How I make money as an artist & art youtuber (with exact numbers) 🌱

I think the taboo around income transparency does a disservice to our community not knowing what you're worth only makes it easier for you to be taken advantage of so in this video I'm going to be sharing with you the exact numbers of how much income I make from all of the income streams that I have as an artist online and I hope that you see this video as the resource that it's meant to be I'm not sharing this to brag I just want to give you a realistic idea of what to expect if you wanted

to follow in my my footsteps and I also want to say and I think this is really important the way that I make money as an artist is not the only way that you can make money as an artist I have made tons of videos and interviewed plenty of talented creators on the way they make money as an artist the way they make this this whole passion this whole thing a career and there are so many different ways that you can do it if you feel like making videos isn't for you you don't need to

do that I would consider myself an artist and a content creator and so my income streams reflect that nuance and that diversity so anyway yeah let's just jump right into it and I do want to thank Squarespace for sponsoring this [Music] video I am a little bit ashamed of the income or I guess lack thereof that I earn from my online store I'm just really bad about talking about the different prints and merch and digital products that I offer it's not one of my strong suits but I guess to reframe that that also means that

it's one of the most passive income streams that I have on this list and as soon as I get better about talking about the stuff that I sell online I will make more money and I will raise that number so in April so the month previous to May that I have the most information on I made $720 from my online shop and so far this month it's currently May 29th I have made $1,085 from my online store on my online store I sell prints I sell like merch like blankets that I have my art on

I need to work on how to phrase that and I also sell things like notion templates and a workbook and stuff like that digital products that help make my life a lot easier the income that I earn from my online store usually fluctuates from between like $1,000 to $2,000 a month I would eventually like it to be more on the higher side of that consistently and possibly even get it up to $3,000 a month and I have plans for how I to get there it's just going to take me some time but next up let's

talk about coaching coaching is very new for me it's not a thing that I've done for very long and I used to get emails every single week from people that watched my content and asked me for coaching but up until recently it just wasn't a thing that I felt very comfortable doing I did some free calls with you guys like free coaching calls in the beginning of this year and that helped a lot at getting me more comfortable but it wasn't until like underestimated what I owed for taxes for the past year and I had

a huge vet bill from my cat that was almost four grand that I finally kind of kicked my ass into gear and started to offer coaching so right now I have two different coaching packages there's a $600 one week intensive and then there is a $2,000 3-month mentorship program those two things have been performing really well so far I've only had them up for a few weeks I've already had one um one we intensive coaching client and last week I signed my very first 3-month mentorship client and it looks like I'm going to send another

one this week so that's pretty exciting I don't want to do too much of this or I don't want to scale this too much because all of the time that I spend doing other things things like coaching is time that I don't spend making art and making art is the foundation of everything right I can't be an art business YouTuber if I don't actually make art and share that with you guys and try and yeah it's it's a whole thing and I fully acknowledge that I have a lot of value to provide to folks that

want to learn how to make this a job and want to learn how to you know start a YouTube channel and stuff but I need to be very Vigilant of how much time I spend doing all of that the third income stream that I want to talk about is YouTube AdSense YouTube will put ads before in the middle and after my videos and I earn income from Those ads and because I make business and marketing kind of content as well as art focused stuff I get a little bit of like a higher AdSense payment because

advertisers are basically willing to pay more for the kind of content that I create but this still varies a lot the income that I earn from AdSense is probably the most fluctuating income stream that I have like to put this into perspective for you in April I made Let's see1 , 62291156 so it varies between like ,600 to almost 4 grand every single month which is a lot of money but I can't count on that because it's fluctuate so much and that's why I do sponsorships which is the next income stream that I want to

talk about so I am very fortunate to have built a large following online and this means that I make money not from just art but also from being a content creator and sponsorships is one of the largest and most stable income streams that I have it's probably the thing that has helped me go full-time as an artist the most just because unlike my online store and YouTube AdSense and everything else I can kind of count on sponsorships to happen every single month because I've cultivated long-term relationships with the brands that I work with so for

legal reasons I can't tell you exactly how much money I make for every single brand deal like the specifics but what I can say is that the bare minimum of money that I make from sponsorships is usually around $4,000 a month and it could sometimes go all the way up to 7 to 8 Grand which is a lot of money and I'm really really grateful for it because it just gives me so much flexibility in my life and I'm a little bit of a sick freak okay I handle all of my own brand deals I

don't like go out to an agency or whatever I really enjoy negotiating with Brands I really enjoy kind of being a curator um for Brands like I like introducing you guys to like cool products I think that you will appreciate and get a lot out of as small business owners um I just I just enjoy that I think it's nice um I enjoy negotiating and yeah I it's really really helpful like just genuinely and if you're interested in learning more about how sponsorships work I have made a whole video on the topic that I will

share down in the description but before we get into the rest of the income streams I have and how much money I roughly make every single month I do want to thank the sponsor of this video Squarespace and tell you a little bit about how they can help you make more money as an artist online Squarespace is one of the absolute best website builders on the internet but the there also so much more than that I have been running my online store on Squarespace for ages now you can also write a blog have a portfolio

or even run an online course with their new course features a few weeks ago I wanted to start offering paid mentorship and coaching which is by far my most requested product or service using Squarespace I was able to really quickly create a sales page display testimonials and even send an email announcement all within Squarespace their fluid design engine makes designing websites an absolute Breeze and their intuitive drag and drop features and color palette ability just makes my website look so good and so cohesive and most importantly so easy to update if you want a website

that will grow with your business and help you make more money I think it's worth giving Squarespace a try you can go to squarespace.com Kelsey Rodriguez or use Kelsey Rodriguez at checkout to get 10% off your first order of a website or domain okay so the last income stream that I have is affiliate marketing affiliate marketing is the most passive income stream on this list it is genuinely so easy to start with like all you do is just sign up for these programs like with brands that you hopefully use the products of and enjoy you

don't want to recommend something that you don't like but all you do is just have links in your video descriptions or or wherever you get traffic online and then you can make a little bit of extra cash I have links in my descriptions they are affiliate links and what happens that when you click on them and buy something I gain a small percentage of that purchase at no cost to you so it's a great way to actually support the creators that you love even if you have ad blocker on or can't afford their patreons and

products and stuff it is like free money it's so good um but the affiliate programs I'm a part of generally don't pay out every single a month you have to earn a threshold or they have like quarterly payment scheme things um so often times I will make 0 from affiliate marketing for like forever and then 6 months later I will make like $1,000 um because it's super delayed like that so yeah let's just say that I earned about two grand from affiliate marketing every single year which is like about $165 isar a month um but

usually again that is a big at zero because the payment terms work out a little bit weird like that okay so I have just thrown a ton of numbers your way probably a little bit overwhelming I'm sorry for that let me break it down for you and make it a little bit easier to kind of digest so because the income streams that I have fluctuate so much let's talk about a low-end and a high-end figure for my monthly earnings or my or my monthly Revenue sorry all of this is like pre-tax just for Simplicity sake

so a really bad month for for me might look like $500 from my online shop Zero from coaching 1,200 from AdSense $4,000 from sponsorships and $0 from affiliate marketing that would be $5,700 in pre-tax revenue for my business and if every month was like that that would be $68,400 in revenue for the year which would be something like 50k is after taxes so now let's talk about the highend a really great month for me might look a little bit like this let's say that I make, 500ish dollars from my online shop 2,000 from coaching 3,800

from YouTube AdSense 6 grand from sponsorships and $300 from affiliate marketing that would be $13,600 in pre-tax revenue and if every month was like that that would be about $163,000 in revenue for my business for the entire year which would be something like 114 is K after taxes so yeah that is that is all the stuff that I do um in terms of income streams to generate six figures in Revenue not every month is a super great month not every month is a very low month the reality is usually in the middle I'm pretty able

to comfortably make 10K on average every single month which means that I do make six figures a year in Revenue I take home a lot less than that because I have a lot of expenses I have you know the studio rent now I have software subscriptions video equipment that I need to buy stuff like that and yeah I'm able to make this job work for me because I have I don't know I live like pretty frugally um I try and save a lot I try to invest a lot for retirement I live with seven housemates

um to keep rent costs low in the Bay area but I mean if you lived in a rural part of the us or a different country probably you would be able to take home a lot more but yeah I do earn about 110 yeah yeah I made about $110,000 in Revenue last year I'm hoping to do a little bit better this year and make more like 150ish K but yeah okay that is how I make this job work for me if you want to learn more about how I run my business how I make money

advice that I have for you the different ways that you can make money as an artist I will link a bunch of stuff in the description if you're interested in going to like a business planning workshop I'm thinking about hosting one in like a couple weeks you should sign up to my email list to learn more about that I will also have that link in the description and yeah I hope this wasn't too intimidating for you I created this business very slowly over time and I made it sustainable in a way that works for me

you can structure your business any way that you want it's it's yours for a reason right you don't have to follow the same formula that I use and yeah that's all for me