Year-End Review and Reflection: My Digital Journey, YouTube Metrics, and 2026 Plans

Name: What I Earned from YouTube in 2025 — And My 2026 Plan
Uploaded: 2026-01-15T07:43:16.069092+00:00
Channel: Shankar Nath
Description: Summary and key takeaways on Year-End Review and Reflection: My Digital Journey, YouTube Metrics, and 2026 Plans, covering Introduction I opened the year‑end

Shankar Nath

Jan 15, 2026

•

4 min read

YouTube video ID: ClsTHwoEsyQ

Source: YouTube video by Shankar Nath — Watch original video

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Introduction

I opened the year‑end review video by explaining that, unlike last year, this edition includes a reflection segment. Stepping back gives a broader view of progress, much like the teachings of the Buddha.

My Digital Journey (2000‑2022)

2000 – Created a Yahoo! email with 4 MB storage.
2006‑2007 – Joined early social platforms (Facebook, Awit) and made my first online purchase (flight ticket on MakeMyTrip).
2008‑2009 – Started watching YouTube videos via Wi‑Fi.
2011 – Bought my first e‑commerce product (Pumar shoes on Flipkart).
2012 – Led the digital business of an insurance company.
2015 – Discovered mobile apps through ET Money.
2020 – Hosted my company’s YouTube channel.
2022 – At age 42, earned my first rupee online; the amount grew from ₹1 to ₹10 000, then to a lakh, and finally to my first ₹1 lakh (k) in three years.

2025 YouTube Performance

Subscribers

Total subscribers at year‑end: 48,000 (≈4,000 new per month).
Down ~1 lakh compared to 2024.
Causes: poor stock‑market sentiment and only 39 long‑format videos (≈50 % of 2023 output, 20 % less than 2024).
Personal disruptions: heavy involvement in launching an investing community (Jan‑Apr) and a burnout period (Sep‑Oct) left me inactive for ~5 months, triggering algorithmic penalties.

Revenue Streams

Advertising (AdSense): ₹7,72,000.
Brand collaborations/sponsorships (e.g., Moa Motor): ~₹35 lakh.
Total gross revenue: ₹41.5 lakh.
After removing GST and deducting expenses (videographer, editor, equipment, software, etc.), pre‑tax profit ≈ ₹36 lakh.
Comparison: still below my salary three years ago, but I acknowledge I haven’t maximised my potential.

RPM (Revenue per Mille)

Early years: ~₹80 per 1,000 views.
2023‑2024: stabilized around ₹160.
2025: jumped to ₹200+, improving revenue efficiency despite fewer views.

Cash‑Flow Pattern

Advertising income: relatively steady (~₹60,000 ± ₹10,000 per month).
Sponsorship income: highly variable, tied to video output and brand budgets.

Partnerships & Brand Deals

PowerUp Money (mutual‑fund advisory app) – provides a monthly retainer for six videos, giving me discipline and creative freedom.
Benefits: long‑term view, flexible collaboration, and personal use of the platform for my own investing decisions.

Content Milestones

42 videos surpassed 100,000 views (out of ~180 long‑format videos).
≈50 % of videos crossed the 50,000‑view threshold.

2025 Goals vs. Reality

Goal	Planned	Actual	Comments
YouTube ad & sponsorship revenue	Grow	Achieved ₹41.5 lakh (gross)	RPM improved but volume dropped
Launch investing community	Build & manage	Started, but required a larger team (≈6 people) than available
Small‑case product	Develop	Not pursued – high stress, long‑term contracts, need for team
Maintain flexibility for experiments	Yes	Limited by burnout and reduced video output

2026 Plans

YouTube output – Target 72 videos (≈1 video every 5 days) under the “Learn‑on‑the‑Go” series, leveraging a lean production setup (lights, mic, webcam, self‑editing) that reduces per‑video cost from ₹15,000 to ₹200.
Course/Workshop – Design and launch an educational product (topic, duration, pricing TBD). Will involve community feedback to ensure relevance and overcome perception challenges.
Community scaling – Re‑evaluate the investing community once a suitable team and infrastructure are in place.
Continue brand collaborations – Maintain the PowerUp Money retainer and explore additional sponsorships aligned with my content style (depth, authenticity, actionable insights).

Lessons & Call to Action

Mindset over money: Infrastructure is cheap; the real barrier is the belief that you can’t create value.
Start small: I now produce videos for ₹200 each; anyone can begin with minimal equipment.
Diversify income: Beyond YouTube ads, consider blogging, podcasts, affiliates, e‑books, freelancing, or online workshops.
Goal for viewers: Aim to earn ₹10,000 of active online income in 2026, regardless of the platform.

Closing Thoughts

Balance is essential – health, travel, family, and hobbies matter as much as financial goals. I wish everyone a well‑rounded 2026 and beyond.

Consistent effort, adaptable strategies, and a value‑first mindset can turn modest online activities into sustainable income—start now, keep learning, and let the internet work for you.

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Full Transcript YouTube

Hi everyone, welcome to the year end
review and reflection video. I started
this practice last year of summarizing
the previous year's achievement. But for
this year, I've purposefully added a
reflection part to this video. After
all, it's only when one steps back and
takes a broader view of life can he or
she really see how much progress has
been made. I'm sure the great Buddha
would have said something similar. But
for now, let's take my digital journey
as an example. So this started in the
year 2000 when I opened an email account
on yahoo.com with some 4 MB of storage.
By 20067, I was on networking platforms
like Facebook and Awit. Around the same
time, I did my first online transaction.
Bought a flight ticket on Make My Trip.
2008 2009, thanks to a Wi-Fi connection,
I started watching videos on YouTube.
2011, my first e-commerce purchase, a
pair of Pumar shoes on Flipkart. In
2012, I headed an insurance company's
digital business. 2015, ET Money
introduced me to mobile apps. Then in
2020, I hosted the company's YouTube
channel. And it was in 2022, 22 years
after consuming services for free or
spending money online that I finally
made my first rupee from the internet at
the age of 42. Pretty soon one became
two, two turned to 20, 100, a,000,
10,000 rupees, a lakh. And today, I'm
happy to report I have finally earned my
first k from the internet. This is over
3 years of effort marking a rather
significant and proud milestone for
myself. I'll take you through the
specifics of this in this video as we go
through different metrics, views,
subscribers, revenue, and a few other
things. All this will be a part of the
review. And when it comes to
reflections, I must say the year 2025
did not go as planned. I'll present
those things as well. But I do have a
request. Before some of you are tempted
to write a suggestion in the comments,
an advice saying, "Oh, you should have
done this, etc." I request you to watch
the entire video first because there are
many angles to what I do or a creator
does that you may not have considered.
So sit back, relax, listen, observe,
reflect on what I have to say, and of
course do take away those parts that are
potentially productive to you.
All right. So, YouTube is my primary
source of everything as in my identity,
my work, my livelihood, everything is
linked to YouTube. So, let's start with
that. Okay. First up is subscribers.
Something I have stopped asking for
entirely in my videos now.
So, the year 2025 yielded 48,000, so
just about 4,000 new subscribers per
month, which is a big drop, almost a lak
subscribers less than what I clocked in
2024. While a poor stock market
performance was partly responsible for
this, a bigger blame can be attached to
the fact that I published only 39 long
format videos this entire year, which is
half of what I did in 2023 and is 20%
lower than my 2024 numbers. as to why
the number of videos were so low. Well,
this year 2025 saw a lot of disruption
at my end, especially in the first few
months of the year until April when I
was very involved with launching my
investing community. Things normalized a
bit from May. But then in September and
October, I again went through a small
burnout phase. So essentially, I was
almost out of action for five out of 12
months, which is quite a bit. And
understandably the algorithm did
penalize me in terms of views and
subscriber count. That said, I'm not
someone who gets very bothered with a
lack of views or number of subscribers.
But you know, one thing to understand is
that a YouTuber's path is not your
typical SD1, SD2, etc. The path is never
linear. And anyone who has been in
business or is self-employed would
understand this stop start stop start
nature of work. Okay, let's look at
revenues. Now I'm sure you're aware
there are many ways of earning from
YouTube advertising, sponsorships, brand
collabs, affiliates, memberships. These
are just some of the direct monetization
opportunities that are available within
YouTube. And then there are additional
ones wherein some part of the traffic
might opt for paid courses, webinars,
advisory reports, community access,
consulting, one-on-one coaching,
workshops, etc. Unfortunately, I don't
do most of these. And the revenue I made
in 2025 was entirely from two direct
revenue sources. That is advertising
those ads that you see if you don't have
YouTube premium and then from brand
collaborations or sponsorships. In
numbers, I made some 7 lakh 72,000
rupees from YouTube advertising. This is
for 2025. I'm also enclosing the number
of views here. And as I touched upon
earlier, this year 2025 was a slow one
for me in terms of views, videos, and
therefore revenue, especially when
compared to the previous year. If you're
wondering why the ratio between
advertising revenue and the number of
views seems to be better this year,
well, it's more to do with a metric
called RPM. So RPM stands for revenue
per millle. And very simply, it's the
amount of money a creator receives for
every 1,000 views. In the early days,
this number was only 80 rupees, but by
2023, the RPM for my channel had
stabilized to around 160. 2024 was
pretty much the same. But the big jump
came in 2025 and YouTube advertising now
consistently offers me RPMs of 200
rupees or more. In addition to AdSense,
I make money from brand collaborations,
partnerships, and sponsorships. These
are approximate numbers. But Moa Motor,
I must have made around 35 lakhs this
year. And with an additional 6.5 coming
from YouTube advertising, my total
revenue, remember revenue for the year
comes to 41.5 lakhs. Let's spend a
minute on this slide. So firstly, the
numbers I've presented here, these are
revenue numbers. I've removed GST as
that money is anyways not with me. It
goes to the government. But from here we
have to further deduct expenses before
we arrive at the pre-tax profits.
Expenses for me would include the cost
of hiring a videographer, an editor,
equipment cost, lights, microphone, some
software subscriptions. I have to have
even for content. Uh I need those
subscriptions and eventually all of this
adds up. Which means when I say I made
almost 42 lakhs in 2025, the actual
pre-tax profit will be closer to 36
lakhs. Now a number like 36 lakhs is
nothing great. It's less than what I
used to earn some 3 years back as
salary. But again, please don't judge me
for this. Don't extrapolate this data
point because what's also true is that I
have not been maximizing my potential.
I'll talk more about this in a bit when
we come to my 2026 plans. The third
thing to notice here is how lumpy the
cash flows are. This graph is for 2025.
I've included advertising and
sponsorship revenue. It's in red and
blue. And see this in the case of
advertising the money is fairly
constant. It's an average of 60,000 a
month plus - 10,000 rupees. However, the
income received from sponsorship is
fairly up and down. This of course is a
function of the number of videos I can
do. I barely did anything in April, May
and September. It also depends on the
budgets these brands have. And then
there's this thing with brands wherein
most marketers tend to evaluate the
campaigns on the basis of cost per view
and similar metrics. I raised this
because I am one of those creators who
isn't recognized for his frequency of
videos, but more on the depth of
content, the authenticity of it and its
actionable nature. I'm explaining you
all this just to give you a better
understanding of how this business
works. These are important decisions
that every creator whether existing or
prospective has to make at some point in
time. For example, I could have very
easily chosen to have made clickbay
videos. So things like some masala scam
based case study, top three midcap
stocks to buy right now. Yeah. Subka
favorite, the crash is coming, what to
do, etc. This is just a sample. There
are lots of decisions one has to make
and specific to brand promotions because
that's the bulk of my income. I think
now I have something which I really
like. This is my association with
PowerUp Money, a mutual fund advisory
app which I must say is an absolutely
excellent platform. I'm myself a user
and PowerUp Money is where I go when I'm
not sure which MF to invest in or a
bigger use case from a me perspective is
on whether I should continue to hold on
to a scheme or should I redeem it. So do
try out PowerUp Money if you haven't
done that yet. The link is available in
the description of this video. With
regards to commercials, I do get a
monthly retainer from them. In return, I
have to make six videos a month, which
is good because firstly, it disciplines
me. And you can see the result in
November and December when I finally
woke up from my slumber and made 11
videos over 2 months. And the second
thing which I really like about uh the
team at Powerup Money is that they
continue to give me a free hand on the
video topics and content that I wish to
explore. In fact, I was a bit perplexed
as to why a mutual fund related company
wants to associate with me. And I think
what really worked in my favor is that
the team there are were and are big fans
of my work for many years. And honestly,
I'm also very happy working with the
team there. Uh they're generally nice
people, very flexible, accommodating,
and they're doing things with a
long-term view in mind, which I really
liked. Okay, what else? Oh yes. Um I am
very happy to report that 42 of my
videos have crossed the one lakh views
mark. That's 42 out of 180 odd long
format videos that I've created and
relatively 91. So about half of the
videos I've produced have crossed the
milestone of 50,000 views which is
something I'm really proud of. Okay,
before I share my plans for 2026, let's
look at what my goals were for last year
2025 and how did I go about it. So
essentially this is what I had planned.
The slide is from my last year's video.
The green takes were my goals for 2025.
Okay. So YouTube advertising and
sponsorships is my bread and butter.
It's something I am doing and will
continue to do. The community is
something I had tried and tested for a
couple of months before coming to the
conclusion that this required more
people at my end to manage it well. By
my reckoning, it'll need a team of at
least six. So excluding me, a couple of
researchers who can work alongside me to
identify solid companies and
opportunities, someone to manage the
platform that is a community manager,
someone to take care of growth via
partnerships, performance, marketing,
emails, etc. And lastly, two more guys
who can manage YouTube that is the
research and the editing as YouTube will
continue to be my primary channel of
acquisition for the community. Honestly,
I don't think I'm ready for this to run
a community as a business. The same
thing applies for small case as well.
That too requires a team of people, a
bunch of subscriptions and most
importantly or maybe this is specific to
me, it's also the ability to manage the
stress that comes from taking decisions
that impact other people's money. This
is not easy to do and not everyone has
the same risk profile as I have and that
builds up anxiety at least in me.
Another reason why I found the community
and I'm sure why I'll find the small
case bit also overwhelming is because
these are long-term contracts 3 years 5
years 10 years and honestly I'm someone
who wants to retain that flexibility
that allows me to experiment move in and
out of things. Uh yeah I'm sure you
understand what I'm coming at. That
said, nothing is cast in stone and if
I'm mentally prepared, if some elements
of the infrastructure shows up, then who
knows, I might be ready to commit myself
to these things as well. But one thing
that really interests me and what I
believe is my strength is the teaching,
the education side of things. My recent
learn on the go series is a good example
of this. And in spite of these videos
taking 25, 30, even 40 minutes, I think
it's helping a lot of viewers understand
investing better with tons of real life
case studies, screeners, frameworks,
learning modules, additional resources,
etc. Remember, PowerUp money has
contracted for six videos a month. So
that's 72 learn onthe-go videos. And
this is part one of my 2026 plan. that
is I continue my YouTube channel and the
target is 72 videos which comes to one
video in 5 days. The second thing I'm
very keen on trying out is the launch of
a course. I've not made up my mind on
the topic or the duration on pricing
etc. But again what I want to do is to
approach it per the structure and format
that has worked well for me. Let me not
get into specifics just yet. when the
time is right, I will take help of my
community, all of you guys to get this
as close as possible to what you and I
want out of it. I must say a course is
not a very impressionable word nowadays.
There are enough people who have abused
it in the past. So I think the
perception part will be a bigger
challenge as compared to the value
addition bit and that's absolutely fine
with me. If you're wondering where this
course confidence has come from, a lot
of it has to do with a recent webinar I
gave. Uh this one which by the way some
1,200 people attended and I received
some 15 20 emails separately thanking me
for it. No need to thank me. In fact, I
should be thanking you. I have this
morbid fear of talking in a live
environment and I'm happy and relieved
to have survived 1 and 1/2 hours of that
webinar. So 72 YouTube videos and a
course or workshop specifics will come
in later. So that's my simple plan for
2026.
All right. U I'd like to end this video
by going back to the beginning of it
with the fact that I made my first k
from the internet in three short years
doing a lot less than what I could have
done. And that's really my challenge to
you. Not a cr, not 10 lakhs, not even a
lakh, but try to make just 10,000 rupees
in active income off the internet in the
year 2026. It doesn't need to be
YouTube. You can monetize via blogging,
podcasting, affiliates, ebooks,
freelancing, online workshops. There are
like dozens of options on how one can
use this wonderful thing called internet
to make money. On my part, everything I
do is from this room. It's just uh 10 ft
by 10 ft. I don't even use this in its
entirety. And in terms of my expenses
for creating say one video, earlier it
was about 15,000 rupees. That is the
money I had to pay to my videographer
and to my editor. But the format that I
now use this learn onthe-go series and
also this video I now have a very lean
setup. I already have the lights, the
microphone, I record from a webcam, I do
the editing myself. And therefore what
was an expense of 15,000 rupees per
video is now down to just 200 rupees.
The point I want to make is that if one
really thinks of it, money or
infrastructure is not the problem. I'm a
good example of that. I now make videos
for just 200 rupees. How to implement
isn't a problem either. There are an
unimaginable number of videos on YouTube
itself from where one can learn
anything. Which means the real problem
is our mindset that stops us from
creating something useful, something
valuable, which if done decently well
can transform our own lives. Anyway, in
addition to money, don't forget there
are many more important things in life,
health, travel, family, hobbies, tons of
things. And I really hope you live a
very well- balanced life not only in
2026 but much beyond that. As always, uh
thank you for your time. I wish you well
and I'll see you very soon. Bye-bye.