Here's How Much Money Matt Stonie Is Really Worth

You may know Matt Stonie as the young upstart who temporarily dethroned Joey Chestnut as king of the Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest. But if you only know Stonie from watching his slender frame expanding to accommodate 60-some hot dogs and buns at Nathan's, then you don't know him the way most people do.

Stonie still makes select appearances on the Major League Eating circuit. People of Chestnut's caliber can earn an annual income in the low six figures, as the league has reported. But competitive eating is not where most of Stonie's bread is buttered. The bulk of his earnings come from his hugely popular YouTube channel, which boasts nearly 12 million subscribers. Naibuzz reported Stonie's net worth at $5 million and estimated his earnings last year at $3 million from YouTube ad revenue alone.

YouTubers with big followings can make money several different ways, from ads embedded in their videos, to product-sponsorship deals, to online merchandise sales. Stonie uses all three, and it's hard to know how all that income adds up. YouTube doesn't publicize the earnings of its creators, and ad revenues vary widely according to the type of ad, what country the viewer is in, and other factors (via Media Shark). Forbes gives a trusted annual list of top YouTube earners by pulling from several sources, including Social Blade, a website that tracks social media statistics.

Social Blade assumes creators earn anywhere from 25 cents to $4 per 1,000 video views. Using that range, Social Blade statistics show that Stonie earned anywhere from $14,700 to $235,000 over a recent month, putting him on pace to earn between $176,000 and $2.8 million in a year, just from ads. His T-shirt sales appear to stand at zero dollars for now but only because all of his items are listed as "sold out." Stonie's sponsored videos, such as his eight-minute ad for 5-Hour Energy, can make $10 to $50 per 1,000 views, according to G2 Learning Hub. By that measure, Stonie earned up to $80,000 on that one video, given that it had 1.6 million views.

Stonie doesn't need eating contests to earn a living anymore, but he certainly needs to keep his competitive eating skills sharp. His YouTube popularity comes from his freakish ability to eat a week's worth of calories in well under an hour. In the most popular video he ever made, clocking in at nearly 80 million views, Stonie consumed more than 10,000 calories of chili cheese fries in 20 minutes. Before Stonie digs in, he takes a minute to plug Dollar Shave Club. So, as a sponsored video, his chili cheese fries challenge might have earned him as much as $4 million over the past two years. Not bad for 20 minutes of work — if you don't count digestion time.