- 8-year-old Ryan Kaji of YouTube's Ryan ToysReview is the highest-paid YouTube star of the year with an estimated $26 million, according to Forbes.
- The YouTube channel Ryan's World has 23 million subscribers.
- $4.
8-year-old Ryan Kaji of YouTube's Ryan's World ($4) is the highest-paid YouTube star in the world, and has built a business empire from reviewing toys - with help from his parents.
Kaji earned an estimated $26 million, according to $4, based on pretax figures from June 2018 to June 2019. That's a jump from the $22 million $4. The second biggest earner this year was the group Dude Perfect with $20 million.
Since Kaji started hosting the ToysReview unboxing videos in 2015, it's grown into a mega-popular brand called Ryan's World, and its $4 has 23 million subscribers. The channel started out slowly until $4 went viral. The video featured Ryan opening and reviewing a box containing more than 100 toys from Pixar's "Cars" series. It now has more than 1 billion views.
As the channel began to grow in views and subscribers, Michael Bienstock, chief executive of the influencer-focused wealth-management company Semaphore, reached out and had a conversation with Ryan's dad about how complicated things would get financially if the channel continued to grow at this pace, $4.
Semphore introduced the Ryan's World brand to the likes of Colgate, Nickelodeon, Bonkers Toys, Roku, and Walmart. Now, Ryan's World merchandise can be found at Target, Walmart, and Amazon. $4. On the traditional media front, he has deals with Nickelodeon and Hulu.
John Lynch contributed reporting.
For more on the business of Ryan ToysReview, read these interviews on Business Insider Prime:
- $4: Kerry Tucker, the chief marketing officer at Pocket.Watch, spoke with Business Insider about how the kids-entertainment company takes YouTube stars like Kaji and turns their online brands into lucrative empires.
- $4: We spoke with Deborah Stallings Stumm, the senior vice president of sales and marketing at the toy-manufacturing company Bonkers Toys, on what makes a successful partnership between a toy company and an influencer.
- $4: Michael Bienstock, Semaphore's chief executive, talked about assisting clients like Ryan of Ryan's World (and his parents), in growing their careers.