Top YouTube Niches for 2026 — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:01] niche to start a YouTube channel in right now in 2026, stop. Because what I'm about to share with you is going to completely change the way that you look sounds dramatic, but I've started and

[00:14] channels. I've made over $10 million doing this, and I'm not saying this to brag, but just saying this to tell you that the biggest mistake that people make on this platform that keeps their views low, keeps them broke, is choosing

[00:27] the wrong niche. And most people get it catastrophically wrong. They chase what views. They do what they think is going to make them the most amount of money, doing this. Now, I'm going to give you the exact niches that I personally am

[00:41] starting right now in 2026. But before I do that, you need to understand something first, because if you don't understand this, the niches themselves It's like handing you the keys to a Ferrari that you don't know how to

[00:54] drive. And this is going to save you months, maybe even years of wasted niche that nobody talks about. The niches that get the most amount of views on YouTube are typically the worst niches to be in. And I know that sounds

[01:08] more views equals more money, right? That's what everybody assumes. But let me put this in perspective for you. I have channels in low CPM niches that get millions of views per month, some over 10 million views per month. And I have

[01:21] ones I'm going to be showing you here today, that actually make more money even though they're getting way less views than the niches that are getting millions of views per month. In a low

[01:33] CPM niche, you might only be making $2 per thousand views. Meaning you would need 500,000 views just to make a thousand dollars. But in a high CPM niche, if you monetize it correctly, you could be making 30, 40, 50 plus dollars

[01:48] per thousand views. And so a video that gets 20,000 views in the right niche can outperform a video that gets a million views in the wrong one. And so if views really don't matter as much as most people think, then what does matter?

[02:00] interesting and it ties directly into the niches that I'm about to show you. But first, there is a second paradox that you need to hear because this one is even more counterintuitive than the first. The niches with the least amount

[02:13] of competition are usually the hardest to succeed in. And that might make no sense because you might be thinking, well, competition is a bad thing, right? logical. But here's what's really happening. If a niche has almost no

[02:27] competition, there's usually a reason for that. Not always. There are some, you know, undiscovered niches waiting to be found, I'm sure. However, nine times out of 10, the reason that a niche doesn't have much competition is because

[02:42] there's no proven demand. And it means that nobody's figured out how to could also mean that the audience doesn't exist or they don't care enough to watch videos consistently. So, when I'm evaluating a niche, I actually want

[02:55] to see competition. I want to see other channels getting views. I want to see videos with 50,000, 100,000, 500,000 views on topics in that niche because that tells me that there is an audience then that is willing to consume that

[03:09] content. And it tells me that if I then make something better, that's more valuable within that niche, the algorithm already knows who to show it to. And that brings me to the criteria that I use for starting a

[03:21] directly into the niches that I recommend. But the criteria actually themselves. So, this is really important that you hear this. And I'll explain why in a second. My first criteria is that a niche has to have a decent to a high

[03:36] CPM. And that's how much a channel makes per thousand views from ad revenue. You might be saying, Matt, on other videos on your channel, you say that ad revenue isn't important at all. And it really isn't. It's just a nice extra to have.

[03:48] So, why is that one of my criteria? Well, it's one of my criteria because if advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money to put ads on your videos, it's profitable and that they're selling things that people want. They're selling

[04:02] solutions to people's problems and people are buying them. And so, the CPM is a proxy as to how valuable the audience is. The second criteria, and overlooks, is that the niche has to have problems that people are desperate to

[04:17] solve, not just mildly interested in. For example, yes, there are huge channels that teach people how to play specific different video games, but is that a real burning problem in a lot of people's lives that they're willing to

[04:30] Probably not for the majority of games. There may be certain edge cases and exceptions where people actually make money with video gaming and everything games, that's not the case. However, what about the fact that AI is going to

[04:44] be replacing tons of jobs within the next 10 years? That's a burning problem that's going to affect a lot of people. And so, people are going to be desperate in it and buy products in it because

[04:56] desperation drives action and action drives revenue. Yes, entertainment videos can drive millions of views, but entertainment viewers are way less likely to take any action at all. They just scroll to the next video cuz

[05:09] hit in their brain. But the best types of niches are educational niches where people have burning problems that they want to solve. That is where the money is. Now, the third criteria is that the niche has to be evergreen. This means

[05:22] has to be relevant a year from now, 2 years from now, even 5 years from now. I don't like to be tracing trending topics that are going to die within a week. established channel in a niche, occasionally I'll do a trending topic

[05:37] views that month, but that's the thing. necessarily for the lifetime of the channel. I'm still making money from videos I uploaded when I was 14 and 15 years old that are still paying me to

[05:51] this day because they were hyper relevant videos then and they're hyper relevant videos now. I don't want my entire channel to become irrelevant if a certain new cycle moves on. I want to create a video once, optimize it

[06:03] properly, and have it working for me passively in the background making me money every single month. That is the power of evergreen content. And this eliminates a huge number of niches that people think are good right now, but are

[06:16] this really gets good. And this is the third paradox that I've discovered after running so many different channels myself and overseeing people running a probably the most important one. The niche that you're really passionate

[06:30] about that you love is not usually the niche that you should start with. And I know every other YouTube guru out there tells you to follow your passion and do all these things. And in some cases it's great advice if your passion is

[06:43] burning problem about. For example, if you're passionate about helping people do something that's going to genuinely improve their lives and solve a huge problem in their lives, that's awesome. You should go all in on that. And I'm

[06:56] second that if your passion aligns with them, go all in on them. But for the be the case. You're very lucky if it is. And also for my own life, I've observed that, you know, passions they come and go. Sometimes I'm super passionate about

[07:11] but other times I'm really passionate about things like submarines, but And so here's a realistic way of doing this. You find an overlap between three things. Something that you can tolerate talking or learning about, and this

[07:25] [clears throat] a faceless channel and even if you're outsourcing it to a content team like my content team tubeautomate.com. your videos for you. So you're not even involved in the content. You might be

[07:37] interest at all. It helps to a little bit of an interest, because you will still oversee the videos, and it will still be your channel at the end of the day. So, it helps. The second thing is that it has a proven audience on YouTube

[07:50] that's proven to watch videos similar to that with over 50,000 views on them. And the third thing, it has to have clear monetization paths beyond just ad revenue. If you can find that overlap, you have a goldmine. And the niches I'm

[08:02] spot. But only do them if you have a little bit of an interest in them. Now, one more thing that's going to completely change how you approach this. Because in 2026, things have shifted in a way that a lot of people haven't

[08:16] caught up to yet. And if you don't understand this, then even picking the right niche is not going to save you. What's changed is that in 2026, the YouTube algorithm is pushing content based off of viewer interest more than

[08:29] algorithm would recommend videos from people that you're already subscribed to, or videos that were trending. But now, YouTube is acting more like a recommendation engine. It's looking at what you're interested in as a viewer,

[08:43] and serving you content from channels that you may not have ever even heard and it's great news for them, because you can get views a lot easier today doesn't mean that you need hundreds of thousands of subscribers in order to

[08:57] potentially have huge videos on your channel, and for YouTube to push your topic, the right packaging, and the right niche. And if you have those three things, YouTube will find the audience for you. And this is also why faceless

[09:10] right now. People aren't going to YouTube to necessarily watch a specific interested in a topic, they want to learn something. And when you search stuff like how to invest in your early 20s, you want to learn how to do that,

[09:24] not how to invest in your early 20s according to some specific person. You search based off of interest rather than personality. And that means that you can people have burning interest and unsolved problems, and then YouTube's

[09:37] new interest-based algorithm is going to do the heavy lifting for you. And now, recommend, let me go over really quickly the niches that I would avoid at all costs because I've seen so many channels get destroyed by going into one of these

[09:51] topics. And these are topics like true crime where you're talking about a crime you're using AI to generate stories. This includes Reddit videos where you're includes news and political commentary channels that AI had a hand in making

[10:06] It includes even make money online content that has huge claims in it where you say, "I'm going to teach you how to make, you know, $500 a day guaranteed." When you say those things, that puts your channel at a huge risk and tons of

[10:19] ones making over a million dollars a year. Fake movie trailer channels using actual copyrighted characters using AI. And the common thread across all of these is that these are niches that don't provide any new, real, genuine

[10:32] value. You can definitely provide this value even using AI tools. I have several AI tools myself like Tube Magic and vid.ai. But the thing about these tools is that it allows people to give more value with their videos because

[10:45] they can do things like add in input videos on Tube Magic, for example, and then it will take the best parts of those videos to make something new and definition. So, the theme with the niches I'm about to show you is that

[10:58] right way by giving genuine value, you can absolutely crush it right now today, even using AI tools. In fact, I'd even recommend using AI tools because it'll know what to avoid, you understand the paradoxes, you understand the criteria,

[11:14] that's happening. Now, let me give you the actual niches. I'm not just going to list broad categories like every single other video does. I'm going to give you specific sub niches within these categories because that is where the

[11:27] real money is made. Because just choosing a broad category like health is not going to work. You need it to go specific. The first niche, and this is channels in right now, is YouTube education. You're watching a YouTube

[11:40] education video right now. Videos on this topic have hundreds of thousands of views. They're very validated. You can easily sell things within this niche, software companies. You can sell courses, and you can be an affiliate for

[11:53] these things as well. So, it hits all the criteria. This is something very growing over the next 10 years. So, YouTube education is an amazing niche, way. As I mentioned, I'm starting new

[12:06] Matt, for example, which is already doing incredibly good. So, YouTube education is amazing. You don't need to be the biggest expert in the world to either. You just need to know more than the majority of people, and if you're

[12:19] the case for you. The second niche is personal finance for specific life because that's too broad. I'm talking about personal finance for people in their 20s, or personal finance for

[12:33] people in their 50s, or personal finance for single parents. And if you search, 50s, you'll see channels like Kevin Lum right here, who gets almost a million views per month. And mind you, this is a very high CPM niche. He does a lot of

[12:46] videos like, "If you're in your 50s or 60s, make these five critical financial moves." And this specificity, that's calling out to a particular subset of niche that you're in. I'm going to show you a few more examples of this in

[13:01] several other niches, as well. But, this is incredibly powerful. His channel does incredibly well. There's also faceless channels that do this, like Blissful doing incredibly good. And again, you don't need to be the world's foremost

[13:14] expert on personal finance, when you have tools like Tube Magic, where you videos that have already done really good, and they get an original script that's going to be even better. The next niche is travel tips and tutorials

[13:27] within a specific sub niche. I'm not talking about generic travel vlogs, you Paris and talks about things to do. I mean educational problem-solving content like cruise tips and tricks. Like for

[13:39] example, Cruise Like a Pro, which does super well, or airline hacks and airport secrets like the channel Passport Pro, or packing strategies, channels like Pack Hacker, or places to retire abroad, channels like Scary Harry do really good

[13:52] with this. One of the biggest advertisers on YouTube is Expedia, which put their ads on travel videos, driving up the CPM within this niche. Also, you can easily sell a program within this niche. I would recommend using Moon,

[14:06] >> and it basically allows you to create a community that you can charge money for. people who are interested in this, and even coaching if you want as well, and

[14:19] you can charge a set amount for this and make a lot more than just ad revenue. And these channels like Cruise Like a Pro and Passport Pro, these are channels videos using software like my software

[14:31] VidAI that allows you to generate these simple stock footage videos with a indistinguishable from a human, and you can generate these in a few minutes, identical videos to this using vid.ai.

[14:43] The next niche is health and longevity for specific demographics. Again, not talking about channels that focus on health for men, for example, over 50. Mobility exercises for office workers,

[14:56] longevity and anti-aging science. This niche is blowing up right now because there's a huge cultural shift where people are trying to be more healthy. living longer, living better, and optimizing their health. And CPMs are

[15:10] health companies and supplement companies advertising on YouTube. And this is an audience that takes action as well. And there's examples of faceless channels like Captain Workout as well as Yellow Dude, that do faceless tutorials

[15:25] real person, they're completely faceless. They get millions of views per month. And there's also personal channels, like for example, this guy who recently did a hyper specific video on his channel talking about creatine for

[15:40] people over 50. So, a hyper specific supplement on a hyper specific demographic. Combining those two together, it seems so specific, like how could that video do well? There are tons of people who are interested in it, and

[15:52] that video called out specifically to them, and it did really well. All the doing very well, but that changed the trajectory of his channel. It got over a million views. Another niche that's really overlooked right now is pet

[16:05] thinking, like pet content, is that really something people have burning problems in that they want to solve? And yes, it turns out that it is. Pet owners are incredibly passionate. They spend a lot of money on their pets. And I

[16:17] And if there was ever like a health concern or behavioral issue or something like that, the first place I went was YouTube. I was able to train my dog completely just through YouTube videos. The CPM is solid cuz there's huge pet

[16:30] there's very few high-quality channels that are focused on specific breeds. I opportunity of doing videos, like for example, how to train a German Shepherd channel called The Purring Journal. It's in the cat niche. They never show their

[16:46] face. It's literally just stock footage videos. They get 337,000 a bunch of different products, probably making around 10 grand a month from all a course on top of that, they could even make a lot more. Other channels are

[17:00] Smart Dog Lover, Animal Facts, and Animal Wise, which are all faceless channels in the pet niche. Now, the next niche is the make money online niche. And I know you might be thinking, Matt, didn't you say earlier in this video to

[17:12] avoid the make money online niche at all costs? And yes, I did, if you do it wrong. And the majority of people do. When you do videos like how to make $500 a day or saying specific things, you can get in trouble for that and videos will

[17:26] get taken down. I've actually faced some of that here on my channel as well. And I think YouTube is doing these actions to protect themselves from agencies like the FTC, for example, where they don't want to have a problem with them. So,

[17:38] they want to regulate like if people make specific claims in titles or video make it very clear and you put tons of disclaimers and everything else, So, they are taking down channels that do that. I think they have like

[17:52] automated algorithms that do that. So, you can do this the right way though. Studio, which is completely faceless, teaches how to make money with YouTube and she's doing it the right way in my opinion. She has a AI avatar and she

[18:07] just teaches people how to use different AI tools to make money and she frames it in the context of like online business instead of you will become a millionaire do videos like that. So, there's a right way of doing the make money online

[18:20] tutorial aspect of it. Another great thing you can do is to create a custom GPT of the YouTube terms and service. This is what I personally did and then thumbnails that you're thinking of into that and you can see if it'll break any

[18:34] terms. The next niche is relationship advice and self-improvement. Great example of channel in this that's doing a specific sub niche is the Stoic >> [music] >> and what different stoic teachers

[18:47] throughout the ages have taught and it's a amazing sub niche. Tons of people are something specific like that. For example, if you're doing relationships, you could talk about, for example, how to get a girlfriend in your early 20s or

[19:00] get a boyfriend or whatever. Or you could talk about how to find a wife in your 50s or 60s. When you call out to specific people like that, it works so that you're probably noticing throughout this video is to focus on a specific

[19:13] demographic when it comes to any of these niches. The next niche is technology tutorials and software reviews. I have a student, Karim. He makes 10 grand a month just promoting some different software from his videos,

[19:25] you know, buy these software through his affiliate links, and he only promotes a couple different ones, and then they're paying monthly, and he gets a commission the affiliate program that you sign up for. And the videos are super easy to

[19:38] make. You can easily just use OBS to record your screen, show how to use these different software, do a full tutorial, for example, how to use VidIQ step-by-step tutorial, then put your affiliate link in the description for

[19:51] VidIQ, and then get 33% commissions for life. Now, this is the most important thing I'm going to say in this entire video. The niche alone is not enough, because there is a fourth and final paradox, which is that two people can

[20:04] start a channel within the same exact niche and get completely different takes off, whereas the other person's channel gets zero views within the same exact niche. It can even be the same type of content, but completely opposite

[20:18] niche. So, you're probably asking, "Matt, what is the difference?" And it's that nobody talks about. Now, I'm going to reveal that to you right now. All you have to do is simply click this video next to me right here, and I'm going to

[20:31] show you what that is that nobody talks about that allows you to blow up a channel, and it's in the first few secrets within this video right here. This is a must-watch. It'll be the best investment of an hour into your YouTube

[20:43] strategy ever. Click it, watch it, check it out. My name is Matt Par, and I'll it out. My name is Matt Par, and I'll see you there.