There are many Crypto Influencers in India, making videos on youtube, reviewing ICOs, exchanges and basically providing information to their viewers. But, Youtubing regularly is a resource intense job and they get compensated well for their time and effort if a client is willing to pay them for promotion. Some Indian youtubers charge between $750 to $12000 for just one sponsored video.
Crypto Youtubers play a huge role is spreading the right information to the masses, to their followers. While most of these videos are free, youtubers can earn a living out of sponsorship deals – promote a project and get money in return. But there are some ethics that need to be followed like saying a video is sponsored if it was paid for. But some Crypto Youtubers charge higher for not labelling the video ‘Sponsored’.
In this article, we will talk about a small sting our team (read: a freelancer) conducted on some popular Hindi/English speaking Indian Youtubers. The subscription base of these Youtubers run between 30000 to 90000 subscribers. It wasn’t a sting per se, I got a friend to create a fake email address and ask these youtubers how much they charge for a sponsored video, and they just told him. Full disclosure, the freelancer did it for free because he was curious too.
We wrote to MLMAman, EarnWithRK, EarnWithSapna, MoneyKing and Pushpendra Singh (Socialmediaguruji). Let me remind you that these youtubers are popular and also part of the #ISupportCrypto movement where they came together to talk about why RBI’s decision is wrong, on a live streamed Youtube video which I am guessing RBI did not watch. Not that RBI even reads our emails or articles.
This article is not meant to shed bad light on the work done by Youtubers. They are crucial to the education on cryptocurrency in India. But the goal is to educate users on what they should expect out of the people they are following. What I am doing is something anyone can do. All you have to do is drop an email to them and they will respond.
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Charges for a Sponsored Video by Popular Indian Youtubers
We sent an email with a fake project outline and asked the youtubers how much they will charge for a video. We also asked if there are differential charges if the video need not be marked ‘sponsored’. Some Youtubers agreed, some didn’t. Let’s break down the conversation with each Youtuber.
PushPendra Singh aka SocialMedia Guruji
Pushpendra Singh is quite popular for his youtube lives and twitter updates. He also goes by the name Social Media Guruji. I have had multiple difference of opinions with Pushpendra on twitter on his blatant plagiarism and sometimes sharing only partial information. But his response to the email earned a respect but once again, it was only partial.
Pushpendra’s team replied to our initial email saying they will not do a video without mentioning it as “Sponsored Video”. Then he refused to share the charges until we share project details. So we did. We sent a quick summary of a “cooked up” project which genuinely sounds like an ICO aka one of the many projects popping up daily.
But after several days of continuous follow up, we did not receive a response from Pushpendra Singh and his team. I am happy Pushpendra will not do a video without mentioning its sponsored, but I would have been happier if he told us how much he charges.
MLMAman
MLMAman is yet another youtuber who makes Hindi videos on the latest happenings in the Cryptocurrency arena of India. The whole idea of finding out how much youtubers charge for promotions stemmed from a screenshot we received where his team asked an exchange a ‘huge amount’ for a ‘positive review’. Coin Crunch could not verify the authenticity of the screenshot, but the details below are genuine.
Our email included a proposal for 3 projects, Aman replied saying he will do 3 videos for 5 ETH. At the time, ETH was close to $450 each, hence he asked for $2250 for 3 videos, or roughly $750 per video.
The reply said, they will not mark the video ‘Sponsored’ but they will only do a review if and only if they find the project genuine. Personally I think Aman is naive and we have tried to tell him that even on our telegram group. MLM – Multi level marketing is widely considered a ponzi and having that as a Youtuber name is bold, very bold or Naive.
We stopped replying after Aman asked us to speak on the phone. The rates may be negotiated if this was a genuine deal. But not marking a video ‘sponsored’ is highly unethical and that should be changed.
Money King aka Lucky
Lucky’s youtube channel ‘Money King’ literally says you are on the right platform if you want to get rich quick. MoneyKing’s most popular upload has 164k views and the title is ‘Earn Rs. 1000 everyday in your bank’. Needless to say I did not open that video, neither did I open other videos.
Before you call me arrogant, let me point out that I have a preference, my personal preference. I can choose to not watch Lucky’s video. But we did ask him if he would charge for a sponsored video.
Lucky replied to the first email asking for more details of the project. He also said, he will only make a video after vetting the project. Ofcourse we sent him the same project synopsis that we sent to others. Later, he replied the charges for a sponsored video will be between $3000 – $4000. He didn’t say yes or no. He gave the price. What does that mean? In my book it means he is ready to make the video.
Update: Lucky has asked me to clarify that he indeed said he will not make a video without checking the project. He did. But after we sent him the project details, he reverted with the price directly – that, in my opinion, means he agreed to do the video and hence we published his quoted price. Here is the full email conversation, highlighted replies are from Lucky.
We stopped replying to the youtuber after asking him the rationale, thinking this must be the highest price, but we were in for a shocking surprise with one other influencer. Keep reading to find out.
Earn With Sapna
I heard about Sapna back when we started posting on Women in Blockchain. Sapna hasn’t posted a single video in the last one month but we got a very warm response from her on our email. She’s the only one who said, Thanks for contacting me, a basic email etiquette which even I fail to follow sometimes. But the charges for a sponsored video are too steep.
Sapna said she will charge 4 ETH for a video if she can say it is a sponsored video. She will charge 6 ETH if we do not want her to mention sponsorship.
After that it was a one sided communication where we asked her a few more details to never receive a reply. Again, it is highly unethical to not mark a video sponsored if you were getting paid for it. I hope the taxes are paid for these earnings.
Earn With RK
Earn with RK is followed and revered by many. So much so that some people actually believed he’s the only one who can have a dialogue with the RBI about Banking ban. Among the list of youtubers we have, RK has the most subscribers and views so we did anticipate a higher amount for a sponsored video. We didn’t expect too high!
RK’s first reply was to ask more information about the project and our budget. We sent him that. He replied, they only work with selected projects after thorough review and that they charge 0.8 BTC for a sponsored video. The reply also said, they charge 1.5 BTC if we do not want them to say its a sponsored video.
1.5 BTC ~ 12000 USD at the time of this conversation. Today it is less than 10000 USD. Once again, not judging the numbers, but judging the fact that Earn with RK is ready to do a sponsored video hiding that it is paid review, makes it very unethical.
Few Policies of Youtube
Youtube has some strict policies around paid promotion and content. Simply saying the video is sponsored is not enough.
- All videos containing paid promotion must inform youtube that the video contains one.
- Optionally you can even make “Includes paid promotion” text appear on your video for the first ten seconds by checking the option on youtube.
I am not going to run a tutorial on how it should be done, but the policy can be found on youtube and google.
Respect for Youtubers
I have nothing but respect for people who work for the masses. Youtubers are a similar kind of people. These few youtubers ensure that whatever the news they receive, they pass it on to their followers via their platform. The hustle is real. The struggle is real. Sustenance is important. Advertising is real money, good money too so you can charge whatever you want.
My only appeal to the youtubers is that please don’t do videos without the ‘Sponsored’ tags. It is important to stay true to your users not to money.
My appeal to viewers is to do some research themselves. Always look for more opinions, never trust just one opinion. The goal of the article was to share how much youtubers charge for sponsored content, that has been achieved.
If you want to know the cost of a sponsored content on any other channels, let us know in the comments below, this time we will directly ask them instead of hiding behind an alias. Even you can just ask them.
