How much YouTube pays per view and per 1,000 views
YouTube does not pay a fixed amount per view. Advertisers bid for ad slots, YouTube keeps its share, and what is left is spread over all of a channel’s views, including the ones that showed no ad. The number that sums this up is RPM, revenue per 1,000 views. A typical RPM for long videos is $1 to $4 in entertainment and gaming and $8 to $20 in personal finance, so one view is usually worth between a tenth of a cent and two cents.
- 1,000 views: about $1–$4 in a general niche, $3–$8 for how-to and education, $8–$20 for finance.
- 100,000 views: about $100–$400 in a general niche, up to $2,000 in finance.
- 1 million views: about $1,000–$4,000 in a general niche, $8,000–$20,000 in finance, but only about $30–$80 as Shorts.
RPM is not the same as CPM. CPM is what advertisers pay per 1,000 ad impressions, before YouTube’s cut, and it only counts views that showed an ad, so it is always higher than RPM.
How many views and subscribers you need to get paid
Views earn nothing until a channel joins the YouTube Partner Program. For ad revenue a channel needs 1,000 subscribers plus either 4,000 hours of public watch time in the last 12 months or 10 million public Shorts views in the last 90 days. A lower tier opens earlier with fan funding such as memberships and Super Thanks, but not ads.
After joining, YouTube pays through Google AdSense once a month, when the balance has reached the payment threshold ($100 in the US, or a similar amount in local currency). A channel earning $40 a month is paid every third month.
Why Shorts pay so much less
On a long video, ads play before or during that video and creators keep 55% of the ad revenue. Shorts work differently: ads run between Shorts in the feed, the money goes into a shared pool, part of it pays for music licences, and creators keep 45% of their share. That is why a Short usually earns a few cents per 1,000 views, often 50 to 100 times less than a long video with the same views. Many Shorts creators use them to win subscribers who then watch the long videos.
What moves RPM up or down
- Audience country: a view from the US, UK, Canada or Australia is often worth two to four times a view from South Asia, because advertisers there pay more.
- Niche: finance, software and business attract advertisers selling expensive products.
- Video length: videos over 8 minutes can carry mid-roll ads, which can lift RPM noticeably.
- Season: RPM climbs from October to December with holiday ad budgets and drops in January.
- Monetized share: views from ad-blocking browsers, from some embeds, or on videos with limited ads earn little or nothing.
Ad revenue is often not a creator’s main income. Sponsorships, affiliate links, memberships and products can earn far more than ads, and this calculator leaves them out.
Reading your own numbers in YouTube Studio
The best estimate is your own history. In YouTube Studio open Analytics, then Revenue, and note the RPM for the last 28 or 90 days. Type it into the RPM boxes here, set the views you expect, and the earnings will match your channel far better than any niche average. For another channel, the estimate is only a range: its views are public, but its RPM is not.