how does youtube money work?

[TheBigUnit]

title says it all, how does a poster make money? i hear its not just the ads that pop up but the viewer has to click on the ad or something, pls someone clarify it

[HunterSteele]

Your account needs to be approved for monetization first. There's no application process, you just get a little notification one day. I'm not sure how YouTube decides which accounts to monetize.

After your account it approved, you choose to monetize videos after you post them. The videos have to be entirely your own creation (or if you get permission from the copyright holder to use their content for profit). That means music and visuals.

The videos you choose to monetize have to be reviewed individually. Once they are, ads will be shown next to them and you will get money when they are clicked. Just keep in mind unless you get hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, you won't be earning a significant amount of money.

[ArsenicCatNip]

Your account needs to be approved for monetization first. There's no application process, you just get a little notification one day. I'm not sure how YouTube decides which accounts to monetize.

After your account it approved, you choose to monetize videos after you post them. The videos have to be entirely your own creation (or if you get permission from the copyright holder to use their content for profit). That means music and visuals.

The videos you choose to monetize have to be reviewed individually. Once they are, ads will be shown next to them and you will get money when they are clicked. Just keep in mind unless you get hundreds of thousands or even millions of views, you won't be earning a significant amount of money.
Some sites display a grid so you can see an estimate of your channel. Here's one of the more famous youtubers and you can see of how much they make
http://socialblade.com/youtube/user/Pewdiepie
My channel on the other hand makes 5-50 dollars a year(at least it could but I wouldn't consider a partnership)

[TheMatrix]

(I heard this from a rumour, around 3 years ago. Things could have changed since then.)

Supposedly, if your channel gets more than X amount of views, and Y number of hits per video per month, you are eligible to get money. I think it was around 3 cents per hit, but that seems a bit much.
Don't rely on it as your only income(derp), or you'll quickly be broke as the world moves on.

[Blueeyes]

As of this year, anyone can monetize videos. All you need is complete rights to everything in your video.

You wont make much, especially if you only get like 250-750 hits a video. Up in the tens of thousands, that brings in a decent amount. You will need a Google adsense account, minimum payout is $100.