Top 5 Platforms for Community Building: YouTube vs Snapchat vs TikTok Earnings Comparison (From Someone Who Actually Uses Them)

I have been living inside these apps for the last few years – YouTube in one tab, TikTok on my phone, Snapchat pinging nonstop, Instagram DMs overflowing, Discord humming in the background. This is not a theory piece. This is what my actual dashboards, payouts, and community chats have looked like while juggling all five.

When people ask where to start in the creator economy, they usually phrase it like this (paraphrased): “What are the top 5 platforms for community building: YouTube vs Snapchat vs TikTok earnings comparison and where is the real money?” So I decided to treat my own channels like a lab experiment and pay attention for a few hardcore months.

Here’s how YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and Discord actually stack up for both money and community – from a creator who needs these platforms to pay bills, not just look cute in a pitch deck.

Key takeaways

• YouTube is the only platform in my stack that feels like a stable paycheck. Long-form + memberships + live = grown-up money and deep community.
• TikTok is a rocket booster for reach, but the pay is all over the place and per-view earnings are still noticeably lower than YouTube on my accounts.
• Snapchat quietly turned into my most intimate platform. Fewer lurkers, more replies, decent bonus-style payouts when content hits.
• Instagram is great for social proof and DMs, but my direct earnings there are wildly inconsistent.
• Discord is where my “true fans” live. Monetization is indirect, but community depth blows every other platform out of the water.

If the goal is to actually make creator money while building something that lasts, my stack ends up looking like: YouTube as the home base, TikTok and Snapchat as traffic and intimacy engines, Instagram and Discord as glue.

My context: mid-sized creator, five-platform juggling act

Before getting into numbers, some context. I am not a giant celebrity creator, but I am not starting from zero either. Over the last couple of years, I’ve built:

• A main YouTube channel with long-form tutorials and commentary (low six-figure subscribers)
• A short-form clips channel tied to that brand
• A TikTok account that lives mostly on trends and quick value hits (low six-figure followers)
• A Snapchat public profile where I post daily Stories and occasional Spotlight videos
• An Instagram page that mirrors my short-form plus carousels
• A Discord server with a few thousand members for the hardcore crowd

Across these, I have had everything from 200 views on a sad little Story to a couple of shorts and TikToks cracking millions of views. I have seen months where one platform carried everything, and other months where it felt like the algorithm gods collectively decided I needed humbling.

The numbers below are based on my own analytics and conversations with other creators in similar size ranges. They are not official averages, more like “what it has felt like on the ground.”

YouTube – the only platform I’d trust to pay rent

My first impression of YouTube years ago was that it felt slow. Painfully slow. It took months of posting before anything clicked. Then, one video did middle-of-the-road numbers, but something new happened: people commented like they knew me. They watched ten minutes straight, replied thoughtfully, and then binge-watched older content. That was the day YouTube stopped being “just another platform” and became the backbone of my business.

How YouTube community feels in practice

On YouTube, people behave differently compared with every other app I use:

• Comments are longer, often paragraph-sized, and feel like emails.
• Viewers remember details from videos I posted months ago.
• Live streams are where I see the same names showing up week after week.
• The Community tab (polls, text posts, images) keeps the channel alive even on weeks when I miss an upload.

There was a specific week when I skipped an upload because of burnout. Instead, I posted two community polls and a behind-the-scenes photo. The polls did more engagement than the previous video, and the next upload came back to higher watch time. That was when I realised community on YouTube is not just about the video feed; the whole channel behaves like a mini social network.

YouTube earnings on my channels

Money-wise, YouTube is in a different league in my experience. Actual numbers from a recent 28-day stretch on my main channel:

• ~420,000 views on long-form videos
• Ad revenue a little under $1,800
• That works out to around a $4 “RPM” (revenue per thousand views) from ads alone
• 3 live streams added roughly $220 from Super Chats and Super Stickers
• Channel memberships contributed another ~$260 that month

So for those 420k long-form views, total earnings landed just over $2,200. The same view count on my TikTok account would have been noticeably lower on average. On the YouTube side, the moment I started consistently hitting the 8–12 minute mark with strong retention, the spikes became less random and more like a reasonable salary curve.

Shorts are a different story. Shorts ad revenue share exists now and is better than nothing, but on my channels it is still coffee money compared with long-form. Shorts are a discovery tool; long-form and live streams are the income and community anchors.

My YouTube verdict: For community + earnings, this is still the most complete platform I use. It rewards depth, and that depth is exactly what brands, sponsors, and paying members respond to. In my own mental ranking, YouTube is a 9/10 for community building and an 8.5/10 for direct earnings at my size.

TikTok – explosive reach, unreliable paycheck

My first month taking TikTok seriously, I posted three times a day for 30 days. I stitched trending clips, made quick tutorials, and cut down YouTube videos into punchy 30–45 second hooks. Somewhere around day 18, a video jumped to a million views in two days. Followers flooded in. My phone felt like it might actually overheat from notifications.

Then I opened the monetization dashboard and laughed out loud. The payout on that viral clip would barely cover a nice dinner.

What TikTok community actually looks like

TikTok is phenomenal at turning strangers into casual fans quickly. I regularly see things like:

• Huge spikes of new followers from a single video
• Comment sections full of one-liners, jokes, and quick questions
• Duets and stitches that ripple my content into circles I never touch on YouTube

that said, the majority of those followers feel light. Many people follow, binge three or four clips, and then drift away unless I keep showing up on their For You page. When I go live on TikTok, I see a fraction of the loyalty I get on a YouTube live, despite similar or higher follower counts.

TikTok earnings: my real numbers

With TikTok’s newer monetization options (the improved funds and programs aimed at longer content), the payouts for my account have ranged roughly like this:

• On short, high-view clips: often well under $1 per thousand views
• On longer, original content that performs well: earnings can climb, but still generally trail my YouTube long-form RPM
• Live gifts can sometimes beat the built-in fund on a great night, but are wildly inconsistent

There was a moment where three different videos crossed six figures in views within a week. Payout from the monetization program plus some live gifts was nice extra money but still looked small beside what the same attention would have meant on YouTube. TikTok feels like the friend who always insists on paying with exposure.

My TikTok verdict: Fantastic for fast audience-building and top-of-funnel traffic, but still not where I would rely for serious, stable income. For me it ranks around 7.5/10 for growth and 6.5/10 for earnings.

Snapchat – low-key the stickiest daily community in my stack

Snapchat surprised me. I originally wrote it off as “just for friends.” Then a fellow creator showed me their Snap public profile analytics and payouts, and I decided to experiment. I flipped my mindset from “polished content” to “constant, casual presence” and started treating Snap like a group chat with my audience.

How Snapchat community hits differently

Snapchat rewards frequency and authenticity in a way that none of the others quite do. A typical day for me now:

• 8–15 Story snaps spread across the day – behind-the-scenes, quick thoughts, questions, messy desk shots
• Replies from people who almost never comment on my YouTube or TikTok content
• Private conversations that feel closer to texting a friend than engaging with a “creator”

At around the three-week mark of consistent Stories, I noticed a different kind of message: people referencing very small details of my day, projects, or mood. It felt less like followers and more like a small pocket of internet neighbors.

Snapchat earnings on my account

Snap’s monetization setups change over time, and there are thresholds and program invites involved, but here is the rough shape of what I have seen:

• Individual Spotlight posts that “hit” can generate noticeable one-off bonuses
• Story views, once over a certain scale and consistency, start contributing an ongoing, more predictable income line
• My per-thousand-view earnings on Snap are below my long-form YouTube, but ahead of most of my TikTok payouts

The big difference is psychological. On TikTok, a million-view video sometimes feels like a lottery ticket that pays out disappointing pocket change. On Snapchat, a good month of consistent posting plus one or two strong Spotlight pieces has added up to what feels like a side income I can actually see building.

My Snapchat verdict: For intimacy and retention, Snapchat punches above its weight. For earnings, it behaves like a nice second or third income stream when it is dialed in. I would call it 8.5/10 for day-to-day community, 7/10 for direct income at my size.

The other two in my top five: Instagram and Discord

Instagram – the résumé and DM hub

Instagram for me is where brands look me up, collaborators slide into DMs, and followers share posts to friends. Reels are useful for repurposing TikToks and Shorts, and there have been seasons where bonus programs and brand deals make it feel lucrative. Other months, organic reach falls off a cliff and earnings dip to almost nothing outside of sponsorships.

Community-wise, my Instagram audience feels warmer than TikTok but cooler than Snapchat or YouTube. Carousels and Stories get solid replies, but it does not have that “we hang out every day” vibe that Snapchat grew into.

My Instagram verdict: Strong for social proof and networking, uneven for direct creator payouts. I give it 7/10 for community and 6/10 for earnings, heavily boosted by brand work when it comes in.

Discord – tiny audience, massive loyalty

Discord is where the serious people go. The numbers are small compared with my follower counts elsewhere, but the intensity is different. These are the people who show up to every stream, test beta products, and give unfiltered feedback at 2 a.m.

I run channels in Discord for topic-specific discussions, drop resources there first, and host occasional audio hangouts. Moderation is work, but the reward is having a real community that does not disappear when an algorithm hiccups.

Direct earnings on Discord for me mostly come from:

• Paid roles or tiers for extra access
• Bundling server access into course or membership products
• Community-driven projects that spin out into revenue elsewhere

My Discord verdict: If the only metric is “where do people actually care and show up consistently,” Discord is a 9.5/10 for community. For direct platform-driven earnings it is more like a 5/10, since the money is mostly indirect or tied to products I build on top.

Real-world earnings comparison from my dashboards

Every creator’s numbers will be different, but to give something concrete, this is roughly how my per-thousand-view earnings and “feel” of income stability compare across the three big video platforms:

• YouTube long-form: On my main channel I typically see a few dollars per thousand views from ads alone, often more in higher-value niches. Add memberships, live donations, and occasional sponsors and the effective earnings per thousand views climbs significantly.
• TikTok: Across various monetization features on my account, per-thousand-view payouts are noticeably lower. There are spikes when a long, original video performs well or a live stream pops off, but the baseline is lighter.
• Snapchat: My per-thousand-view earnings land somewhere between my YouTube Shorts and my TikTok feed, with the twist that some bonus-style payouts on good Spotlight posts skew certain months upward.

Instagram and Discord do not really fit into the “pay per thousand views” framework for me. Instagram is mostly brand money and occasional bonuses; Discord is product and membership upsell territory.

If I had to put it in one sentence: YouTube is my salary, Snapchat is my solid side gig, TikTok and Instagram are marketing channels that sometimes hand me a check, and Discord is the community engine that makes all of it more resilient.

Who each platform actually suits

• If you want stability and depth: YouTube should be home base. Long-form plus a regular live show is where I see the strongest community bonds and the most predictable income.
• If you thrive on daily, informal sharing: Snapchat is strangely perfect. It rewards frequency, rawness, and back-and-forth messaging.
• If you love fast iteration and trends: TikTok is the ideal playground. Treat the money as a bonus while you siphon the right people toward YouTube, a newsletter, or Discord.
• If you care about brand deals and aesthetics: Instagram still carries a lot of weight in how you present yourself to sponsors and collaborators.
• If you are building something long-term and community-led: Discord is worth the effort once you have even a small core audience that genuinely cares.

Bottom line: my personal ranking and ratings

After living with all five seriously, here is how I personally rank them for community building plus earnings, with rough scores out of 10:

• YouTube – 9/10 community, 8.5/10 earnings, overall: 9/10
• Discord – 9.5/10 community, 5/10 earnings, overall: 8.5/10 (because community is that strong)
• Snapchat – 8.5/10 community, 7/10 earnings, overall: 8/10
• TikTok – 7.5/10 growth/community, 6.5/10 earnings, overall: 7.5/10
• Instagram – 7/10 community, 6/10 earnings, overall: 7/10

If I had to strip everything back and rebuild from scratch, the priority order for me would be:

• Start a YouTube channel and commit to one good long-form video per week.
• Open a TikTok account purely to test hooks and drive people to YouTube.
• Set up Snapchat and use Stories as a daily diary for the people who care the most.
• Keep an Instagram profile as my public résumé for brands and casual fans.
• Once a small hardcore group emerges, invite them into a Discord server and treat it like a private clubhouse.

That combination has been the difference between feeling at the mercy of algorithms and feeling like I am building a real, multi-layered creator business with an audience I know by name.

TL;DR

• YouTube is still the most reliable platform in my stack for both deep community and rent-paying money.
• TikTok is an incredible discovery engine but pays noticeably less per view in my experience.
• Snapchat surprised me with how intimate and financially worthwhile it can be once momentum builds.
• Instagram is a useful brand and networking layer but not the backbone of my earnings.
• Discord does not pay directly like an ad platform, but it creates the strongest, most durable community relationships by far.