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What are the most expensive YouTube videos ever created? The answer might surprise you. Some of the most expensive videos on YouTube include music videos from superstars like Madonna and Michael Jackson, videos on space and scientific inventions, and entertainment videos involving huge cash prizes!
YouTube has become a major source of entertainment for millions of people around the globe. The site boasts billions of views per month, and its popularity continues to rise. In fact, according to Statista, YouTube now accounts for over 20% of global Internet traffic. At its inception, most YouTube videos by uploaders were grainy home videos with cats and dogs, karaoke singing, or cute babies. Today, videos on YouTube are different. Modern YouTubers create expensive, high-quality content with budgets that even rival movie productions.
If you’ve ever watched a video on YouTube, then you probably already know that some channels can generate millions of views per day. And those numbers don’t even include the number of subscribers or likes. YouTube Channels like MrBeast, Logan Paul, and Unspeakable have millions of subscribers and earn millions of dollars. They don’t also hesitate to spend millions of dollars to create new videos. After all, YouTube is free to watch, but it isn’t free to produce.
If you have subscribed to MrBeast, you might notice that each of his new video is more expensive than the last. But do these online video content creators earn enough money to cover their cost of production? Of course, they do! Currently, an average content creator earns around $3 – $5 per 1000 views in ad revenue. Top YouTubers can definitely earn $5 per 1000 views. To calculate the cash flow per video, let’s take MrBeast’s latest video, “Survive 100 days in a circle,” which was uploaded 3 weeks ago as of this writing and currently has 46 million views. If we divide 46 million by 1000 (remember, YouTube pays per 1000 views), we get 46000. 46000x$5 = $230,000. This is just the ad revenue from mere three weeks. If you add in the brand deals and sponsorships, the channel makes a small fortune from just one video!
Of course, not all content creators on YouTube spend millions of dollars on video production costs or huge cash prizes. But the content of their videos is still worth loads of money because they show some of the most expensive things on Earth. For example, videos involving expensive materials like antimatter or gold or videos of super luxury cars.
In this article, we have listed both types of these videos: videos expensive in terms of their production cost and in terms of their content. So without further ado, let’s dive into the article to see what are the most expensive YouTube videos (listed in ascending order – from lower values to higher values).
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1 $10k Apple Watch Crushed by Magnets
In 2015 TechRax YouTube channel released a video of an 18-karat gold Apple Watch being crushed by two magnets. TechRax has done many videos destroying iPhones and iPads, but at $10,000, the gold apple watch was one of their most expensive purchases. TechRax placed the watch between two powerful Neodymium magnets. Once the magnets were close enough to attract each other, they shot together with 650 pounds of force, squeezing the watch like a magnet sandwich. The collision was so powerful that parts of the magnets snapped off during the impact.
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2 Homemade Hoverbike
Colin Furze is a YouTuber from England known for his crazy inventions. His homemade hoverbike video is his most viewed video, as well as his most expensive one. The bike would have cost him around $16,000. The bike is made with parajet motors, which are typically used for paragliding. One motor alone would have cost him $5,000 to $8,000.
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3 I Spent $2 million on Pokémon Cards
Pokémon is not just a kids’ game; it’s loved by millions of adults all over the world. Logan Paul’s Pokémon videos are a testimony to this fact. In this video, Logan Paul spends $2,000,000 on first-edition Pokémon card booster packs. Just as the title suggests, the video focuses on Logan hunting down the boxes from various sources, price comparisons, and opening some of the boxes. This video is based on the popularity of some of his earlier Pokémon videos. Did you know that Logan owns the most expensive Pokémon collections in the world, and one first edition Pokémon booster pack featured in this video costs around $300,000 – $400,000?
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4 $456,00 Squid Game in Real Life
MrBeast is a name we can’t forget when talking about the most expensive YouTube videos. Squid Game in real life is a 25-minute video recreating the competition in Squid game, the hugely popular TV show. Jimmy Donaldson and his crew have recreated every single set from the show in real life, which would have cost them truckloads of money. There are 456 competitors in the game, and the one who survives the longest gets the prize money of $456,00.
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5 What’s it Gonna Be? – Busty Rhymes
“What’s it Gonna Be?” by Busty Rhymes is a music video produced by Hype Williams in 1999. At the time of production, the video would have cost around $2.4 million – by today’s standards, this would be around $4 million, making it one of the most expensive music videos ever produced. Most of the money went to the computer-generated transformations and digital effects in the video. It’s reported that the costume worn by Busta Rhyme alone was worth $40,000. The video also features Janet Jackson, who must have charged an exorbitant price.
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6 2 Legit 2 Quit – MC Hammer
MC Hammer is an American rapper that dominated the rap music industry in the 1990s, and the music video for his song 2 Legit 2 Quit was quite costly. The main highlights of the video were pyrotechnics and the appearance of John Belushi and James Brown. In 1991, video production cost was around $2.5 million. Today, this would amount to around $4 million, making it one of the most expensive music videos on YouTube.
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7 Crushing $40,000 GOLD BAR with Big Hydraulic Press!
Crushit is a YouTube channel that got popular by crushing things, from batteries to cell phones to solid gold bars. In 2016, they released a video of a 1kg 24-karat gold bar being crushed by a press. When crushed by the hydraulic press, the gold bar folds like a piece of paper, reducing itself to a shiny blob. At the time of production, the gold was worth $40,000, and today the price of a gold bar has risen to around $60,000
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8 Video Game High School
Rocketjump, an online production company started by Freddy Wong, was one of the earliest YouTubers to create high-budget content on YouTube. Their most successful series was Video Game High School, an online show taking place in a fictional world where competitive gaming is the most popular professional sport. The series was released in 2012 and went on for 3 seasons and a total of 21 episodes, growing in size and budget with each episode. These episodes featured expensive sets, extravagant stunts, and special effects; combined with actors’ salaries and production costs, the budget involved about $2.5 million.
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9 The Last To Take Hand Off $1,000,000 Keeps It
MrBeast is a popular online video content creator with some of the most expensive YouTube videos, and most of his videos are known for their huge cash prizes. In this particular video, four contestants have to face a simple test of endurance – all they have to do is place one hand on the block of money and leave it there as long as possible. The last remaining challenger wins the million. Of course, the challenge goes on for days as none of the contestants are not willing to let go of $1 million that easily.
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10 Express Yourself – Madonna
The music video of the song Express Yourself by Madonna, the best-selling female recording artist of all time, is one of the most expensive videos on YouTube. The video is inspired by the 1927 classic film Metropolis and portrays a city full of tall skyscrapers and railway lines. This video is also the artist’s way of expressing her thoughts on issues of gender and power. The video had a budget of $5 million. By the time of recording, it was the most expensive music video ever created, and currently, it is known as the third most expensive music video of all time.
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11 Space Oddity
Chris Hadfield’s music video on David Bowie’s 1968 classic Space Oddity is the most expensive music video of all time uploaded to YouTube. Chris Hadfield is an astronaut, and his music video cover was recorded onboard the International Space Station. The video shows Hadfield floating through the space station and gazing down at Earth while singing Bowie’s spacefaring lyrics. The total cost of production was at least around $150 million. The exact cost of the video isn’t public knowledge, but experts estimate that the space station must have cost around $150 million. The few hours Hadfield spent in space would also cost NASA millions of dollars.
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12 Insane Secret Lamborghini Aventador Meet
Are you a fan of luxury cars? Then you will definitely love this Aventador car meet video by the YouTube channel Seen Through Glass (a YouTube channel for car lovers run by Sam Michael David Fane). The video features a secret invite-only Lamborghini Aventador event in Orange County. This is, in fact, one of the most expensive casual car gatherings in the world, featuring 13 Lamborghini Aventador SVs, SV Roadsters, and a handful of other Aventadors. Did you know that the base price of a Lamborghini Aventador SV is a whopping $497,895? So imagine the total cost of all luxury cars in the video!
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13 Scream – Michael Jackson
This space-themed music video by Michael Jackson holds the Guinness World record for the most expensive music video ever made. The music video also featured Michael Jackson’s sister Janet and was produced in 1995. The set of the video was a computer-generated white spaceship, which would have cost plenty of money at the time. The video also used special effects and lighting sets, which were unique during the time. The total cost of production was around $7 million, which would be at least around $10.5 million today.
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14 I Surprised My Girlfriend with a Custom House
This custom house surprise video by the YouTube channel ZHC run by Zach Hsieh involves customizing their house within 100 hours. While Zach’s girlfriend Michelle is away from home, taking part in a 100-hour Minecraft challenge, Zach and his crew of friends decorate their house, her Tesla, and Lamborghini in her favorite color, pink. The whole project involves around 50 paint cans in various shades of pink and a lot of labor.
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15 Red Bull Stratos – World Record Freefall
Red Bull Stratos is a high-altitude skydiving project involving the skydiver Felix Baumgartner. In 2012, Red Bull paid Baumgartner to break the world record for the highest skydive, floating up to 127,852 feet in a stratospheric balloon and diving back down to Earth.
The project involves some seriously expensive equipment, including Baumgartner’s cutting-edge spacesuit and helium balloon-and-capsule-combo, and sky-high production costs. According to sources, Red Bull invested around $64.8 Million into this project.
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16 Why This Stuff Costs $2700 Trillion Per Gram - Antimatter at CERN
This is a video on one of the most expensive substances on Earth – antimatter. Did you know that an antimatter explosion can destroy the Earth in just a few seconds? It’s the rarest, most expensive, and potentially the most dangerous material on Earth. This YouTube video by Physics Girl features a tour of an antimatter factory in Europe. We have included this video on antimatter in this list because it shows viewers how and where the most expensive thing in the world is created!
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