YouTube Money Calculator

What YouTube actually pays per 1,000 views

YouTube does not pay a flat rate. Advertisers bid for space on a video, YouTube keeps 45% of the ad revenue on long-form video, and the creator receives the rest. The number that captures what lands in the creator's account is RPM: revenue per 1,000 video views, after YouTube's cut and after non-monetized views are averaged in.

RPM is driven mostly by two things: what the audience is worth to advertisers (a viewer researching index funds is worth more than a viewer watching gameplay) and where the audience lives (US ad rates are several times higher than most of the world). Here is the rate table this calculator uses, with each figure taken as the median of creator-disclosed dashboards and published analytics studies:

Rates are medians for US-heavy audiences in the current era. Individual channels commonly land anywhere from roughly half to nearly double the median, which is the range the calculator shows.

How the calculator works

Your monthly long-form views are multiplied by the niche RPM, adjusted for audience geography (Western Europe pays about 0.8x US rates, a global mix about 0.7x, Latin America about 0.3x, and India about 0.11x). Shorts views are priced separately at their own rate, about $0.04 per 1,000 views. If you add sponsored integrations, each one is priced at the industry baseline of $50 per 1,000 views on a typical video, which is the midpoint of the $30 to $70 range talent agencies publish.

This is the same rate table our net worth model applies to real channels. When we estimate what MKBHD or PewDiePie has earned from YouTube, these exact numbers do the work, and the methodology page lists every source behind them.

Where these numbers come from

Creator-disclosed dashboards and measured analytics, never guesses:

• Graham Stephan published finance-channel RPMs of $16 to $20, with peak months above $30, on the way to $2M+ from 134M views.
• Shelby Church disclosed RPMs of $9.72 and $11.49 across her tech and vlog channels.
• Josh Mayo reported a $29.30 RPM after moving to credit card and investing topics.
• A 300-channel network study of real YouTube Analytics data (3,595 monetized channel-months) put median RPMs at $10.22 for education and science and $5.69 for automotive.
• Aggregate industry data places most channels at $2 to $10 RPM, with $3 to $5 the most common band, and Shorts near $0.04 per 1,000 views.

Ads are usually the smaller half of creator income

For established channels, AdSense is the fixed salary and sponsorships are the upside. Brand integrations pay $30 to $70 per 1,000 expected views as a baseline, and finance channels command up to $200 per 1,000. Channel memberships pay creators 70% of the fee, most commonly $4.99 a month. Merch, affiliate links, and licensing sit on top of that. Our guide on how much YouTubers make walks through every lane with the same sourced rates.

Frequently asked questions

How much does YouTube pay per view?

For most channels, between $0.002 and $0.024 per long-form view, which is $2 to $24 per 1,000 views. Niche and audience location decide where a channel lands in that range. Shorts pay far less, around $0.04 per 1,000 views. Our full per-view breakdown covers the mechanics.

How much does YouTube pay for 1 million views?

Roughly $2,000 to $24,000 for a million long-form views. A typical entertainment channel with a global audience earns near $2,500 per million, while a US-focused finance channel can clear $20,000. A million Shorts views pays only about $40.

What is RPM and how is it different from CPM?

CPM is what advertisers pay YouTube per 1,000 ad impressions. RPM is what the creator receives per 1,000 video views, after YouTube keeps its 45% share on long-form video and after non-monetized views are averaged in. RPM is the number that sets the paycheck.

Where do the rates in this calculator come from?

Each niche rate is the median of creator-disclosed RPM figures and published analytics studies. The same table powers the estimates on our YouTuber net worth profiles, and every source is listed on the methodology page.