My enjoyment of creating posts like this wouldn’t be so weird if I was so horrible at math while in school. What little knowledge I had back then is long gone, but that has never stopped me from be a stats freak. I love calculating stats and figures to help bring clarity to the unclear, especially when it comes to my hobbies and the things I’m most interested in. So – here I go attempting to calculate the net worth of Adam LZ.
Based on my calculations (which I explain in greater detail below), I estimate Adam LZ’s net worth to be $1,570,000. He has many valuable assets and skills, but…he is very loose with his money. IMHO, That net worth could be a lot higher if he had a bit more motivation in reigning in his bad habit of impulse-buying cars.
Table of Contents
Why is a discussion of the Adam LZ brand worth discussing?
Those of you who have no idea who Adam LZ is (and why anyone would want to calculate his net worth) should backpedal right out of this post and check out some of the other stuff that I’ve written lately.
But even if you don’t know who this guy is, he’s worth taking the time to learn about. I recently wrote an entire post explaining why Adam LZ is so interesting, and it would be a good primer for you if you want to learn more about his background and how he grew from nothing to be one of the most popular automotive YouTubers ever.
Those of you who are familiar with him (and his videos) will know exactly why I spent the time to pour over the data and assemble it all into this easily digestible breakdown of how financially strong the Adam LZ empire really is.
Enough dilly dallying – let’s talk about the net worth of Adam LZ
Those of you looking for the quick and easy answer may be shocked to read that I calculated his net worth to be roughly $1,570,000. Not bad for a middle class kid from Connecticut who started with nothing and built everything he has on his own (from the ground up).
In summary:
- The value of the Adam LZ YouTube channel: $2,000,000
- The value of the Adam LZ merchandise business: $100,000
- The value of Adam LZ’s cars: $800,000
- The value of his “compound” (the headquarters in Florida where all of his cars and garage space is): $1,500,000
- How much money he earns with sponsored content: $10,000/m0 (so let’s just say that’s an asset worth $120k over the course of a year)
- The value of his partial ownership of DriftHQ: $200,000
- Minus the cost of the divorce (which will be coming out of his pocket for years to come): –$1,450,000
Total net worth: $2,570,000
I’ll get into the nitty-gritty in a moment to reveal exactly why I believe his net worth to be so high, but before continuing, I think it’s important to take a moment to appreciate how he did it.
Long story short, he busted his you-know-what with laser-focused attention on the things he wanted to be successful with. He wanted to be a pro / sponsored BMX rider, so he did it. He wanted to learn how to work on cars (from body work to engine building), so he did it.
He wanted to become one of the best drifters in the US, so he did it. And did I mention that he has an incredibly popular YouTube channel with millions of subscribers? That’s one heck of an impressive list of achievements for someone so young, and it’s going to be exciting to see what he does next.
How exactly did I come up with a net worth of $2.57 million?
One of the nice things about trying to calculate the net worth of a popular YouTuber is that they tend to put themselves “out there” for all the world to see. Adam LZ is proud of who he is and the things he has built, and since I’ve been a subscriber for over 4 years, I’d like to think that I have a pretty good sense of what he’s got going on in life.
The trick, of course, is to estimate the value of each of his endeavors so that it’s easy to calculate an accurate net worth. Let’s take a brief look at all his current business deals and assets, and use that to tally it all up at the end.
The value of the Alam LZ YouTube channel: $2 million
I’ll refrain from getting too deep into the nuts and bolts of how I place a value on a YouTube channel, because I just did it in my post about Doug Demuro’s net worth. I’d recommend reading that if you want to learn more about my thoughts on the subject (spoiler alert: there’s no way to put a value on a YouTube channel with 100% accuracy).
However, using the same line of thinking that 1000 views earns $1 in ad revenue, is fairly easy to apply it to the Adam LZ channel to estimate how much it’s really worth.
Looking back over the last 6 months, each Adam LZ video is viewed an average of 297,000 times. And if we use Social Blade to see what his daily average view count is, we can see that it’s roughly 491,000. Holy crap. These numbers aren’t as impressive as what the Doug Demuro channel does, but Adam’s viewership is impressive no matter how you look at it.
Adding up video views (and applying it against his massive subscriber base) is an excellent way to calculate a majority of Adam LZ’s net worth. Ad revenue from his videos is arguably his largest source of income, and it is likely to be that way for the foreseeable future.
If Adam were to sell his channel today, it’s likely that he could get $2 million for it. Easily. It generates that much on its own annually (which would lead some to believe that he could sell it for 10x that amount), but without Adam, the channel would likely never grow any bigger than it is today. That’s why I’m sticking firm to my $2 million evaluation.
The value of the Adam LZ merchandise business: $100,000
Of all the really big automotive YouTubers out there at the moment, Adam LZ merch is probably the most lucrative and successful merch line of them all.
Some may argue that TJ Hunt’s brand (Hunt and Company) is larger and more profitable, but keep in mind that TJ sells a lot of products that aren’t specifically designed and created for Hunt and Company (such as aftermarket car parts).
Adam’s brand (LZMFG) is all about selling the “Adam LZ“ lifestyle (cars and BMX). Every product he sells (such as T-shirts and hats) is Adam LZ branded, therefore making it to be what I consider the largest personal brand of all automotive YouTubers.
The best part about the Adam LZ merchandise business? He started it way back when he was heavily into BMX, and we all know that demographic (young boys with parents who have disposable income) goes crazy for T-shirts and sweatshirts featuring the name of their idols. As Adam turned pro, his mech business exploded.
Adam had a warehouse and an employee dedicated to this business while still in college (and before he transitioned to automotive content), so It has been thriving (and growing) for years.
Based on the large number of fans Adam LZ has spanning across BMX and cars/drifting, I’m tempted to believe that his merchandise business is more profitable than his YouTube channel. However, based on how little I see him promoting his products in his videos, I’m going to assume that his YouTube channel is more profitable.
My estimation of the value of the Adam LZ merchandise business is $100,000. I calculate that by assuming (based on the size of his warehouse and online store) that he does $3,500 a month in sales.
Multiply that by 30 (the rate at which it’s common to value a business when buying / selling) and it comes out to roughly $100k. Not a bad way to boost the net worth of Adam LZ.
The value of doing sponsored videos: $10,000/mo
If there is one thing that Adam is good at, it’s making sound business decisions. From creating content that his viewers want to see, to growing a YouTube channel and merchandise line simultaneously, it seems everything Adam touches becomes massively successful.
However, he isn’t perfect. One of the things I don’t agree with is the fact that he doesn’t appear to do a lot of sponsored content. Of course he promotes random automotive products every now and then, but for the most part, he has resisted the urge to accept free products from parts manufacturers in exchange for making a video about them.
From what little sponsored content he does (and based on my own personal experience with doing sponsored content for my YouTube channel), I’d estimate that he’s making roughly $10,000 from these promotions.
That may sound like a lot, but it’s actually low considering how much reach he has on all of his social media platforms.
His decision to limit sponsored content is both good and bad:
- Good because it’s annoying to sit through a video which is so blatantly sponsored (and comes off clearly as being an advertisement).
- Bad because I believe that refusing to do sponsored content is something that is preventing Adam LZ’s net worth from exploding into the stratosphere.
The value of his cars: $800,000
This is the part of the net worth evaluation that I feel the least confident about (which is ironic since I’m a die hard car guy). The problem with tying to evaluate the net worth of Adam’s fleet of cars is that they are all custom built from the ground up.
As such, there is no real way of calculating the value of any of them with any twinge of accuracy. Custom built cars are only worth what the buyer is willing to pay.
As an example, what about his cream 240 (the car that basically started his drift career). It’s probably worth $15k on a good day considering how beat to snot it is. His other non-pro drift cars are maybe worth $40k each (and I’m being generous).
Based on the above, I’d estimate the total net worth of Adam LZ’s cars to be roughly $800,000.
The value of his automotive compound: $1,500,000
Of all the purchases I’ve ever seen an automotive YouTuber make, it was the purchase of his automotive compound in 2021 (in Florida) which was the most impressive. It’s essentially a large piece of property filled with garages and houses – a place for he and his entire team to live and work.
The nice thing about this property is that it is larger than what he actually needs. This means that he can rent out the space he does need to recoup some of the expenses of maintaining such a large property.
The value of his parts business (DriftHQ): $200,000
Adam purchased a partial ownership of DriftHQ in 2021, which instantly put him into the automotive parts business. The details are thin, but it’s safe to assume that his involvement brings in a respectable amount of income.
Oh yeah, and then there‘s the divorce: -50% of everything
Based on everything discussed so far, it seems as if Adam has been on top of the world (at least financially) for a good long while. Well, prior to October 2018 that is. That’s when he and Nichole (his wife) announced their separation from each other. And at the time, a separation was all it was.
In January 2019, Adam started dropping hints that a divorce was immenet (and that it was going to be costly). Considering how much a part of the Adam LZ YouTube channel Nichole has been over the years, it’s safe to assume that she got half of everything – for several years at least.
She likely got half of all advertising revenue, half of his merchandise business, and perhaps half of the value of all his assets (cars). Ouch.
I’ve always been a firm believer that men typically get unjustifiably screwed in divorce, but in this case, I think that Nichole being awarded half of everything is fair. She no doubt was a reason for bringing in a large number of subscribers of the years, and Adam never would have been successful as he is now without her help along the way.
With that being said, the net worth of Adam LZ would be a lot higher today if it wasn’t for the divorce.
Adam LZ’s annual expenses
As you can see, Adam has a very large amount of money coming in from a variety of sources. However, he has a very large amount of annual expenses as well. Here are the most significant:
- Employees: $500k: At any given time, Adam has a team of employees helping him with things such as car builds, shop maintenance, and merchandise sales.
- Cars: $500k: As we all know, Adam is very loose with money when it comes to cars. He’s always buying something new.
- Car parts: $200k: With a fleet of cars so large (and the way that he drives), car parts are a significant portion of his expenses.
- His pro drift team: $1 million: Adam is a pro drifter, and the logistics of operating a winning team are complicated. From cars and parts, to travel, to employees…the costs add up fast.
- Compound / headquarters maintenance: $500k: The size of his compound and the amount of buildings that sit on it means that things are always in need of repair. Based on what I know about commercial property, a half million dollars in annual expenses sounds right.
In summary
Adam and the Adam LZ empire is massive. And downright impressive considering that he built it all at such a young age.
While the divorce was an unfortunate setback to the growth of the Adam LZ empire, Adam has the benefit of a raving and die hard fan base to keep him moving forward.
His net worth took a huge (and slightly damaging hit), but he seems to be recovering from it quite well. Financially at least.
