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The Richest YouTube Child Stars

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A nine-year-old with a toy chest just out-earned most Fortune 500 executives.

YouTube’s biggest paydays in 2018 didn’t go to gamers, beauty gurus, or late-night hosts trying to crack the algorithm — they went to kids. A handful of child creators, propped up by parent-run production teams, turned toy unboxings, candy taste tests, and baking tutorials into some of the platform’s most lucrative channels. Nicki Swift’s breakdown of “The Richest YouTube Child Stars” runs through the roster, and the numbers behind it are staggering for anyone still picturing YouTube as a hobbyist’s platform.

• Ryan of Ryan ToysReview was named by Forbes as YouTube’s top earner of 2018 after pulling in $22 million over a single 12-month stretch, launched from a channel he started in 2015 at age three.
• Evan of EvanTubeHD began making stop-motion and toy review videos with his father back in 2011 and reportedly clears more than $1 million a year in ad revenue alone.
• CharlisCraftyKitchen, run by Australian sisters Charli and Ashlee since 2012 when Charli was just six, grew into YouTube’s leading baking channel and now brings in tens of thousands of dollars a month.

Ryan’s World Becomes a Retail Brand

Ryan ToysReview didn’t stay a toy-review channel for long. After Ryan’s earnings topped the platform’s charts in 2018, the operation behind him signed a 2017 partnership with the media startup pocket.watch, a deal that turned a kid opening boxes on camera into a licensing machine. The payoff showed up on store shelves: exclusive Ryan-branded merchandise lines landed in Walmart, taking the channel from ad revenue alone into full retail territory — a jump few adult creators, let alone three-year-olds, ever manage.

Ryan generated $22 million in a single 12-month period — enough to top Forbes’ list of YouTube’s highest earners for 2018.

The Pioneers Who Built the Blueprint

Ryan didn’t invent the format — he perfected a model earlier creators had already proven out. Evan of EvanTubeHD started with his dad in 2011, years before “family channel” was an industry term, mixing stop-motion animation with straightforward toy reviews and building a subscriber base that reportedly nets him over $1 million annually. Around the same time, MattyB — real name Matthew David Morris — was building a different kind of empire, turning pop covers into a viral music career starting at just seven years old before branching into original songs.

These early movers set the template that later channels would scale up: a kid on camera, a parent behind it, and a steady upload schedule that keeps young viewers coming back daily rather than weekly.

Baking, Gaming, and Candy: The Niche Empires

Not every channel on the list runs on toy unboxings. CharlisCraftyKitchen turned baking into a full-time business for sisters Charli and Ashlee, launching in 2012 when Charli was only six and eventually becoming YouTube’s top baking channel, pulling in tens of thousands of dollars per month from tutorials on things like pizza-emoji cookies. British creator EthanGamer built a completely different audience by playing Roblox and Minecraft, racking up millions of subscribers the same way plenty of adult streamers try and fail to — through consistency and a personality kids actually want to watch, not unlike the grind chronicled in 100 Hours In Minecraft Hardcore. Meanwhile, sisters Jillian and Addie run BabyTeeth4, known for candy reviews and comedic mystery skits that keep the format light while still pulling serious view counts.

Parents as Producers

What ties every one of these channels together is the adult behind the camera. None of these kids are running a production schedule, negotiating brand deals, or filing for LLCs on their own — that’s the parent-producer model at work, the same structural setup that’s made family-run content one of the most durable formats on the platform, echoing the kind of tight-knit, camera-ready dynamic seen in families like the Duggars. It’s a business built on trust between a child performer and a parent who’s effectively become their manager, agent, and editor rolled into one.

Ryan’s Walmart shelf space and pocket.watch deal are the clearest sign of where this is all headed — a YouTube channel functioning less like a hobby and more like a toy company with a camera crew attached. Whether the next breakout kid comes from a bedroom in Texas or a kitchen in Australia, the playbook is already written: post often, keep a parent behind the lens, and let the merchandise deals follow the subscriber count.