YouTube · Data study
The Best Faceless YouTube Niches for Small Channels (572 Channels Ranked)
more views for true crime than finance on small channels
By Elijah Westbrook · 2026-10-19 · 2 min read
Among 572 small faceless channels (1,000 to 100,000 subscribers), true crime got the most views on a typical video: 14,000. Military history (13,500) and nostalgia (9,350) were next. Personal finance explainers got the fewest: 321. Stories beat advice.
n = channels per niche
Stories beat advice
The bottom of the ranking is mostly advice: money, books, motivation and psychology. The top is mostly real things that happened: crimes, wars and the past.
A story gives you a reason to keep watching. Advice is something you can skim, or get from a search result.
If you’re picking a faceless niche, start from stories about real events. If you love an advice niche, wrap the advice in a real story.
The “most profitable niche” earned the least
Finance pays the most per view (see what YouTube pays). But small finance channels barely got views. Say a finance video gets 321 views at $11.74: that’s about $3.77. A true crime video at 14,000 views and $4.75 is about $66.50.
That second RPM comes from a single true crime creator, so read it as an illustration, not an average.
Views times RPM is what pays. Pick the niche where small channels actually get watched, not the one with the highest RPM headline.
Some niches break out far more often
We counted how many channels had at least one video over 100,000 views in their last 30 uploads. In nostalgia it was 70% of channels. In royal family content it was 66%. In Reddit story channels it was 21%.
A niche where breakouts are common gives a small channel more lottery tickets. Nostalgia and royal content looked like the easiest places to get one.
Half of the “$30K a month” videos were selling something
We read the descriptions of faceless “I make $30,000 a month” videos. 25 of 48 were selling a course, coaching or a paid community.
Some of them really do make that money. But for a lot of them, the channel isn’t the business. You are.
From my channel
How I did it
We searched 22 popular faceless niches and collected 2,320 channels, with each channel’s subscribers and its last 30 videos. We kept English, on-niche channels under 100,000 subscribers with at least 5 videos (742), and ranked the 572 between 1,000 and 100,000 subscribers so channel size is comparable. Niches with fewer than 8 channels were left out.
The limits
Channels were found through YouTube search, so they’re findable channels, not every channel. A median hides a wide spread, and some niches have only 9 to 14 channels.
Questions
What is the best faceless YouTube niche?
For small channels in this data: true crime (14,000 median views per video), then military history (13,500) and nostalgia (9,350).
Is faceless YouTube still worth it?
In story niches, small channels still get real views. In advice niches like finance explainers, book summaries and psychology facts, small channels struggled.
Is personal finance a good faceless niche?
It pays the most per view, but small finance channels got a median of 321 views per video, the fewest of any niche we ranked.