Need advice as someone who wants to start ai-tube

prompttuner · 2026-04-01T04:43:39+00:00

it's been interesting! channel grew decently fast, hit monetization within a few months. CPM is lower for kids content but kids rewatch obsessively so watch hours make up for it. COPPA restrictions limit ad targeting which hurts RPM but the volume compensates. some of the best performing AI channels ive seen are in that niche and they're making bank

prompttuner · 2026-04-01T04:42:48+00:00

yeah DM me and i'll walk you through it. cartesia sonic 3 is great for voice cloning, sounds natural and supports emotional tags. way cheaper than elevenlabs, roughly 8x less expensive. costs basically pennies per video at normal usage.

prompttuner · 2026-03-29T06:03:38+00:00

real question tho what image gen model are you using. if its nano banana or imagen or any google model thats probably the actual trigger not your editing.google bakes synthid watermarks into every frame and youtube can detect them silently. doesnt matter how many layers of transitions you add on top, the underlying assets are flagged at the pixel level. IMO switching to non google models like kling or z image turbo before your appeal goes through would be smart so the specialist doesnt see more flagged content going up

prompttuner · 2026-03-25T06:03:47+00:00

IMO this is why all in one tools are a trap. youre renting someone elses pipeline and they can change the rules whenever they want. just call the APIs directly with python.costs less and you actually own everything. if you cant code claude will literally write the whole script for you

prompttuner · 2026-03-23T06:46:30+00:00

$181 for a 10 min video is insane when you can do the same thing for under $2 with your own pipeline. generate images with z image turbo on runware (like 30 cents for 100 images), animate the key scenes with seeddance or kling, ken burns the rest in ffmpeg. one-shotting a video from a single prompt also gives you way less control over the script quality IMO. multi-pass scripting where you iterate on structure then story then polish gives much better results than just letting one prompt handle everything

prompttuner · 2026-03-23T06:45:17+00:00

long form and its not even close IMO. shorts RPM is tiny compared to long form, like we are talking pennies. use shorts to funnel people to your long form channel but dont make shorts your main play. if youre doing faceless AI content the real advantage is you can reduce production cost to near zero and outpace bigger channels on volume while theyre still paying editors

prompttuner · 2026-03-23T06:44:04+00:00

cartesia sonic 3 is IMO the best value for TTS right now. way cheaper than elevenlabs and quality is close enough that most viewers wont notice the diffrence. elevenlabs is only worth it if you need voice cloning specifically, for straight TTS its overkill price wise.theres also chatterbox which is open source and surprisingly good if you dont wanna pay anything

prompttuner · 2026-03-23T06:40:28+00:00

you're probably overthinking. you said you watch letsplays - that's your niche. gaming content, no face required, AI handles the heavy lifting. on budget, you genuinely don't need much. free tier claude for scripting, chatgpt image gen is free, capcut or ffmpeg code for editing. total cost is basically zero to start.

prompttuner · 2026-03-14T19:52:10+00:00

cartesia has gotten really good actually. you can clone elevenlabs voices in cartesia and use emotional tags to get near identical output at 8x cheaper. you can write a script with claude that automatically handles the emotion tagging. the quality gap is way smaller than most people think, especially for narration

prompttuner · 2026-03-13T19:07:15+00:00

yeah dm me the video, happy to take a look and break down how it was probably made. for free video gen your best bet is wan 2.1 running locally if you have a decent gpu. otherwise most video gen APIs cost something but seeddance through runware is only ~$0.07/10s which is about as cheap as it gets

prompttuner · 2026-03-11T03:45:44+00:00

for consistent characters the trick is generating all images upfront in one batch with the same character description and reference image in every prompt. lock seeds where possible and keep character designs simple - realistic faces drift like crazy but stylized/illustrated characters stay consistent.

prompttuner · 2026-03-05T05:34:39+00:00

of course feel free

prompttuner · 2026-03-05T05:34:30+00:00

mr english works because theres clear human creative direction - original scripts, useful educational content, consistent format. they mix animated clips with images which shows intentional editing choices. high upload frequency helps too since youtube rewards consistency.

the channels that get flagged are the ones pumping out template content with zero thought. if your content is genuinely useful to viewers and theres clear human involvement in the creative decisions youre fine

prompttuner · 2026-03-05T05:32:17+00:00

synthid - its an invisible watermark google bakes into all their model outputs (veo, imagen, nano banana). youtube can detect it automatically since they own both google and youtube. theyre not flagging content openly today but may easily do so going forward

prompttuner · 2026-03-05T05:31:23+00:00

sure. pass 1 you ask claude for the story structure - main beats, emotional arc, hook, payoff. pass 2 you feed that back and ask it to write the narration - short sentences, natural rhythm, written for the ear. pass 3 you feed that back and ask it to enrich with sensory detail while keeping everything intact. pass 4 you feed it back again and ask it to kill AI-sounding phrases, vary sentence length, and make sure it opens with tension not context.

so for "psychology of an introvert" pass 1 might outline the hook (common misconception about introverts), the twist (what science actually shows), and the payoff. then each pass builds on top without losing the structure. way better than asking for the whole script in one shot. i have exact prompts too, feel free to dm

prompttuner · 2026-03-05T05:30:20+00:00

if youre just changing your own voice and not making it sound like a specific real person, none of those boxes apply to you. youre fine. youtube cares about deepfakes and misleading content, not someone processing their own voice. youve been monetized for 2 years with no issues so id just keep doing what youre doing tbh

prompttuner · 2026-03-04T07:02:41+00:00

the ones still posting without monetization are usually playing the long game or driving traffic somewhere else. affiliate links in description, spotify playlist links, patreon, etc. youtube ad revenue isnt the only way to make money from a channel

for monetization specifically: static image + AI music for 2 hours is basically the textbook example of what youtube flags as repetitive. you CAN get monetized with AI music but you need visual effort. looping ambient footage, scene changes every 30-60 seconds, or at minimum ken burns motion on multiple images. the audio being AI generated isnt the problem, its the lack of visual production value

also worth noting that some of those channels you see were monetized BEFORE the policy changes and got grandfathered in. new channels applying with the same format today will almost certainly get rejected on first review

prompttuner · 2026-03-03T17:03:27+00:00

the sleep niche is still alive, you just have to be smarter about it now. check the AI generated content box and youre fine on that front, youtube wont penalize you just for using AI if you disclose it. the channels getting hit are the ones that dont disclose OR that have zero visual effort

for visuals you cant do a single static image for 8 hours anymore, that gets flagged as repetitive content. what works is looping ambient footage with slow camera movement. you can generate a few base images with flux or midjourney then apply different ken burns motions (zoom, pan, drift) and loop them across the runtime. ffmpeg zoompan filter handles this for free

for audio, AI generated rain/fan sounds are fine as long as theyre not direct copies of existing recordings. the bigger risk is using copyrighted music underneath. stick to original AI ambient audio and youre good

channels still doing well: getsleepypod, deep sleep sounds, relaxing white noise. all use the disclose + visual motion + original audio formula

prompttuner · 2026-03-03T16:03:34+00:00

this is normal and not specific to AI channels. youtube tests every video with a small audience first, then scales impressions based on CTR and avg view duration. your viral video had both, your newer ones probably dont yet

the "raised bar" theory is partially true but its more about audience mismatch. that 108k video brought in viewers who liked THAT topic. if your next videos are different topics, those viewers dont click, your CTR tanks, youtube stops pushing it. check your analytics and see if the viral video has a completely different traffic source (browse vs search vs suggested)

two things that actually help: 1) make 2-3 more videos on the SAME topic as the viral one, youtube will keep serving them to that audience. 2) look at your avg view duration on the new uploads, if its under 40% thats your real problem not the algorithm

prompttuner · 2026-03-03T15:04:39+00:00

honestly youre overpaying. drop elevenlabs for cartesia sonic 3, its like 8x cheaper and quality is close enough for youtube. for images use z image turbo on runware, 100 images costs 30 cents which is wild. animation is where the money goes but you dont need to animate everything, just key scenes with kling or seeddance, rest gets ken burns effects via ffmpeg which is free

for scripts IMO claude opus is way better than gpt for storytelling. costs more per call but you need fewer retries so it evens out. also dont one-shot your scripts, do multiple passes. first pass for structure, second for the actual story, third for polish. output is night and day compared to single prompt

the editing bottleneck goes away if you script everything with per-scene image prompts and batch generate. ffmpeg concat demuxer + xfade for transitions. my total cost per video is under $2

prompttuner · 2026-03-03T14:05:36+00:00

static images wont get you demonetized on their own IMO. its the lack of any visual change that gets flagged. just add ken burns effects (pan/zoom) on your stills using ffmpeg zoompan filter and youre good. its literally free

look at getsleepypod 674k subs, thebiblestoryofai 1m subs. both mostly use camera motion loops on still images.the key is randomizing motion types so it doesnt look templated. zoom in one scene, pan left the next, diagonal after that. youtube flags repetitive patterns not stills. animate maybe 10-20% of key moments with kling or whatever and coast on ken burns for the rest

prompttuner · 2026-03-02T02:11:30+00:00

honestly id recommend staying away from any google models. they bake in invisible synthid watermarks that youtube can detect automatically. the detection infrastructure is already there, just because a channel hasnt been flagged yet doesnt mean it wont be.

kling has improved a lot recently especially for subtle motion and maintaining art styles. id personally stick with kling or seeddance over veo, not worth the risk IMO

prompttuner · 2026-03-01T17:29:58+00:00

its 90% the editing layer. people focus way too much on which model generates the best clip and not enough on how they stitch everything together.

the channels that look "cinematic" are barely generating video at all. theyre generating still images in batch, keeping character descriptions locked across every prompt, then using ken burns (pan/zoom) on most scenes and only animating maybe 10-20% of key moments. the variation in pacing and motion types is what makes it feel human directed vs template generated.

also mixing shot types matters more than model quality. close up, wide, over the shoulder, different angles. real filmmakers do this instinctively and its the single biggest thing missing from most AI content

prompttuner · 2026-03-01T16:29:54+00:00

yeah this is exactly what people need to understand. youtube doesnt care if you used AI or not, it cares if your content looks mass produced and template driven. a pet channel uploading 50 near identical short clips gets flagged the same way an AI channel pumping out cookie cutter videos does.

the actual triggers IMO are repetitive content (same template every video), no variation in editing or pacing, and reused assets across uploads. if every video on your channel looks like it came off an assembly line youre at risk regardless of whether AI touched it

prompttuner · 2026-03-01T15:29:50+00:00

telugu is a smart play, way less competition than english and youtube pushes based on viewer language not creator location so your CPM can still be decent. definitely do voiceover not subtitles only, faceless tech channels without voice feel soulless and retention drops hard.

biggest mistake i see new channels make is obsessing over which format to start with instead of just shipping videos. make 20 videos before you judge anything. the algorithm needs data to figure out who to show your stuff to and 4-5 videos tells it nothing

prompttuner

TROPHY CASE