YouTube money calculator
Estimate YouTube ad earnings from your views, niche and format. Free, instant, shown as an honest range — not a made-up single number.
Enter your monthly views to estimate earnings.
An estimate, not a guarantee. Real RPM varies with your exact audience, watch time and season — and ad revenue is only part of most creators' income. Figures use 2026 niche RPM data (vidIQ, Mediacube, Miraflow), in USD.
How YouTube ad revenue is estimated
Creators earn from ads roughly as views ÷ 1,000 × RPM, where RPM is what actually lands in your pocket per thousand views — already after YouTube keeps its 45% cut and after unmonetized or skipped views. RPM is not one number: it swings with your niche, your audience's country, and whether the views are long-form or Shorts. This calculator applies a research-based RPM range for each combination and shows the result as a low-to-high band, because the honest answer is a range.
Niche is the biggest lever. Finance and investing videos can pay a creator roughly $7–$25 per 1,000 views; tech and marketing $8–$22; education $4–$12; while gaming, entertainment and music often sit near $1–$4. A general channel averages about $1–$5. Audience geography matters too — a mostly US/UK/Tier-1 audience earns far more than a global one, which is why the calculator lets you set it.
Shorts pay very differently from long-form
YouTube Shorts are monetized from a shared ad pool, not per-video ads, so the RPM is a fraction of long-form — typically $0.01–$0.08 per 1,000 views versus $1–$10 for long-form. That is a 20–30× gap, so a Short and a long video with the same view count are not remotely comparable. Toggle the format above to see it. Remember this is ad revenue only; most full-time creators make the majority of their income from sponsorships, affiliates and their own products, which no calculator can predict.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does YouTube pay per 1,000 views?+−
For long-form, a creator typically keeps about $1–$10 per 1,000 views depending on niche and audience country — averaging roughly $2–$4. High-value niches like finance can reach $7–$25. Shorts pay far less: about $0.01–$0.08 per 1,000 views.
What's the difference between CPM and RPM?+−
CPM is what advertisers pay per 1,000 ad impressions; RPM is what the creator actually receives per 1,000 video views, after YouTube's 45% cut and after views that showed no ad. RPM is the number that matters for your earnings, and it's what this calculator uses.
How much does 1 million views make on YouTube?+−
For a typical long-form channel, roughly $2,000–$4,000, but the real range is wide — a finance channel with a US audience could see $7,000–$25,000, while a global gaming channel might see under $2,000. A million Shorts views is usually only $20–$80.
How much do YouTube Shorts pay?+−
Very little per view — about $0.01–$0.08 per 1,000 views, roughly 20–30× less than long-form. Shorts are better for growth and subscribers than for direct ad revenue.
Is this exact?+−
No — treat it as a ballpark range. Real RPM depends on your specific audience, watch time, ad fill and season, and the underlying figures vary widely between sources, which is why we show a range and not a single number.
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