Best YouTube Alternatives (2023)

Since Youtube acquired by Google, it has become the main platform for watching free videos online. Now several YouTube alternatives available online without compromise of quality.

These YouTube alternatives offer better monetization features for your videos. Undoubtedly day-by-day getting YouTube subscribers becomes harder.

You know building a YouTube channel takes tons of effort, hundreds’ hours , persistence, then you can monetize.

Now you feel it getting tougher.

There are several hurdles, setbacks and more dangerous potential legal action that come with you if you are a YouTuber.

Why YouTube Isn’t the Best Place to Monetize Your Videos

Without any doubt YouTube is an amazing video content platform. YouTube is a collection of huge videos on almost every topic that you can think about? This is the main reason why youtube is so attractive for users and video contents creators. On the other hand if you videos crearors than you will not make enough money on it.

A sobering article from Bloomberg shows that the top 3% of YouTubers make less than $17,000 a year, while the remaining 96.5% generate between $0 and $12,140.

Why?

Well, there are a number of reasons.

Videos must be ad-friendly

If you start, then your videos get monetized if they are relevant to a product or service for advertiser is promoting and if advertiser’s find your target audience matches with product’s relevancy. It is for you to understand your target audience is more important to ensuring you’re giving them relevant videos possible.

For this you should make your videos must be ad-friendly to make money on youtube. To grow your chance to make money, you’ll need to find industries that prove lucrative and spend lots of money on ads or YouTube ads.

As you know  YouTube video hosting is owned by Google, you need to ensure you upload videos that couldn’t be marked ad-free.

Revenue share takes a chunk of what’s made

If you read YouTube’s revenue sharing option here there are any hidden changes or any conditions but all of us do not understand. When YouTube advertises play ads on your channel, YouTube takes 45% incomes of what you earn on your channel, rest 55%  income you’ll take it and it’ll apply for every ad that will air to your audience.

You see that when your channel grows, you only get 55% share of total earnings. You need to continually grow your audience and make good quality videos that outrank on your channel Niche, otherwise scaling your income is tough. In this way your growth will be limited.

YouTube is highly-competitive

Around two billion users every month on YouTube but there are tons of  creators fighting for their attention. Competition level on YouTube is very extreme. According to Tubics , there are more than 37 million YouTube channels on Youtube. So think about competition on YouTube.

Competition for what ? only fight for getting higher ranking positions and visibility on YouTube . You need a higher level of understanding to understand how time to time YouTube’s algorithm has changed, to optimize your videos and get a chance of increased clicks rate, if you really want to make money on this competition. You know that keeping up to date with YouTube’s algorithm changes is not a simple task.

Policy changes affect income

Now YouTube has tightened its policy around partner programs and rising the  requirements for creator/channel must fulfill to monetize videos. In the new policy, to apply for monetization , creators must have 4,000 hours watch time within a year and minimum 1,000 subscribers. And this new policy will enforce all existing channels for eligibility , in this means if your channel will not qualify for new criteria , then you are not able to make money from Google’s ads.

Earlier, for joining YouTube’s Partner Program, you just need 10,000 public views – without any fixed annual viewing hours. This change will hit very hard for new, smaller channels to monetize their channels.

And then there’s COPPA or the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) of 1998. The law prohibits internet companies from collecting data from kids under 13.

Because the challenge of COPPA is very broad and leaves very little space for honest YouTubers to live with. If you fail to comply lead to a $42k fine for every video that infringes upon the act.

Beyond YouTube

YouTube aside, let’s take a look at how you can generate a more predictive income. And yes, it is possible. In our experience at Uscreen, we’ve seen YouTubers go from earning tiny paychecks through YouTube’s ad-based model to thousands of dollars per month (more on this later).

Moving to a YouTube competitor means exploring new ways to generate income, and there are a few you should know of that have been proven highly successful.

Video monetization models

If you think only way to monetize your videos through running ads.Here’s a collection of seven ways you can turn your videos into an income stream.

VOD or video-on-demand-

Video on Demand (VoD ) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the limitation of a typical static broadcasting schedule. But because we’re looking for new ways to make money from videos.  Here are three types of VOD models available.

Subscription based Video-on-Demand (SVoD)-

Subscription VoD (SVoD) services use a subscription business model in which subscribers are charged a regular fee to access unlimited programmes. Examples of these services include Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max and Hulu. Subscription based on monthly or yearly fee, you get access to as much content as you can. You get access to all types of content TV series, movies , news, etc.

Old model Rentals-

Rentals allow users to enjoy video streaming for a fixed time and a one-time fee. Life-time access or Transactional Video-on-Demand (TVoD) Life-time access gives users access to content in perpetuity and for a one-time fee.

Affiliate marketing-

Affiliate marketing is an online business model where you generate revenue by adding affiliate links for products or services you recommend to videos you create and upload.

So it’s very similar to traditional affiliate marketing in terms of how you make money.

The only thing that changes is the platform.

You still put together product reviews, tutorials, etc. that link out to a given affiliate marketing program.

Except you do it with videos.

Sponsorships-

Sponsorship is a little more complex than other monetization models. To get any paid sponsorship deals, first you’ll need to build a large user base after brands approach you. After you develop a large audience base, you’ll be able to make a deal and build creative content for your sponsors that helps them to generate results for their brands.

Selling own merchandise-

Selling physical products is one the easiest and simplest works available online. You have to create your own product and promote it in your videos, here simply generate more revenue from every sale. If I think this will happen overnight, No,  you have to invest in terms of time and money to generate physical products. But when you’ve built a strong fan following and a good promotion strategy , then you are able to convert more sales on your viewers.

Selling information products–

Information products like eBook, online course, video course,guide are the most popular product types you can sell online. They are cheap to create in comparison of any physical products, easy to distribute and they give very high-profit margins. You have to create high-converting information products. This is the  most important aspect of information.

What Are the Best YouTube Alternatives?

Vimeo

Next after YouTube, Vimeo is another most famous video sharing platform out there. Vimeo was launched back in 2004 and has slowly year after year become a strong player in the video streaming platform .

Now Vimeo had more than 240 million monthly active users with over 70 million registered creators. Of course YouTube had a larger audience compared to Vimeo. But here is a comparison between quality vs quantity. Vimeo approaches a more matured video sharing platform which attracts artistic creators in films, ads, animation, music, and a lot more. On the other hand YouTube has become a place where everyone can  publish their videos.

If you are someone who wants to leave all the noise that is present on YouTube and want to enjoy hand-picked content inside a positive community, you should definitely check out Vimeo.

Pros:

• Flourishing and constructive community
• Over 240 million monthly active users
• Quality of content is better
• Revenue through donations
• Customizable video player
• Great analytics tool

Cons:

• No ad-based revenue sharing
• Not totally free for creators     

IGTV

IGTV or Instagram TV created by Instagram and they want to take on YouTube’s monopoly of the video streaming market.Its  service was released in June 2018 and it works on official Instagram apps and standalone IGTV apps.

Quickly Instagram has crossed over a billion monthly active users and is in the right position to tackle YouTube’s monopoly smartly because it’s not just copying YouTube but doing differently which makes it a better position on the video streaming market.

What is different ?

In the beginning, IGTV mainly focused on vertical video content, in this area YouTube isn’t a strong player. Nowadays most of us consume a lot of time on smartphones or record content, having a platform for vertical video content makes good marketing moves and sense.

Plus Instagram has a number of influencers using the service for promoting IGTV with different topics which are not found on YouTube. Ignoring IGTV is not a good idea , whether you are a video content creator or a user , you should try IGTV because it is growing very fast and don’t miss this opportunity.

Pros:

• Over a billion active users waiting for your content
• Portrait mode videos look great
• Nice and easy to navigate UI

Cons:

• No revenue for creators as of now
• Video length restricted to one hour
• Only limited to vertical videos
• Analytics tool can be better

Facebook Watch

It’s hard to imagine a world without Facebook. Facebook redefined the social media platform and its video sharing platform growing rapidly, not only users, creators are also to cash-in on a large audience base. Launched in August 2017, Facebook aslo has a similar revenue sharing scheme to YouTube, they take 45% of the money generated from ads.

If you are creators and fade up with YouTube’s new monetization policies, then surely check Facebook as an YouTube Alternatives. In users point of view to see exclusive content which is not found anywhere.

Pros:

• One of the largest potential viewer bases
• Ad-revenue sharing program similar like YouTube
• Lots of videos to watch

Cons:

• Not available everywhere

Dailymotion

Dailymotion is also a popular video-sharing platform where you can create and publish your videos.  Just like YouTube, everybody can visit the website and watch the published content free of cost.That makes Dailymotion is better youtube alternatives. 

Dailymotion had different policies compared to YouTube. That is both a good and bad thing. You don’t necessarily need to create an account to watch video no-age restriction on Dailymotion. And bad one, it is easy to republish any videos and no policy to reclaim your videos.

Dailymotion’s home page also shows trending video, categories, and a search bar, and you can search based on tags or channels.

Pros:

• No age restriction
• Not required to create an account
• Ad-based revenue sharing like YouTube
• Nice interface

Cons:

• Video length limited to 60 minutes
• Prone to piracy
• The analytics does not match up to YouTube

Twitch: YouTube Alternatives for gaming users

Twitch is heaven for online gaming , it is made entirely for gamers. It’s free to join and offers affiliates and partners various ways to monetize their video content. If you are game lover than Twitch is best youtube alternatives for you.

Twitch is a great place for someone who wants to earn money by just using their gaming talents or just want to enjoy others’ gameplay. As an affiliate you can accept donations, sell merchandise,and receive subscriptions money.

What differentiates Twitch to others? That it hosts a ton of live streaming content that is normally not available for other video platforms. In fact, live streams of gaming sessions are main reasons which has made Twitch a successful video streaming company.

Pros:

• Tight-knit community
• Heaven for gamers
• Revenue through donations
• Great alternative to YouTube Gaming

Cons:

• Not great for non-gaming content