YouTube automation means running faceless YouTube channels where other people (or AI tools) do the scripting, voiceover, editing and thumbnails, and the channel earns from the ads that play on the videos. I made over $2 million from YouTube this way, and the process I teach is six steps I call VISION: pick a niche, come up with video ideas, build the team, get monetized, keep improving what works, and then decide what to do with the time and money. When I recorded this, a typical video cost me $50 to $200 to produce and paid around $4 to $8 per 1,000 views.
- A faceless channel takes the normal YouTube production process (idea, research, script, record, edit, thumbnail, upload) and hands most of it to other people.
- Channels typically make around $4 to $8 per 1,000 views. One video I posted got 5.5 million views and made $22,000.
- For a first channel, pick a niche that stays relevant, has a good RPM, and already has other people succeeding in it.
- I use the BENS framework for ideas: Big, Easy, New, Safe. "Top 10 towns offering free land in the United States" is my example.
- A video typically costs $50 to $200 to make. On some channels I pay $600.
- Keep the idea and the upload yourself. About 80% of your time should go into studying what's already working for other channels.
- What YouTube Automation Is
- How Faceless Channels Make Money
- The 6 Steps: VISION
- V: Pick a Niche That Stays Relevant
- I: Build Video Ideas With the BENS Framework
- S: Build the Team With AI and Freelancers
- What a Video Costs and What to Keep Yourself
- I and O: Get Monetized, Then Raise the Baseline
- N: What Changed for Me
- Video chapters
- FAQ
What YouTube Automation Is
What I'm talking about here is faceless YouTube channels. It's being a YouTuber without being a YouTuber, and without the headaches that normally come with it. You're not an influencer. You're not on camera. You don't need to know how to edit videos.
A typical YouTube production process looks like this:
- Come up with an idea
- Research the video
- Script it
- Record it
- Edit it
- Make the thumbnail
- Upload
With a faceless channel you take those pieces and delegate them. You hire a voice actor. You use videos, images, animations and drawings to show the concept instead of a person talking to a camera. And because nobody has to be on camera, every piece can be handed to someone else.
We build and work with channels in all sorts of industries: fitness, engineering, history, space, logistics, architecture, psychology, business. It's a growing industry too. When I recorded this, Goldman Sachs was saying the creator economy could approach half a trillion dollars by 2027.
I show student results in this video, and in no way does that mean you'll have the same success. This takes dedicated work and a financial investment.
For context on who's talking: when I recorded this I had been on YouTube since 2018, had run over 40 faceless channels (I think over 50 by then), and had made over $2 million from YouTube. I had students making anywhere from $20,000 to $80,000 a month, and I'd seen channels out there making $100,000 to half a million a month.
How Faceless Channels Make Money
Click on a random video on YouTube and there's usually an ad right at the beginning. The creator gets paid when that ad is shown. If the viewer pays for YouTube Premium like I do, there's no ad, and the creator gets a percentage of that subscription instead.
So the loop is simple. You come up with video ideas, the videos get views, ads play on them, and you get paid. Typically that's anywhere from $4 to $8 per 1,000 views. That number is your RPM.
| Views | What a $4 RPM pays |
|---|---|
| 1,000 | $4 |
| 100,000 | $400 |
| 1 million | $4,000 |
A real one from my own channel: I posted a video that got 5.5 million views, and it made $22,000 on that single video. That works out to about a $4 RPM.
More on that number: YouTube RPM by niche.
The 6 Steps: VISION
I put the whole process into one word so it's easy to remember.
| Letter | Stands for | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| V | Venture | Niche selection |
| I | Imagine | Video ideas |
| S | Synergize | Team building |
| I | Income | Monetization |
| O | Optimizing | Do more of what works |
| N | Navigating your success | What you do with the time and money |
V: Pick a Niche That Stays Relevant
Three things make a good niche for a beginner.
It's constantly relevant. It's hard to capitalize on trends when you're new. You'll see some big news story and think "let's make a video on that." You can try. But if you've never made YouTube videos before, it's hard to compete. So for people getting started I recommend things that are evergreen.
It has a good RPM. You want viewers who are financially higher up. A bad example would be cricket. It's a huge sport in India, so you'd get a lot of viewers from India, and people there typically make significantly less money than people in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia or New Zealand.
Other people are already having success in it. You want to see that it's working for someone.
Pretty much anything can turn into a niche. I brainstormed the list I show in the video in about two minutes.
If you want a slower walk through this step, I cover it in how to start a 6-figure faceless YouTube channel.
I: Build Video Ideas With the BENS Framework
There are all sorts of frameworks out there for ideas. In the end you want to find what's working, emulate it, and turn it into your own formula. The one I like for educational, explainer-type videos is BENS.
| Letter | What it means |
|---|---|
| Big | Make the idea sound big |
| Easy | Make it sound easy to implement and easy to digest |
| New | Make it sound interesting, like a new approach |
| Safe | Make it sound like it comes from a credible source |
Take a video that got 4 million views: "Top 10 towns offering free land in the United States."
- Big. Free land in the United States. That's a big deal.
- Easy. There are 10 towns. If one doesn't work out, there are nine others. And it says "top 10," so there could be even more.
- New. At the time it was a pretty new idea. It sounds exciting.
- Safe. It seems legit. Nobody is telling you there's free land in Beverly Hills, which would be unrealistic. It's in the middle of nowhere, and that seems reasonable.
So the viewer thinks: how do I get free land? That sounds fun, let's figure it out.
I've remade that idea myself and made a ton of money with it. I've also used it for the world in general. Sometimes you can take a video that was made for one country and make it international, and I've made a lot of money doing that too.
S: Build the Team With AI and Freelancers
I like to use both AI and freelancers. Think of it as assembling your Avengers.
| Part of the video | Hire | Or use a tool |
|---|---|---|
| Script (the research and the writing) | Scriptwriter | ChatGPT, or another AI model |
| Voiceover | Voice actor | ElevenLabs or WellSaid Labs |
| Editing | Video editor | Pictory, or Midjourney images put together |
| Thumbnail | Thumbnail designer | Midjourney or Canva |
A few notes from my own experience.
On AI voices, don't use the generic default voice. Play with it until it sounds like a human.
On editing, I've found it best to just hire a video editor, or do it yourself with Google Images and so on.
On thumbnails, you can typically do them yourself. It's not too complicated.
Where to find people: Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer, job boards, social media, referrals and forums. To manage it all, use Trello or Asana or another project manager. I've even seen people do it with pen and paper.
More on this step: how to outsource faceless YouTube videos.
What a Video Costs and What to Keep Yourself
A video typically costs anywhere from $50 to $200. I have some channels where I pay $600. It depends on what I'm trying to do with the channel, plus the length, the skill involved, the niche and the style. You can get it cheaper by using AI and doing parts yourself.
This is how the work splits up:
| Who | What they do |
|---|---|
| You | The idea and the upload |
| Scriptwriter | The research, finding the videos and images, writing the script |
| Voice actor | The voiceover |
| Video editor | Finding videos and images, editing, sometimes the thumbnail |
| Thumbnail designer | The thumbnail, if the editor doesn't do it |
I and O: Get Monetized, Then Raise the Baseline
Income. All you need to get monetized on YouTube is 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time. As soon as you hit that, you can start earning.
Optimizing. Once you're there, these are my tips.
- Do more of what's working. Find the videos that get the most views and make more of those.
- Raise your baseline over time. If you're averaging 1,000 views a day, ask how you get to 2,000 a day. Then 5,000. People try to go straight to "how do I make $50,000 a month?" and that's a terrible way to do it. Keep raising what your low is.
- Emulate and study the success of others. If I apply the Pareto principle, 80% of your time goes here. This one thing alone will probably be the majority of your success.
- Increase your average view duration. Make the videos more engaging, edit them better, add animations.
- Make your thumbnails more clickable.
Good artists create, great artists steal. Go study what is working and why it's working. Watch a lot of it and break down the script, the video and the thumbnail. You'll get pretty good at this.
N: What Changed for Me
The last step is what you do once the channel gives you extra time and money.
As soon as I was making $30,000 to $40,000 a month with this, I went to Bali with some people I met off the internet and took off for a while. I bought my dream car, a Lexus IS 350, and later a Mercedes. When I recorded this I was living in a $2 million house.
I take care of my family where I can. I haven't bought them a house yet (that's one of my goals), but I'll buy really nice steaks and cook for them, buy groceries, and get them cool gifts. Christmas is great now.
I'll be honest, there was also a period where I did nothing. I watched a ton of Netflix. It wasn't what I wanted for the rest of my life, but it was nice to not have that pressure anymore.
I grew up in a small farm town in the middle of nowhere, and I moved 20 times by the age of 20. I should not be where I'm at. YouTube and faceless channels completely changed my life.
If you want to see the whole process done live on a brand new channel, watch or read my full tutorial on building a 6-figure faceless channel.
Video Chapters
- 0:00Intro
- 0:30The creator economy and student results
- 1:23Becoming a creator without being on camera
- 3:04Who I am
- 4:05What faceless YouTube channels are
- 5:10How YouTube channels make money
- 7:23How to create your VISION
- 7:49Niche selection
- 9:18Video ideas and the BENS framework
- 11:10Team building with AI and freelancers
- 12:40What a video costs
- 14:29Optimizing
- 15:42Navigating success
- 18:50Outro
FAQ
What is YouTube automation?
YouTube automation is running a faceless YouTube channel where the script, voiceover, editing and thumbnail are handled by freelancers or AI tools, so the owner is never on camera. Devon Canup says the owner should keep two jobs: the video idea and the upload.
How much money does a faceless YouTube channel make per view?
When Devon recorded this video, he said channels typically make around $4 to $8 per 1,000 views. At a $4 RPM, a million views pays $4,000. One of his videos got 5.5 million views and made $22,000.
How much does it cost to make a YouTube automation video?
Devon says a video typically costs $50 to $200 to produce, and he pays $600 on some channels. The price depends on length, skill, niche and style, and it's cheaper if you use AI or do parts yourself.
What is the BENS framework for YouTube video ideas?
BENS stands for Big, Easy, New, Safe. The idea should sound big, easy to implement, new, and like it comes from a credible source. Devon's example is "Top 10 towns offering free land in the United States," a video that got 4 million views.
What AI tools can you use for a faceless YouTube channel?
In this video Devon mentions ChatGPT for scripts, ElevenLabs or WellSaid Labs for voiceover, Pictory or Midjourney images for visuals, and Midjourney or Canva for thumbnails. He says he has found it best to hire a human video editor.
What do you need to get monetized on YouTube?
You need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time.
Want This Built With You?
Faceless Channel Academy is the coaching program I run for people building faceless YouTube channels: niche, formats, team, packaging, with an advisor and live calls. Book a free strategy call and we'll look at where you are and whether it's a fit.
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