The most-viewed artist on YouTube is generally considered to be Bad Bunny, leading in total views with tens of billions, followed closely by Indian playback singers like Alka Yagnik and Arijit Singh, with artists like BTS, Taylor Swift, and Justin Bieber also dominating the charts. These rankings fluctuate, but Bad Bunny consistently appears at the top for overall artist views, notes ChartMasters, while Kworb.net also shows him leading by a significant margin.
1. MrBeast – 459 million subscribers. As of June 2024, MrBeast is the most-subscribed channel on YouTube. And it makes sense.
Here are the top ten all-time most subscribed Official Artist Channels around the world on YouTube in January 2025.
The "number one artist" depends on the metric, but currently, Taylor Swift is often cited as the top global artist, leading in Spotify streams and Billboard rankings for overall artist performance, while The Weeknd often holds the top spot for most monthly listeners on Spotify. Bad Bunny remains dominant in global streams for previous years and holds top album status, with Drake and Billie Eilish also consistently high.
As of early January 2026, The Weeknd is generally considered #1 on Spotify for monthly listeners, but Taylor Swift is the most-streamed artist in Spotify's history and often leads overall popularity, with Bruno Mars recently hitting a historic 150 million monthly listeners. The #1 spot can change daily, but The Weeknd currently leads in recent monthly listeners, while Bad Bunny remains a top contender, and Taylor Swift dominates overall historical streams.
It became a global phenomenon, clocking up more than 16 billion views - YouTube's most watched video ever. That song was the incredibly catchy Baby Shark.
In November 2005, a Nike advertisement featuring Brazilian football player Ronaldinho became the first video to reach 1,000,000 views. The billion-view mark was first passed by Gangnam Style in December 2012. On January 13, 2022, Pinkfong's "Baby Shark" became the first video to hit 10,000,000,000 views.
Drake has topped the list three times (2015–2016; 2018), while Swift is the only female artist to have topped the list (2023–2024). American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is the most-streamed artist in Spotify's history.
The Minecraft community has crushed one trillion views on YouTube. Celebrate this huge milestone with a look back at some of the biggest moments in Minecraft history.
The richest YouTuber in the world is Jimmy Donaldson, known as MrBeast, with estimated net worths ranging from $500 million to over $1 billion and reported earnings exceeding $700 million in 2025, thanks to his massive YouTube presence, business ventures like Feastables, and ventures such as Beast Games on Amazon Prime. He leads a list of high earners that includes Jeffree Star, Logan Paul, and Anastasia Radzinskaya (Like Nastya), who also generate significant wealth from branding, merchandise, and other entertainment projects.
1 billion YouTube views can earn anywhere from a few thousand dollars (for Shorts) to several million (for long-form videos), with estimates often falling between $250,000 and $5 million, heavily depending on the Cost Per Mille (CPM) and viewer engagement, with gaming/music potentially earning $0.50-$1/1000 views and high-engagement content seeing higher rates. The wide range is due to factors like viewer location, ad types, video niche, and if it's a YouTube Short (which pays much less) versus longer content.
“Gangnam Style” by South Korean musician PSY became the first YouTube video to reach 1 billion views. By the end of 2012, the song had topped music charts in more than 30 countries around the world. #song4theweekend #PSY #GangnamStyle #musichistory #music.
The top 3 YouTubers by subscriber count in early 2026 are MrBeast, followed by corporate/music channels like T-Series, and children's content creators such as Cocomelon or Kids Diana Show, with MrBeast being the leading individual creator by a significant margin, dominating the global rankings.
The number one YouTube channel by subscriber count is MrBeast (Jimmy Donaldson), who surpassed Indian music network T-Series in early 2025 and now leads with over 450 million subscribers, known for massive stunts, giveaways, and philanthropy. T-Series remains a strong second, followed by children's content creators like Cocomelon, making MrBeast the top individual creator on the platform, according to data from late 2025 and early 2026.
Globally, Elvis has sold over one billion records, more than any other artist. His American sales have earned him gold, platinum or multi-platinum awards for 150 different albums and singles.
According to an average estimated and published recently by Information Is Beautiful, YouTube may pay as little as $0.0006 for every view, which adds up to only $1.8 million for 3 billion plays.
On Spotify, a billion streams in the US could yield around $4 million, but this fluctuates globally.
The centerpiece of the YouTube Roblox Museum celebrates the incredible 1 trillion views milestone.
The most played song on YouTube, by a significant margin, is "Baby Shark Dance" by Pinkfong Baby Shark, holding the top spot as the most-viewed YouTube video ever with over 16 billion views, followed by children's songs like Cocomelon's "Wheels on the Bus" and music videos such as "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi. While "Despacito" was previously the most-watched music video for a long time, "Baby Shark" surpassed it and remains the overall most-viewed video, reflecting the immense popularity of kids' content on the platform.
The Weeknd's synth-pop hit Blinding Lights has shattered yet another record, becoming the first song in Spotify history to cross 5 billion streams.
The answer is that when people are in the top 0.005% of all the listeners globally, they have listened to that song or artist more than 99.995% of all other Spotify users. Additionally, many users also ranked under the top 0.001% of all the listeners globally when they shared their top artists and songs.
Spotify holds a 32% global market share in music streaming with 713 million monthly users. Institutional investors own 67.8% of Spotify; founders Ek and Lorentzon control major voting power. Shares of Spotify can be bought through a brokerage account using market or limit orders.