Recently, Carla Lalli Music, a chef and food writer, shared the true costs of being a YouTuber in a new blog post on Substack. Additionally, she revealed that she is stepping away from YouTube — and her reasons for stepping away shine a light on what many YouTubers endure.

A departure from YouTube is a tough choice

Carla’s YouTube channel is known for its engaging cooking videos. It looked successful from the outside, but as she shared, her most popular video only brought in $3,665, just enough to cover the production expenses.

“I have never had a viral hit, never been pushed into the algorithmic slipstream,” Carla explained, highlighting a struggle many creators face: producing content that looks and feels premium, without the payoff.

Rather than cutting corners to lower production costs, Carla made a conscious decision to prioritize quality, hoping it would drive channel growth. That gamble never fully paid off. Instead, she found herself in a loop of making videos that lost money to attract brand sponsors. As she put it, “If I didn’t have brand partnerships, this channel would have never been profitable.”

Ultimately, Carla decided to stop posting on YouTube, recognizing that the grind was taking more than it was giving back.

Reality of being a YouTuber

Many YouTubers struggle to make a profit

Carla’s story is a testament to how difficult it can be to turn a YouTube channel into a sustainable business. Even with a dedicated audience, consistent uploads, and high production value, the ad revenue alone often isn’t enough. Her most successful content only broke even, a harsh reminder that views and engagement don’t always translate into income.

According to Lalli’s experience, earning revenue on YouTube isn’t immediate. Creators need at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the past year to join the YouTube Partner Program. Even then, earnings vary. On average, YouTubers earn between $3 to $5 per 1,000 views.

This means a video with 100,000 views might generate $300 to $500. However, 96.5% of YouTubers make less than $12,140 annually.

Brand deals are essential

Like Carla, many creators rely heavily on brand partnerships to make their channels viable. Without those deals, she admitted her channel “would never have been profitable,” and she’s not alone in that. For many YouTubers, this creates a difficult cycle: producing loss-making content in hopes of securing sponsorships that keep the channel afloat.

The grind is brutal

Carla’s skepticism about YouTube’s value to a creator’s digital portfolio is a powerful takeaway. She invested heavily in quality, consistency and audience engagement, only to find that the platform often demands more than it gives. The constant pressure to produce, without any guaranteed payoff, leads many creators to burnout — and Carla’s decision to leave is a clear reflection of that reality.

While a YouTube career offers creative freedom, it’s accompanied by various costs. For aspiring YouTubers, her experience offers a valuable lesson: producing great content is only part of the equation. The business side of YouTube can be just as demanding — and knowing when to step away can be just as important as knowing how to grow.

Image courtesy: Carla Lalli Music