worth noting: This new release expands on Photoshop Express, which has been available on mobile since 2010. It has more capabilities, including social presets to fit image ratios for platforms like Instagram.

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