Upchurch has become a success for his comedic country rapping and ‘holler boy’ personality. He’s also an independent musician, so how does he make money?
Upchurch made his money through YouTube initially but now also makes it through his country music. Ryan Upchurch’s career began with him posting funny videos and music on YouTube as Upchurch the Redneck. His slogan was ‘Raise H*ll and Eat Cornbread.’ His antics gained him millions of views and a lot of cash.
You can read more below about how Upchurch can make money on YouTube, how he makes money on his music, and how he spends his money.
Making Money on YouTube
It’s no secret that you can make money on YouTube through ad revenue as long as you have enough people following you and watching your videos. For Ryan Upchurch, this is exactly how he has made a chunk of his income.
In 2015, he uploaded his very first video of himself as Upchurch the Redneck. It was a persona that he created to then post comedic songs to the platform.
That first video was a song he made called ‘Raise H**l and Eat Cornbread’ and the video appears to be a bunch of homemade videos and pictures. They feature people covered in mud, driving trucks covered in mud, fishing, and drinking.
Upchurch raps his lyrics over the whole compilation. The video has 1.6 million views.
Ryan Upchurch has over 2 million subscribers to his YouTube channel with over 90 million views on some of his videos to only 200,000 views on others.
Why is all of this important though?
Those numbers are really important when it comes to determining how much money someone is making on YouTube. There are a lot of different factors.
The biggest factors would be whether the content creator uses ads and where they place them. That’s on top of how many views they get.
As this Business Insider article points out, the amount of money a content creator makes per 1 million views can range drastically. Of the five content creators that they spoke with, their income ranged from $2000 per 1 million views all the way up to $40,000.
With that said, even if Upchurch is making only $2000 per million views of his videos, that would mean he has made $186,000 on his most viewed video.
That video is his music video for his song ‘Rollin Stoned’ and it has over 93 million views. You can watch the music video below.
Upchurch Makes Money on Music
While Ryan Upchurch started out with his music on YouTube, he is now most notably an independent country music rapper. This is due to his refusal to work with a big label.
That is despite their offers. They want him, he doesn’t want them.
It is through the release of his albums that Upchurch is able to make more money. While the sales numbers aren’t’ available for every album, we can still figure out how much he’s made on some albums.
Upchurch’s very first full-length album was Heart of America, it sold 1,800 copies at $8.99. That isn’t much, but his albums have become more successful.
For example, Supernatural sold 16,800 copies at $10.99 apiece. That’s almost $185,000 in gross sales.
If he weren’t an independent artist, he would be making maybe 10 to 15 percent royalties on that. However, because he is independent he probably takes home a large chunk of that sum.
That is how his net worth had grown to over $4 million.
Upchurch’s Buying Habits
These days, a net worth of around $4 million is not exactly a huge sum of money. However, Upchurch does still have spending habits and they are classic for a country boy.
He has spent his money on trucks, cars, dirtbikes, and ATVs.
Some of the vehicles in his collection are a modified Chevrolet Silverado Z71, Mustang GT, Dodge Ramm 3500, Chevrolet Fleetmaster, Z06 Supercharged Corvette, and a Supersport Redline Edition Camaro to name a few. That car collection also boasts an armored police car.
In early 2018, Upchurch bought and moved to a ranch known as ‘The Ghost Ranch’ in Ashland City, Tennessee. However, he moved to West Virginia in September 2020.
His old ranch was selling for $1.5 million and the location of the town he moved to in West Virginia is unknown. Those are just a few of the things that Upchurch spends that $4 million net worth on.