One 10-minute faceless video can earn more than a hundred Shorts.
Here is the math, from Korpi's 2026 ranges:
- A long video pays roughly $2 to 15 per 1,000 views.
- A Short pays about $0.02 to 0.10 per 1,000.
- At a million views, that is around $6,000 for the long video.
- And around $50 for the Short.
Same topic. Same audience. A hundred times the money.
That is why the biggest faceless channels are built on long videos. Bright Side, animated explainers with no host, is estimated at $80,000 to 250,000 a month in ad revenue.
Daily Dose of Internet, narrated clips: around $270,000 a month. (GoFaceless, October 2026, citing third-party trackers. Estimates, not statements.)
Further down the ladder, where everyone starts, Korpi's numbers look like this:
- 1,000 to 10,000 subscribers: $50 to 500 a month
- 10,000 to 50,000: $500 to 3,000
- 50,000 to 100,000: $2,000 to 8,000
- 100,000 to 500,000: $5,000 to 25,000
Those are monthly numbers, which means they come from a catalog of videos, not one hit. And that was always the catch. A 10-minute video is 150 to 300 pictures, a script, a voice and an edit. One video a week was a part-time job.
That is the part that changed. Here is how I make one now, step by step, with real screens, including the two mistakes I made first so you can skip them.
Pick your tool first
There are several ways to make a long faceless video now. Crreo, InVideo AI, Pictory and Fliki all do some version of "script to video." I have looked at most of them.
I use Ziztu's AI YouTube Video Maker, for five reasons:
- One look carries every picture. A 40-minute film does not drift from one style to another halfway through.
- It stops once, at the finished script, before it spends a credit on pictures.
- The price is on the button before the film is made.
- 3 to 60 minutes, any whole number, 1080p.
- Real people get their real photo, freely licensed, with a credit, instead of an AI face.
The steps below are in Ziztu. The lessons apply to any tool.
What it is
You paste a YouTube link or type an idea. You get a narrated film of 3 to 60 minutes for a faceless channel: the script, the pictures, the voice, three thumbnails, titles and a description with chapters.
The start screen. One box takes a link or an idea. Look and length are chosen right there.
Two mistakes I made first
Mistake one: nobody was in charge of the pictures. I asked for a film about the size of the universe. It drew the universe. It also drew ship hulls, loose rocks and random planets that no sentence mentioned. Every picture looked fine alone. Together they were a film about nothing.
Mistake two: paying for detail instead of clarity. My first Rome film cost more than seven times what its remake did. The remake told the story better. Nobody watching could tell you where the extra money went.
The fix for both was restraint. One art style for the whole film. No props the script never mentions. A script you read before a single picture is drawn. That is what every step below is built around.
Step 1: Paste a link or type an idea
Two ways in:
- Type an idea: "Why Taiwan makes the chips," "How Roman roads were built," "The size of the universe."
- Paste a YouTube link to a video that is working. The tool studies how it is built: the title pattern, the hook, the chapters and the pace. A link only works when the video's captions can be read.
Either way, you can keep a video's structure and change the subject. That is the useful one for a channel: take a format that works and tell your own story in it.
Step 2: Press Generate and read the script
Generate opens one setup sheet: the look, the length (3 to 60 minutes), the tone, the narrator, and Basic or Pro with the estimate. Then it plans and writes, chapter by chapter, and stops at the script.
Read the whole thing. Change any line. The originality score shows how far your words are from the source video and marks passages that sit too close. Facts the writer is unsure of are flagged, and you can ask for a web check.
No picture is bought before you press "Make the film."
Step 3: Pick a look and keep it
There are 18 looks. One look carries every picture of the film.
The looks: Map and cast for the big history explainers, Old masters for empires and wars, Engraving for mysteries, Deep Space for planets.
Leave it on "Picked for you" and it chooses one that fits the topic. The realistic look needs YouTube's label for altered or synthetic content, and the tool reminds you when it is time to upload.
Then pick a narrator. There are 33, each with a short description and a sample you can play before you choose.
Step 4: Check that every shot fits the words
Every shot gets a picture drawn for the line the narrator says over it. Six pictures from a short film about the size of the universe, each next to its line:
"The Sun is the next stop, about 150 million kilometres away." The picture is the Sun. No ship hulls.
A map is drawn only for the part of the story that is about a place. Data cards and diagrams appear when numbers or a process carry the point.
Step 5: Copy a style, with your own guide
When you paste a link, the film can be drawn the way that video is drawn: the palette, the line, the level of detail. It takes two style frames from the video and uses them as the look.
What it does not do is copy the channel's mascot. Your film gets its own guide, a thin round-head figure with dot eyes, so it fits the style without being their character.
A film drawn in the style of a pasted history video, with its own guide and a relief map.
Step 6: Real people and real places
If a film names a real person, you choose how they appear:
- Drawn in the film's look. Recognisable by public features. The default for stories, comedy and explainers.
- Their real photo. A freely licensed photo from Wikimedia Commons with a small credit line, never redrawn. The default when the look is photographic, so an AI face never stands in for a real person.
- Both. The real photo when the narrator first says their name, then drawn scenes for the rest.
You can change the choice for each person on the Plan screen. Countries, cities and buildings can appear as real photos too.
A story about countries looks up who holds the office today, so the film does not name last decade's leader. You can also add up to 3 photos of someone you have the right to use, and they are drawn in your film's look.
Step 7: Basic or Pro
Both tiers use the same writer, the same narrators and the same publish pack. The pictures and the motion are what change.
Basic is the lowest price: AI pictures with camera moves, zooms, maps and data cards. Pro adds AI video clips on the key moments.
On both, Claude Sonnet 5.5 writes the script and ElevenLabs reads it.
Step 8: The publish pack
When the film is done you also get what you need to upload it: title options, three thumbnails, a description with chapter timestamps, tags, a pinned comment and an SRT captions file, in one zip. The topic appears on the thumbnail as a short label.
Thumbnails for the universe film: "Earth is a...", "Size of the universe, moon to edge" and "93B light-years".
Download the MP4 and upload it yourself, or send a watch link anyone can open without an account.
What will get a channel killed
- Repetition. YouTube's monetization policy calls repetitive, mass-produced videos "inauthentic content" (renamed in July 2025). Using AI is allowed. Publishing videos that could be swapped for each other is the risk. That is what the originality score is for.
- Other people's footage. The biggest faceless operator I know of lost several channels in 2025 over a copyright dispute. Your pictures should be yours.
- Unlabeled realism. If you use a photoreal look, use YouTube's altered-content label.
- Unchecked facts. Flagged facts are a hint, not a guarantee. Read the script.
- Basic is pictures with camera moves, not AI video clips. If you want real motion, that is Pro.
Try one
400 free credits and no card at getziztu.com/ai-youtube-video-maker. Type one idea, read the script it writes, and only then decide to make the film. Then tell me what it was about.
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