Introduction
Over the past few years, I’ve tried dozens of faceless YouTube niches. Some of them got views, others were a complete freaking waste of time.
Picking the wrong niche could literally ruin your channel and stop you from ever growing. Happened to me many times. I’ll rank the top five dead niches, or bottom five, I guess, and five that print views in 2026. Starting with the five niches to avoid like the plague.
Niches to Avoid Like the Plague
AI Movies
Number one is going to be AI movies. You might have seen these popular channels that take movies and make sequels and new versions using AI. I don’t recommend doing it. First of all, you need a lot of expensive credits from AI software to make those high quality remakes and movies. But the more important thing is going to be copyright. It’s a legal minefield that you don’t want to step into, and film and video game companies are known for being very targeting with these things and attacking people for it. I would just stay away from anything that’s copyrighted in that sense. I do think though that AI videos and kind of like AI movies can definitely be a profitable niche as long as it’s not taking a concept that’s copyrighted or from some other institution.
Sports
The next niche that I would avoid is actually sports and the same goes here. The sports companies also target people who use their content unless you’re adding a lot of value and seriously transforming it. What I would say here is that it’s pretty risky compared to a lot of other niches for faceless creators that don’t use their face throughout the video. It’s faceless. If you’re in the sports niche, you have to make sure that you’re really transforming the content and that you’re ideally using a little bit of other content, not just like one game or something like that, cuz that can easily become copyright issues and just in general issues with your content. There are still quite a few channels in the sports niche that work good with commentary and if they’re using it in the right way.
The Exposing Niche
I would also be very, very cautious about the exposing niche. This niche I’ve seen all over YouTube for a very long time where people basically expose celebrities and drama and famous people for doing stuff. The reason why I would be cautious here is because you’re never really anonymous online anymore, and you might actually end up in trouble if you say something incorrect. There’s nothing wrong with the celebrity niche itself. It can be really, really good. But just be a little bit careful if you’re on the exposing side where you’re kind of exposing things. Be a little bit more careful for that reason.
General Compilations
The next faceless niche I think is kind of dead is general compilations. If you have all the rights or if it’s your own videos, that can obviously be a pretty good thing, but it’s a total legal minefield yet again, and I wouldn’t put my effort into this niche. There are so many more profitable niches.
General Gaming Content
And finally, the last dead faceless niche is general gaming content. The RPM is just low, and it doesn’t really make sense unless it’s a very specific game, like something specific to a high-income country or a general high CPM game. But generally, gaming is going to be highly competitive because people think it’s fun to make videos on, but it doesn’t really pay off.
Niches That Are Printing Views
City 3D Time-lapse
First up is a channel called City 3D Time-lapse. They got 8 million views on their first video. Monetized channel. But this can actually happen if you make a really good first video because YouTube is actively promoting small channels now for whatever reason and they’re giving them a chance. Not saying it’s going to happen to most people, but if you make a top tier video, it happens all the time and I see it every single day. All this channel does is generate city 3D time-lapses of, in this case, Paris in France. And these animations can be made using various software tools, especially now with AI, much easier than before. And it looks a bit intimidating to create, but it’s easier now than ever.
This channel mainly focuses on France. And I could see the exact same channel being launched for Rome or being launched for literally any other city or even country where the exact same channel would probably do well. So that opportunity is literally just sitting around waiting for somebody to take it. If it works for one city, it’s definitely going to work for another city with the same characteristics, which basically people care about it. It’s a big city. It’s internationally famous, etc. And that’s the way you want to think when you’re finding a niche or a video.
It’s how can I take this concept that basically works, model it, and create something different or create something unique that can also work for the same reason, but in a different niche or in a different way. And that way, you don’t need to think about an idea in the shower. You could just actually find things that work and just model that and create it yourself.
Narrative Finance
The next faceless niche that’s absolutely printing is going to be narrative finance. And this is going to blow your mind. It only has 10K subs and the videos only get a few thousand views, but with my estimates, it is doing significant numbers in terms of actual revenue. Here’s why. Even a small channel like this, which again is probably going to grow very soon, is in the finance and investing niche, which is some of the highest CPMs on YouTube, meaning that advertisers and sponsors and everything pay a lot more than other niches and the highest in the investment and wealth management, which is exactly what this channel is doing. They’re actually generating 100,000 views in the past month. With a very high CPM, it’s starting to make sense. This is literally like a regular income.
Even though this channel looks super small, it’s actually printing and it’s just getting started while it’s still small. And they’re posting about one video per day of extremely simple faceless videos, like really really basic stuff they made with AI. And think about it like this, the person running this might spend a few hours per week on it, but he might also run five other channels like this behind the scenes. I think in this niche, there are definitely a lot of opportunities if you can just find another angle by basically just modeling what already works and it’s proven to work, and it’s a high CPM niche, so it’s literally just waiting for people to start. I’ll give this channel a niche a score of 9 out of 10.
Simple Paint
And next up is going to be Simple Paint. This faceless channel is pretty new. Started just a year ago and 400K subs with only 90 videos. How? By posting simple 2D animations. You can create these for free yourself with AI and software tools. And the videos focuses on weird stories and brutal things and he’s getting a lot of views consistently. But is it just random or could you replicate this on your own channel starting today? Could I make a similar channel and actually have views? Yes. And here’s why I recommend this niche.
If we look at the channel at hand and we look at their description, you’re going to find links to their other channels where they have basically taken the same concept from their main channel over to a small new channel and replicated it and multiple different new channels and gotten lots of views again by doing the same thing on a completely brand new channel, which again proves to me that it’s not just an old channel that’s been around for 10 years, but it’s actually a really good niche to start right now and a way of making videos that actually works till this day. Because again, he proves this by starting a new channel right now that actually went viral from scratch, which proves that small channels can start and do this right now if you have a strategy, of course, and if you can produce the videos.
John
The next faceless niche that is literally printing views and more is this John. John what? This faceless channel is in the investing niche, which has the highest CPM on YouTube that we talked about. And he’s generating 1.5 million long-form views per month. That is massive. With my estimates, he’s doing mid five figures per month at the very least. What about the videos? How could you start something like this, like Mr. John? The videos are faceless investment guides like why would anybody in their right mind trust a faceless channel for investment videos ever.
But here’s why, and it actually makes sense. John isn’t telling people to do something, and he’s not showing telling him what he thinks. He’s using facts, data, and research, which are things that anybody can include that boost credibility, not opinions. Because let’s be honest, nobody cares about a faceless channel’s investment opinion, unless you’re like some finance expert on camera. And that actually works and he’s doing really good faceless content, relatively easy to produce. Definitely something you can produce on a low budget as well. Really good niche with a high CPM.
Wealth and Finance Stories
And then another story niche, but covering more finance and wealth stories, which basically takes that simple animation story niche, but also increasing the CPM by focusing on stories in the wealth and finance niche that literally anybody could create. These are simple stick figures, animated stories.
Closing
Those are my niches. There are still thousands of untapped faceless niches for you to start a channel in. What really matters is giving it a real honest try and staying consistent. Good luck.