SUMMARY BY CHATGPT

??? Episode Summary
Host: Tom Antion
Topic: How to buy monetized YouTube channels safely and profitably.
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?? Key Points Covered
1. Why buy a monetized YouTube channel:
o Saves time versus building one from scratch.
o Already has subscribers and watch time (at least 1,000 subs and 4,000 watch hours).
o Can range in price from $50 to millions of dollars depending on niche and performance.
2. Where to find channels for sale:
o Flippa
o Fameswap
o A-Market (A-Market.io)
o Use Escrow.com for safe transactions — avoid fake escrow sites.
3. Avoiding scams:
o Check the channel on Social Blade for steady, organic growth (avoid big spikes from fake subscribers).
o Ensure the channel is at least a year old.
o Watch for fake subscribers, bots, or inflated watch hours.
o Request screenshots of channel analytics.
o Confirm if the seller is the original owner.
o If they refuse escrow or push for alternative payment methods, it’s a red flag.
4. Payment & security:
o Prefer PayPal or credit card for extra buyer protection.
o Use Escrow.com only (don’t trust other “escrow” links).
5. After purchase – securing your channel:
o Request official ownership transfer through YouTube.
o Remove old users’ permissions.
o Turn on two-factor authentication.
o Change or delete old AdSense info to ensure you get the ad revenue.
6. Changing the niche:
o It’s possible to rebrand or change topics, though some subscribers may leave.
o Example: A buyer purchased a Spanish-language channel for $300, replaced all content, and eventually earned $130,000.
7. Final advice:
o Treat buying a channel like any serious business purchase—do your due diligence.
o You can also find many helpful walkthroughs on YouTube from people who’ve done this.
o Tom encourages listeners to check out his Internet Marketing Training Center (IMTCVA.org) for certified digital marketing education.
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?? Main Takeaway
Buying a monetized YouTube channel can be a smart shortcut to online income if you thoroughly verify the channel’s authenticity, use secure payment methods, and transfer ownership correctly.

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Episode 1054 - Buying YouTube Channels
[00:00:08] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey everybody, it's Tom here with episode 1054 of Screw the Commute podcast. Today we're going to talk about buying monetized YouTube channels, how to do it, and what you got to watch out for. This way you can get a channel that's already got subscribers and all kinds of good stuff that can come from it, but you can get scammed. So I'm going to talk about that today. I hope you didn't miss episode 1053. That was thumbnail cycling or recycling on YouTube to help get your views up. And I forgot to mention about episode 1052 that was encrypted messaging apps, and signal seems to be the front runner, but you'll hear about that on 1052. Anytime you want to get to a back episode, you go to screwthecommute.com, slash, then episode number. All right, pick up a copy of my automation book at screwthecommute.com/automatefree. Get version 3.0. And also check out my mentor program at GreatInternetMarketingtraining.com and my school at IMTCVA.org.

[00:01:34] All right. Let's talk about buying monetized YouTube channels. So monetized channels are ones that have more than 1000 subscribers. And I think it's 4000 hours of watch time, something like that within the past. So and so I forget. Exactly. But you can buy these from anywhere from 50 bucks to millions of dollars. All right. And that's cool because you don't have to start from scratch. But there are a lot of scams out there that you got to watch out for.

[00:02:06] Now, where do you go to find these things? Well, there's a site called Flippa Flip that's been around for a long time. And you also have a fame swap and then you have access Market. But here's how it's spelled. A dash market. And then whenever you're doing this, another website you want to keep in mind is escrow.com. You don't want to give somebody money for their channel and they just say, oh, screw you. Thanks for the money. And you can't have the channel now. And there's other ways that they I'm going to tell you later how they even if you they give you access to the channel, they take it back because you didn't do certain things. And your money's gone again. And another thing about escrow websites. First of all, escrow means they hold the money and they don't release the money to the seller until you agree that the what they sold you was good. You do it with cars and stuff all the time, things like that. But there are fake escrow accounts, so be very leery if somebody says, hey, use this escrow account. I really like it because it could be a fake where it just takes your money and then they disappear. But Escrow.com is very reputable. Billions of dollars have transferred through it. Okay, so what do you have to watch for? If you look at some of these sites and you say, hey, there's a YouTube channel, I think it would be perfect for me.

[00:03:46] Well, what you want to do is get a hold of the owner. I'll give you a bunch of questions to ask them, but you also go to social blade and look up the site, and it'll show you all kinds of statistics about the site. And what you want to look for is steady growth, not a big spike in growth, because it could have been they just bought a bunch of fake stuff off of Fiverr or somewhere, and it's a fake site. Or they just use bots to jack up their subscriber base. It's fake. In other words, and make sure that they're not losing subscriptions tremendously over time. Now, losing some over time is normal, and especially if they're just sick of running the site and haven't been updating it, then they might lose subscribers. But you want to really, really thoroughly check out that it's legit site. You have to make sure the videos that are on it now are real. You may not keep the videos that are on it, but make sure that they're just everything is not fake. Make sure it's at least a year old. You get people making sites and then trying to sell them to you where it was just all fake and they they got by the thousand subscribers and the watch time was all fake.

[00:05:12] And then they sell it to you. Now see what niche, the niche if you live on the good side of the tracks, right. See what niche they're in. However, I've seen people buy a site that's totally out of their niche. Throw away all the videos. In fact, one of the guys, all the videos were in Spanish and he threw away all the videos, changed the niche of the site and a lot of the subscribers didn't notice. And he built it up and ended up making like $130,000 over several years with a $300 site that he bought. See? So it's but, you know, I mean, I'm not sure that's the norm. Okay. But it is a legit way. I used to teach this on buying eBay stuff, buying websites off of eBay. As long as they're not canceled or banned and things like that. So ask a lot of questions. Ask for screenshots of the statistics of the site. Ask them if they're the original owner. Suggest that, hey, we're going to use an, you know, this famous escrow site. If they balk at that, that means they're, you know, they're shady. Maybe they don't know any better, but it kind of means that they don't want to be scrutinized. They want to get the money, and then who knows if you're ever going to get it. And if when you do buy them, try to use PayPal or a credit card to give you extra, an extra level of security.

[00:06:46] So here's the thing. When you do buy it, you're going to access the site and you're going to request ownership. Ownership change from YouTube. That can take a little while, maybe a week. And then you want to go into the site and manage the permissions and delete all other permissions that that site might be connected to, because they might. This is how they could just take it back from you before after they got the money turn on. I know it's a pain two factor authentication. Make sure if any kind of changes are made, you get notice of it and can nix them. If some shady seller is messing with you and then change the AdSense, that's the one that pays for advertising revenue. Because if you if you forget to change the AdSense or at least delete it, they're going to any ad revenue is going to go to them. See. So you want to put it on your AdSense account if you don't have one, start one and put your number in there on the video or on all the videos. So that's a way to buy a YouTube channel that's already monetized to save you from starting from scratch. It's probably better if it's in your niche niche. If it's not, it is possible to change it, but you'll probably lose a bunch of subscribers. But just thoroughly check it out. Like any kind of business decision, you need to be diligent.

[00:08:20] But this is basically how you do it. And if you want more details, just go to YouTube. And there's loads of guys and girls that have done this already that are giving you extra tips, but I just wanted to bring up this idea as a possible side hustle for you or to enhance the business you already have. And that's the kind of stuff I do here, besides all the other stuff that we do to help people get in the internet and digital marketing business. And I highly suggest you check out my school. It's IMTCVA.org certified to operate by the State Council on Higher Education in Virginia. But you don't have to be in Virginia because it's quality distance learning. And it's I went through three years of hell scrutiny to get the license to do this, where most of the things you see online that claim to teach you stuff have gone under no scrutiny whatsoever. So they can just say anything and do anything, and there's no repercussions to them if they rip you off. Well, it's different because when you go through what I went through to get this school background checks, financial checks have to recertify every year. They check the curriculum, you know, all this stuff. So check it out. I will catch you on the next episode. See you later.