Cooking YouTube Channel with 1.1M Subscribers Sells for ¥3.5M — About 30.3 Months of Monthly Revenue
From Rakko M&A's published closed deals (batch 2). A cooking YouTube channel with 1.1 million subscribers sold for ¥3,500,000, 61 days after listing. We record the listing data as evidence of actual conditions in the individual-scale M&A market.
This is a translation of the Japanese original. The Japanese version and cited primary sources are authoritative for all figures.
The Deal in Numbers (from Rakko M&A’s Closed-Deal Listings, Batch 2)
| Item | Figure |
|---|---|
| Sale price | ¥3,500,000 |
| Monthly revenue at listing | ¥115,000 |
| Time from listing to close | 61 days |
| Marketplace | Rakko M&A (no seller fees) |
How to Read This Case
This deal appears in the closed-deal listings that Rakko M&A publishes on its official site; there is no operator interview or detailed backstory. We record it as a data point on actual market conditions, based on what the listing information reveals.
A large channel with 1.1 million subscribers sold for ¥3.5M — about 30 months of revenue. That works out to a mere ¥3.2 per subscriber: the bigger the channel, the steeper the discount for “lots of subscribers, but views don’t follow.” In practice, the current revenue of ¥115,000 a month was nearly the entire basis for the price.
Comparison with 20 Deals Closed in the Same Period
| Genre | Sale price | Monthly revenue | Multiple |
|---|---|---|---|
| History commentary YouTube (¥700/month revenue) | ¥160,000 | ¥700 | 228.6 months |
| Long-form sports YouTube channel | ¥880,000 | ¥7,351 | 119.7 months |
| Game commentary & trivia Shorts (26K subscribers) | ¥250,000 | ¥5,391 | 46.4 months |
| Cooking YouTube (1.1M subscribers) | ¥3,500,000 | ¥115,000 | 30.3 months |
| Smartphone & gadget news site | ¥160,000 | ¥7,779 | 20.6 months |
| Beauty & credit card blog (outsourced operation) | ¥560,000 | ¥35,000 | 16.0 months |
| Hotel information blog (Rakuten Travel) | ¥950,000 | ¥88,000 | 10.7 months |
| Apparel e-commerce business (fully outsourced) | ¥2,160,000 | ¥342,000 | 6.3 months |
| Overseas influencer translation Shorts | ¥320,000 | ¥53,000 | 6.0 months |
| Idol-focused blog (AI prompts included) | ¥210,000 | ¥36,000 | 5.8 months |
| Pro wrestling commentary channel | ¥200,000 | ¥58,000 | 3.5 months |
| Rental server & domain information site | ¥80,000 | ¥23,000 | 3.4 months |
| Marriage agency SEO media + Ameblo | ¥220,000 | ¥69,000 | 3.2 months |
| Amazon seller account (10 years in operation) | ¥1,380,000 | Undisclosed | — |
| Money-luck AI video YouTube + TikTok set | ¥88,000 | Undisclosed | — |
| Landscape photography Instagram (59K followers) | ¥150,000 | Undisclosed | — |
| Amazon beauty-category seller | ¥750,000 | Undisclosed | — |
| Vtuber clip channel (officially licensed) | ¥320,000 | Undisclosed | — |
| Streamer-authorized entertainment clip channel | ¥120,000 | Undisclosed | — |
| Shibuya cafe information Instagram | ¥300,000 | Undisclosed | — |
Combined with the 15 deals in batch 1 (such as the psychology YouTube channel that sold for ¥4.8M), the going rates are becoming clearer: websites trade at roughly 20 months of revenue, YouTube channels scatter widely from 3 to 120 months, and SNS accounts fetch just a few yen per follower. The spread in multiples is precisely the spread in buyers’ confidence that the revenue will persist.
Further Reading
Sources
This article summarizes and analyzes the public sources above. Please refer to the primary sources for details.