Top YouTube creators can earn millions of dollars, but the vast majority make far less. In fact, only 4% of social media influencers earn more than $100,000 a year—and for most creators, producing content isn’t the only revenue stream. Revenue often comes from ads, brand deals, affiliate marketing, and product sales. For many smaller YouTube creators trying to supplement their income, selling custom merch is an approachable starting point.
Merch is a catch-all term for merchandise like branded apparel and accessories. YouTuber merch includes any custom-printed product designed for a YouTube channel, often featuring its name, catch phrases, or imagery. While t-shirts and hoodies are popular, merch isn’t limited to clothing.
Explore a few product ideas and tips to inspire your own merch.
8 examples of YouTuber merch
Diversifying your revenue stream can increase your income, and fortunately, there are many ways to create merch to suit your brand. Look to these eight popular YouTubers for inspiration:
Hannah Hart
Hannah Hart’s YouTube channel focuses on cooking, creative projects, and activism, and has more than two million subscribers. On her website, she offers a range of merchandise to appeal to her audience’s mixed interests, including cookbooks, aprons, and activewear.
Fans can personalize their own Hannah Hart merch by adding an embroidered patch with her channel’s logo to their favorite garments. This gives her audience access to low-cost merch that lets them get creative.
Emma Chamberlain
Emma Chamberlain is a lifestyle vlogger with more than 12 million subscribers, known for her sense of humor and effortlessly cool style. Emma’s official merch store features comfortable, accessible apparel like cotton sweatshirts, sweatpants, and t-shirts. This cozy swag expresses her laid-back image.
Products include the name of her podcast, Anything Goes, and illustrations of her two cats, Declan and Frankie. Including her pets adds a personal touch, appealing to followers who feel an emotional connection to her content.
TommyInnit
Thomas Simmons is the brain behind TommyInnit—a gaming and internet-focused YouTube channel with 15 million subscribers. Known for Minecraft content, his videos are packed with loud, high-energy commentary, over-the-top reactions, and a meme-inflected sense of humor.
Thomas’s YouTuber merch captures the same absurdist style, with designs like an “I hate goats” t-shirt featuring recurring jokes from his videos and appealing to loyal fans who love the insider references.
MKBHD
MKBHD is a tech-focused YouTube channel with more than 20 million subscribers, where creator Marques Brownlee shares in-depth gadget reviews, video production tips, and industry insight—all with a polished, authoritative tone.
The official MKBHD online store caters to the channel’s in-the-know audience, with apparel products like a “30 FPS” t-shirt—a nod to Marques’s preferred frame rate for video—and practical accessories like a logo-printed keyboard desk mat.
Trixie Mattel
Trixie Mattel built a successful YouTube channel after appearing on RuPaul’s Drag Race. They gained a loyal following with makeup tutorials and product review videos blending playful, exuberant energy with expert knowledge.
Trixie’s store taps into her popularity and authority with products like cosmetic brushes, applicators, and accessories—tools ideal for fans eager to recreate signature looks from her tutorials. Every product reflects Trixie’s fun, feminine style, staying true to her brand.
Safiya Nygaard
Safiya Nygaard shares beauty tutorials, fashion explainers, and travel content, all with a witchy, gothic aesthetic. Her channel is known for humorous experiments; in one video, she spends a day wearing nine-foot-long jeans.
Her merch includes apparel and other products reflecting a darkly playful vibe. One standout design, the Melting Lipstick tote, features pointy black manicured hands holding a lighter to a lipstick tube. This witty design expresses her signature combination of beauty and chaos and appeals to like-minded fans.
NileRed
NileRed is a YouTube channel known for outlandish chemistry experiments. Creator Nigel Braun uses quirky stunts—like extracting molecules from plastic gloves to make hot sauce—to draw viewers in before diving into scientific discussions.
Nigel’s official merch store features socks, t-shirts referencing popular videos, and simple hoodies aimed at science-lovers. A standout item is a minimalist keychain depicting the molecular structure of the channel’s namesake chemical, NileRed—a subtle, affordable way for fans to show their support.
TheOdd1sOut
Robert Rallison, known as TheOdd1sOut, is a cartoonist with over 20 million YouTube subscribers. His animated videos blend personal narratives with his signature soft, rounded marshmallow characters.
Alongside apparel, Odd1sOut’s merch store offers plush toys based on the channel’s fan-favorite characters. These collectibles offer a way for fans to show their appreciation for a specific character and can also serve as thoughtful gifts.
Tips for creating YouTuber merch
- Express your style
- Go beyond hoodies and t-shirts
- Consider the price range
- Provide a quality product
Selling merch involves designing, producing, promoting, and shipping products. Profit margins and time requirements vary depending on your product and production method.
Partnering with a print-on-demand (POD) service can simplify logistics because POD companies handle production and shipping after a fan places an order. On the flipside, a wholesale manufacturer requires a larger upfront investment, but it may yield greater profits over time.
Once you’ve chosen your approach, keep these tips in mind to create YouTuber merch that resonates with fans:
Express your style
Unique designs reflecting your signature style will appeal to loyal fans. Think about the colors, props, and graphics you use in your videos. If you carry these elements over to products, your merch will look cohesive with your YouTube brand identity.
Don’t worry about mass-market appeal—your best customers are likely to be loyal fans. Funny inside jokes and channel catchphrases can be great design inspiration. People who understand the reference will feel like they’re part of your community, and that’s what will help drive sales.
Go beyond hoodies and t-shirts
Everyone loves t-shirts and sweatshirts, but most of your fans already have drawers and closets stuffed with these. Offering travel mugs, notebooks, koozies, wall calendars, greeting cards, stickers, and phone cases creates more buying opportunities and can appeal to a wider range of shoppers.
Offer products related to your content niche to appeal to your target audience. A cartoonist, for example, could sell a sketch pad with a custom cover for aspiring artists. A pet influencer could design and market custom-printed dog collars.
Consider the price range
If you want to catch a wider swath of shoppers, price your products affordably. If you choose to offer more expensive options, also consider adding a few inexpensive items to your store. Fans who don’t want to invest in a $100 track jacket might not hesitate to order stickers and keychains—and you may not want to invest heavily in high-end products upfront, either.
Provide a quality product
Your merch is an extension of your brand. Hold your products to the same standards as your content; selling a sub-par product could damage your brand reputation. Consider ordering samples before stocking items in your online store. Reviewing products in person is the best way to evaluate factors like fabric texture, fit, and print quality.
YouTuber merch FAQ
Where do YouTubers get their merch from?
YouTubers typically work with third-party companies to produce custom merch. Depending on your preferences, you may partner with print-on-demand companies or work directly with wholesale merchandisers to create products.
How much do YouTubers make from selling merchandise?
Merchandise revenue varies depending on sales, markup, and production strategy. With a print-on-demand strategy, creators make less money from each sale but eliminate the risk of financial loss due to overstock. Wholesale production has better profit margins, but it requires a large upfront investment for bulk manufacturing.
Does YouTube have a merch store?
Yes. Consumers can purchase YouTube merch from the Google Merch Shop. Content creators who want to sell merch on YouTube can embed products directly on their page using the YouTube Merch Shelf or link out to a separate online store where they can control the design and user experience.
