YouTube Shorts pays a typical RPM of about $0.04 per 1,000 views, or roughly $40 per million views. Aggregate benchmarks across creators put the range at $0.01 to $0.07 per 1,000 views, with case studies from US-heavy channels in strong months posting rates as high as $0.32 per 1,000, an upper bound rather than what most creators should expect. That is a fraction of what long-form video pays for the same audience, and the gap comes from how Shorts revenue is calculated, not from Shorts being worth less to viewers.
See Shorts and long-form priced separately for any channel: try our free YouTube Money Calculator.
Shorts vs long-form, per million views
| Format / niche | Per 1 million views |
|---|---|
| Long-form, finance niche | $23,650 |
| Long-form, tech & lifestyle | $10,610 |
| Long-form, general/entertainment | $3,500 |
| Shorts (any niche) | ~$40 |
The full long-form breakdown by niche, including the creators who published their own RPM dashboards, is in our guide to how much YouTube pays per view.
How the pooled revenue model actually works
Long-form video pays each creator against the ad impressions served on their own video. Shorts work differently: ad revenue from the entire Shorts feed goes into a shared pool. Music licensing costs get paid out of that pool first, since so many Shorts use licensed audio. What remains gets divided among every creator in the pool according to each creator's share of total Shorts views that period, and creators keep 45% of whatever their view share works out to. A creator's Shorts payout depends on the whole feed's economics that month, alongside their own video's performance.
Before the revenue share existed
Before February 2023, there was no revenue-sharing model for Shorts at all. Creators earned only through the $100 Million Shorts Fund, a fixed pool that paid out based on views and engagement, and it worked out to roughly $0.02 per 1,000 views, half of today's typical rate. Our creator models price fund-era Shorts views at that historical rate rather than applying the current pooled rate retroactively, since the two programs paid on genuinely different terms.
What a Shorts-heavy channel actually collects
Run the typical rate against real posting volume and the picture gets clearer. A channel posting daily Shorts that average 500,000 views each generates about 15 million views a month, which pays roughly $600 at $0.04 per 1,000 views. A breakout channel averaging 5 million views per Short and posting daily reaches 150 million monthly views, worth about $6,000. Compare either figure to a single long-form video in a strong niche pulling 500,000 views, which alone can pay $1,750 to $11,825 depending on the niche, and the reason established creators treat Shorts as a growth tool rather than a paycheck becomes concrete rather than theoretical.
Why Shorts pay less, mechanically
Three things compound against Shorts revenue. A long-form video can carry multiple ad breaks, each one a separate paid impression tied to that specific video. A Shorts browsing session shows one ad shared across an entire scrolling session and pooled across every creator whose content appeared in it, which spreads the same ad dollar much further. Music licensing takes a cut off the top of the pool before any creator sees a payout. And the 45% creator share on Shorts is ten points lower than the 55% share on long-form video. None of these factors is unique to any one creator; they apply to the format itself.
What Shorts are actually for
Shorts function best as subscriber acquisition and a monetization on-ramp rather than a revenue line. The 10 million Shorts views in 90 days path is one of two ways into the YouTube Partner Program, alongside the traditional 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours route, which makes Shorts a fast way for a new channel to reach eligibility. Beyond that, Shorts funnel viewers toward long-form videos, channel memberships, and the creator's own brand deals. Creators who build a Shorts-first audience typically monetize through brand integrations priced per view the same way long-form sponsorships are, covered in our guide to YouTube sponsorship rates, rather than through the ad pool itself.
The channels that treat Shorts purely as a growth engine tend to post a high volume of short clips built from existing long-form footage, repurposing a single filming session into a week of Shorts content. The direct ad revenue from that volume rarely covers the editing time it takes to produce it. What it buys instead is discovery: a new viewer who finds a channel through one Short and then watches an hour of long-form video is worth far more, in ad revenue and eventual sponsorship reach, than the Short itself ever paid.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does YouTube Shorts pay per 1,000 views?
About $0.04 per 1,000 views typically, with aggregate benchmarks running $0.01 to $0.07. Strong-month case studies from US-heavy channels have posted up to $0.32 per 1,000, but that is an upper bound, not what most creators see.
How much do Shorts pay for 1 million views?
About $40 for a million Shorts views at the typical rate, compared to $3,500 to $23,650 for a million long-form views depending on niche.
Why do Shorts pay so much less than regular videos?
One ad is shared across an entire feed session and pooled across creators rather than tied to a single video, music licensing costs come out of the pool first, and the creator share is 45% on Shorts versus 55% on long-form.
Do Shorts views count toward monetization?
Yes. 10 million Shorts views in 90 days is one of two paths into the YouTube Partner Program, alongside 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours in a year.