How does Linus make money too online? Here is Reason How!

» How does Linus make money too! 

A lot of what I'm about to tell you is going to be the same as last time. Starting with how we keep money from polluting our editorial content. So we still maintain strict guidelines for our sponsors' behavior, even going as far as to issue ultimatums for poor business practices, like for example, making it difficult tocancel recurring payments or even cutting them off outrightfor poor customer service. And every brand from small indie shops who couldn't pay usmoney if they wanted to all the way up to large multinationals with quarterly or even annual spendingcommitments with us gets the same treatment when itcomes to product reviews.

You cannot buy a positive review at Linus Tech Tips. And in fact, you can'tbuy a review at all. Our editorial calendar is not for sale. Even if you sponsor a product showcase or some other similardemonstration of your product, which by the way is never the same as a review on ourchannel or anyone else's, in accordance with FTC guidelines, we won't give any opinionwe can't stand behind. And we would rather scrap the video and leave the money on thetable rather than compromise the trust of our audience. We've done it. Why you might ask? Well, mostly because we're just nice people. And we care about both the work that we do and how it affects you. But even if you don't believethat and you'd rather believe that we're an evil corporation that's only out to make money,I've got that covered too.

Our most stalwart fans, the ones that buy merge from lttstore.com, support us on Floatplanewhere we upload early access and exclusive videos and buy products using thepaid links under our videos directly contribute a massive 32% of our annual revenue as a company. And the most mind bendingthing about that number is that my most generous estimate puts that group of people at roughly 100,000, less than 1% of our subscribedviewers on the main channel. That makes you, the 1%,a more powerful block than any corporate overlordor sponsor could ever be, which is both really cooland also a little humbling. So if you're taking a sip ofwater from our water bottle or watching this on Floatplane, then from the bottom of myheart and everyone here, thank you.

You guys make a waybigger difference to us than you probably realize. Out of that 32%, the smaller portion ofaffiliate revenue here is mostly Newegg, and Walmart, with Amazon Associates making up the rest. Now Amazon is still apretty big chunk of change. But since 2016, it's fallen from 16% of ouroverall income to just 9%. And honestly speaking a bigpart of the reason for this is that we're actually afraid of calling out the links in our videos for fear that we're going to get kickedout of the program again for like, doing it wrong,even though it's the way that other people do it. So we just chuck the links down there in the video description and hope that peoplefind them on their own. I mean, how crazy is that? An affiliate program withrules that are so opaque and enforcement that's so random that participants areafraid to promote it. 

Floatplane is also significantlydown compared to Vessel, the Early Access startup company that we used to publishour videos early on. But that's less of a scary badthing than you might think. Unlike Vessel which asfar as we could tell, was basically just flushingventure capitalist money into the pockets of online creators. Floatplane is a sustainablealternative revenue source for us. It's also a biggerchunk than it looks like because it's almost all content that we would have produced anyway. So there's next to no extraexpense to produce it. And unlike physical goods, you don't need to buy it ahead of time and stock it in a warehousebefore you can profit off of it. Bringing us perfectly toour biggest gainer overall. Merch has grown a massive five times from 3% all the way to 15%. So if you found yourself wondering, "Ooh why is he always like lttstore.com?" Well, there's your answer. The big difference makerhere was abandoning the turnkey solutions that wetried before, like Tee-spring, in favor of an approach that allows us to maintain strict controlover both our storefront through Shopify. Did I mentioned they're the sponsor this video? Thanks, bros. And product quality.

So now we source our own blank shirts. We design our own artwork. And we work with a localprinter here in Vancouver to make our own t-shirts, while also maintainingour own relationships with overseas factories forother products like underwear, water bottles, cable ties, et cetera. Shopify also has lots of tools that have helped us grow this segment. Like deep integrationwith third party add-ons, analytics that help us understand where our traffic is coming from and how well we're converting. And much, much more. Of course, we've seengrowth in other areas too.