Of the nine social media channels in the full comparison table, YouTube is the most expensive to build and the slowest to pay you back. YouTube is also the only one of the nine where a video you publish today can still be bringing in customers in three years.
YouTube is the slowest to build and the only one that keeps paying
YouTube works more like a search engine than a social network:
- A YouTube video can reach viewers before the channel has any subscribers, but that reach builds slowly. YouTube Shorts took roughly 75% of all YouTube views in 2025. Only about 0.33% of YouTube videos ever pass 100,000 views.
- A YouTube video is by far the most expensive post to make of the nine social media channels in the comparison. A long-form YouTube video takes roughly 7 to 10 hours to make, and editing alone is about 30% of that time.
- Growing a YouTube channel needs a demanding upload rate, but not an impossible one. YouTube channels posting 12 or more videos a month grew subscribers about 66% faster than channels posting once or twice a month. Channels mixing Shorts with long-form videos grow subscribers around 35% faster than channels posting only one of the two formats.
- YouTube takes months of weekly uploads before subscribers arrive. A new YouTube channel uploading weekly typically takes many months to a year or more to reach YouTube's bar for earning ad money (1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours).
A good YouTube video keeps bringing in viewers and customers for years after you post it
- A good YouTube tutorial keeps getting views from search for months or years after it is posted.
- YouTube viewers become customers more often than viewers on the other eight channels, because people who find a video through search are already looking for what it shows. Links in a YouTube video's description open in a real web browser. A long YouTube video also has time to demonstrate a product before asking viewers to click the link.
Growing a YouTube channel takes 6 to 12 months of work before it pays off. In return, your YouTube videos form a searchable library that keeps sending you visitors long after you stop uploading.
Use Repeat Recorder to rehearse a video script before filming
Much of the editing on a YouTube video is deleting the takes where you stumbled over a sentence. Repeat Recorder, one of my own apps, records you saying a line, plays the take straight back, and starts recording again without you touching the phone.
- Repeat Recorder plays each recorded take back automatically and then starts recording again, so you can say the same sentence twenty times without picking the phone up.
- Editing is roughly 30% of the 9.7 hours an average YouTube video takes, and most of that time goes on cutting out takes where you stumbled over the words. A sentence you have already said out loud five times tends to come out right on the first or second take on camera.
- In Repeat Recorder, takes worth keeping go into favourites and into folders you name yourself, so two recorded versions of the same opening line sit next to each other.
Conclusion: YouTube is worth growing if you can wait a year
- YouTube works like a search engine, so it recommends videos on how long people watch them rather than on how many subscribers you already have. YouTube Shorts are the fastest way for a new channel to get views. Shorts took roughly 75% of all YouTube views in 2025.
- One long YouTube video takes 7 to 10 hours to make. Only about 0.33% of YouTube videos ever pass 100,000 views. No other social media channel in the comparison asks for that much work per post, but a good YouTube tutorial goes on getting views from search for months or years.
- Post both Shorts and long videos, and expect six to twelve months of weekly uploads before a new YouTube channel has an audience. YouTube channels posting 12 or more videos a month grew subscribers about 66% faster than channels posting once or twice a month. Channels mixing Shorts with long videos grow subscribers around 35% faster than channels posting only one of the two formats.