Our first Top Earning Websites List was published in March 2009.
There have been significant changes since then. AirBnB founded in 2008 did not make the original list but are here today. Myspace no longer features!
Please Note: Despite their significant size, some companies are intentionally left out because they are primarily retail based that does web based revenue, but ultimately the service or product offered does not necessarily depend on the internet to generate the majority of its revenue and certain companies have been left out because they have since been acquired by other companies. We have also excluded from the list any business that is primarily App Based.
Use this table as motivation. It is easy to think that the numbers below are impossible but at a certain point the founders of the companies listed felt the same way. Also please see our various notes at the end of this list.
Last time we updated Google was the top earning website and Amazon was No 2 – this time they have swooped positions around. Amazon is that Juggernaut of a Money Earning Machine and they continue to innovate and grow.
In 2009 the top earning website was making $691 per second, today it is making $3392 per second!
Enjoy!
30 Top Earning Websites That Make A Lot Of Money Online
| Rank | Website | Founders | Annual Revenue | $ Per Second |
| 1 | Amazon | Jeff Bezos | $107 Billion | $3392.94 |
| 2 | Larry Page, Sergey Brin | $74.98B | $2378.23 | |
| 3 | JD.com | Liu Qiangdong aka Richard Liu | $28B | $887.87 |
| 4 | Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes | $17.93B | $568.56 | |
| 5 | Tencent | Ma Huateng | $12.89B | $408.74 |
| 6 | Reuters | Paul Reuter | $12.6B | $399.54 |
| 7 | Alibaba | Peng Lei, Jack Ma | $12.29B | $389.71 |
| 8 | Paypal | Peter Thiel, Yu Pan, Luke Nosek, Elon Musk, Ken Howery, Max Levchin | $9.248B | $293.25 |
| 9 | Priceline | Jesse Fink, Jay S. Walker, Scott Case | $9.22B | $292.36 |
| 10 | eBay | Pierre Omidyar | $8.59B | $272.39 |
| 11 | Expedia | Richard Barton | $6.67B | $211.50 |
| 12 | Rakuten | Hiroshi Mikitani | $6.3B | $199.77 |
| 13 | salesforce | Marc Benioff, Parker Harris | $5.37B | $170.28 |
| 14 | Baidu | Robin Li, Eric Xu | $5.21B | $165.21 |
| 15 | Yahoo | Jerry Yang, David Filo | $4.97B | $157.60 |
| 16 | Groupon | Eric Lefkofsky, Brad Keywell, Andrew Mason | $3.1B | $98.30 |
| 17 | Reid Hoffman, Konstantin Guericke, Jean-Luc Valliant, Allen Blue, Eric Ly | $2.99B | $94.81 | |
| 18 | Evan Williams, Noah glass, Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone | $2.22B | $70.40 | |
| 19 | NetEase | Ding Lei | $2.0B | $63.42 |
| 20 | Sohu | Charles Zhang | $1.937B | $61.42 |
| 21 | Overstock.com | Patrick M. Byrne | $1.66B | $52.64 |
| 22 | NYTimes | Henry Jarvis Raymond, George Jones | $1.59B | $50.42 |
| 23 | TripAdvisor | Langley Steinert, Stephen Kaufer | $1.5B | $47.56 |
| 24 | ASOS.com | Nick Robertson, Quentin Griffiths | $1.4B | $44.39 |
| 25 | Orbitz | Jeff Katz | $932 Million | $29.55 |
| 26 | Yandex | Arkady Volozh, Arkady Borkovsky, Ilya Segalovich, Elena Kolmanovskaya | $900M | $28.54 |
| 27 | airbnb | Joe Gebbia, Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk | $900M | $28.54 |
| 28 | Stubhub | Eric H. Baker, Jeff Fluhr | $500M | $15.85 |
| 29 | Blue Nile | Mark Vadon | $480M | $15.22 |
| 30 | DropBox | Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi | $400M | $12.68 |
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How Did We Calculate The Earnings
To obtain the turnover of the companies in this list we first analyzed SEC 10-K reports that are submitted by publicly traded companies within 60 days of the company’s fiscal year end. For private companies, reputable sites such as BusinessInsider, Forbes, and Bloomberg were utilized and cross referenced to identify revenue amounts for each companies most recent completed fiscal year. In cases of multiple sites showcased varying numbers, the lowest was used.
Top Earning Websites Notes:
=> Yandex is a Russian Internet company which operates the largest search engine in the Russian Federation with about 60% market share in the country.
=> NetEase, Inc. is a leading China-based Internet technology company founded in 1997 that pioneered the development of applications, services and other technologies for the Internet in China.
=> AirBnB Revenue – How Much Does It Make?
=> Dropbox was one of the most difficult websites to track down revenue for, with varying revenue figures quoted – but there are plenty of references to its large valuation.
=> Myspace featured in our original list – whatever happened to them?
How Can I Make Money Online?
Every great website, starts with an idea. If it’s a good one, traffic comes naturally and money is a bi-product of your success. If you want to learn more about creating a website, check out our FREE eCourse. If you have not already done so – also check out Traffic Domination – where I share my top traffic tips.