What it’s like being an Indian YouTuber in America

Tech youtubers do well in India. They also do well in the US. But what happens when you have an Indian tech channel in the US?

Happy Aujla YouTube Channel art

I’m located in California, USA, but my youtube channel is in Hindi. It’s nice as a hobby or a side income, but a struggle to make a full-time income.

Screenshot of video analytics of my most famous video

1. US CPM IS HIGHER THAN INDIAN CPM
   CPM stands for the cost per thousand views. The above picture is a screenshot of a video that has 2.7M views, from which the CPM was $1.75 and my earnings were $1932. If this video was targeted to the US audience, my earnings would be more-than-double. “…the CPM rates for India is around $1.5. If you’ve a substantial volume of your traffic coming from US and UK, then you can expect the rates to go as high as $10 and above.” (Source: blognife.com).
2. LOWER CPM = LESS INCOME
   My average YouTube yearly income is $10,000. According to worldpopulationreview.com, “California has the sixth-highest median household income in the U.S. of $80,440.” From the above data, it’s easy to see that I have to put in double the effort of a US YouTuber to less-than-halfway meet the income standards.
3. SOME BRANDS ARE BANNED IN THE US OR UNAVAILABLE IN INDIA
   Some Chinese companies, that are popular in India, like Xiaomi, Redmi, and more, are banned in the US. Because of this, it’s impossible to make a video for that brand.
   Other companies, like Sony, are unavailable in India. In some cases where a company will only want exposure or offer free stuff, I accept it. Who doesn’t love free stuff, right? And getting paid for it is even better. But that’s rare. So you see my dilemma!
4. IT’S RARE TO GET/APPROACH US BRANDS
   Most of the time, I approach sponsors or brands, but sometimes they approach me. And more than 50% of the time, these are Indian brands offering to pay no more than $50.
   I’m lucky to get work with tech US brands. But more often than not, they refuse to work with me because of my majority India-based audience.
5. NO COLLAB OPPORTUNITIES
   Since my videos are uploaded in Hindi, I don’t have many collab opportunities, at least not in California. Some of my videos are published with English subtitles, but an India-based audience doesn’t benefit my potential collab partner. For this reason, most people that I’ve contacted have refused to work with me.
6. PRODUCTS ARE EXPENSIVE IN INDIA
   Let’s say I convince a brand to stick around and work with me. They’ll even pay me a good amount. All good, right?
   WRONG! That brand won’t come around again after they see I wasn’t successful in boosting their product through affiliate links. Since the value of a US dollar is so much stronger than an Indian Rupee, products are not always affordable for India nationals.

I have 369K subscribers on my main YouTube channel. My vlogging channel has 186K subscribers. Although not much, but it’s worth noting that someone with a US audience would earn 10X my income. Though, I’m considered to be filthy rich by Indian standards. Basically, I’m an American living on an Indian income which, well, sucks.