How much does YouTube pay per view? No fixed rate: how RPM, the 55% and the 45% work

No. YouTube pays a share of the money advertisers spend, not an amount for each view. Its earnings page says earnings “are generated based on a share of advertising revenue from viewers watching your video”, and that there are no guarantees under the partner agreement about how much or whether you will be paid.

So “YouTube pay per view” is a result, not a rate: what your channel earned divided by its views. Two views of the same length can earn different amounts, or nothing, depending on whether an ad played, where the viewer was and who was advertising that day.

Ads are one source. YouTube also shares revenue from YouTube Premium, channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers and Super Thanks, and pays through AdSense for YouTube once you reach your local payment threshold.

• 55%of net ad revenue on your long videos
• 45%of the Shorts revenue allocated to you
• 70%of net revenue from memberships and Supers
• 1,000subscribers before any view earns

Each line is from YouTube’s own pages, read on 4 November 2026.

RPM, revenue per mille, is YouTube’s name for what you earned per 1,000 views. YouTube defines it as “your total revenue (after YouTube’s revenue share) per 1000 views”, counting ads, channel memberships, YouTube Premium revenue, Super Chat and Super Stickers.

CPM, cost per mille, is what advertisers pay: “the cost per 1000 ad impressions before YouTube revenue share”. Playback-based CPM is the cost per 1,000 playbacks where an ad was shown. YouTube compares the two like this:

That is why YouTube says your RPM is lower than your CPM: RPM is counted after YouTube’s share, and it includes views that earned nothing. YouTube also says your revenue will not equal your CPM times your views, because CPM is what advertisers pay, not what you earn, and not every view has an ad.

Long videos earn from the ads shown on them. If you accept the Watch Page Monetization Module, YouTube pays you 55% of the net revenue from ads displayed or streamed on your public videos on the Watch Page, and the same when they play in the YouTube player on other websites or apps.

Shorts work differently. The ads play between Shorts in the Shorts Feed, not on one video, so YouTube pools them. Its four steps:

• Each month, the revenue from ads between videos in the Shorts Feed is added together.
• Part of it goes into the Creator Pool, based on engaged views and music use; the rest covers music licensing. A Short with no music puts all its revenue in the pool, 1 track half, 2 tracks one third.
• The pool is shared out in each country by each creator’s share of engaged views on monetizing creators’ Shorts.
• Creators keep 45% of the revenue allocated to them, whether or not they used music.

YouTube’s own hypothetical example: in Country A there are 100 million engaged Shorts views and US$100,000 of Shorts Feed ad revenue; 20% of the Shorts use 1 music track, so the Creator Pool is US$90,000 and US$10,000 covers music. A Short with 1 million engaged views is allocated 1% of the pool, US$900, and the creator earns 45% of that: US$405. YouTube calls this an example; it is not a rate.

YouTube Analytics counts a view “the moment a video starts to play across all formats, including Shorts, long form videos (VOD), and live streams”. Not all of those views earn.

• Long videos earn from monetized playbacks: a view where the viewer is shown at least one ad impression. YouTube says a view may have no ad when the video is not advertiser-friendly, ads are turned off, no ad matches that viewer, or because of the viewer’s geography, how recently they saw an ad or a Premium subscription.
• Shorts are paid on eligible engaged views. YouTube leaves out non-original Shorts (unedited clips from movies or TV, reuploads of other creators’ content, compilations with nothing added), fake views from bots, and Shorts outside its advertiser-friendly guidelines.
• Shorts views from before you accept the Shorts Monetization Module are not eligible for Shorts ad revenue sharing.
• Views of private, unlisted or deleted videos and views from ad campaigns do not count toward the Partner Program’s thresholds.

No number of views pays on its own. Until your channel is accepted into the YouTube Partner Program, views earn you nothing: YouTube says it keeps the right to serve ads on all content, so you may see ads on your videos before you are in the program, but you are “not yet eligible to receive a share of the revenue”.

To apply, YouTube asks for one of these two today:

• 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 qualified watch hours on public long videos in the last 12 months. Watch hours from Shorts in the Shorts Feed do not count toward the 4,000.
• 1,000 subscribers and 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days.
• And for either: follow the channel monetization policies, live where the program is available, have no active Community Guidelines strikes, turn on 2-Step Verification, have advanced features access and link one active AdSense for YouTube account. For ad revenue you must be at least 18, or have a legal guardian over 18 who handles the payments.
• Meeting a threshold does not let you in by itself: YouTube reviews the whole channel, typically in about 1 month.

From February 1, 2027, YouTube’s blog and help pages say new channels need 1,000 subscribers plus 8,000 qualified watch hours in the last 365 days, or 20 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days; channels already in the program are not affected. Earning from the Shorts Creator Pool in a month will need 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days, and a channel below that stays in the program and keeps its long-video earnings. Accept the updated terms in YouTube Studio by January 31, 2027.

Your RPM changes from video to video and month to month. These are the reasons YouTube’s own pages give:

• Time of year: advertisers bid higher or lower by season, and YouTube says many bid higher just before holidays.
• Where your viewers are: advertisers choose the places they reach, so CPMs vary by geography, and a shift in where your views come from shifts your CPM.
• Your topic and audience: advertisers target devices, demographics and interests, and YouTube calls CPM a sign of how valuable advertisers find your videos and audience. It publishes no rate by topic.
• Views without ads: RPM counts every view, so it can go down when more views are unmonetized, even if your revenue stayed the same. Videos that are not advertiser-friendly can be ineligible for ads altogether.
• Ad blockers: YouTube says blocking its ads breaks its Terms of Service, and asks viewers who do it to allow ads or sign up for YouTube Premium. A view where no ad plays earns no ad revenue.
• Video length and ad formats: on monetized videos of 8 minutes or longer you can turn on mid-roll ads, and turning them on is one of YouTube’s own steps to raise RPM. YouTube adds that ad slots are not guaranteed to serve ads, and that formats such as non-skippable ads can raise CPM.
• Shorts: your pay is a share of a pool, so it also depends on all monetizing creators’ engaged views in each country.

Because RPM is revenue per 1,000 views, the arithmetic is: revenue = views ÷ 1,000 × RPM. The RPM below is a round number chosen to make the sums easy. It is not a typical, average or expected YouTube rate, and your channel’s can be far above or below it.

YouTube’s own CPM example works the same way. A video viewed 5,000 times, where 1,000 views had one ad and 500 had two, has 1,500 monetized playbacks and 2,000 ad impressions. If advertisers paid US$7 in all, the cost per impression is US$0.0035, the CPM US$3.50 and the playback-based CPM US$4.67. Your share of that is smaller: CPM is counted before YouTube’s share.

To try your own numbers, type your RPM into the calculator above. It multiplies; it does not know what YouTube will pay.

Your real numbers are only in your own account. Where YouTube puts them:

1. 1

   Open the Revenue tab

   Sign in to YouTube Studio, select Analytics in the left menu, then Revenue at the top. It shows estimated revenue for the channel, or for one video when you open it from that video.

2. 2

   Find your RPM

   The Content performance report shows what your videos, Shorts and live streams earned, with your RPM. Compare formats there: RPM is counted on all views for long videos and on engaged views for Shorts.

3. 3

   See where it came from

   The How you make money report splits revenue by source, such as Watch Page ads, Shorts Feed ads, memberships and Supers.

4. 4

   Wait for the final figure

   Revenue takes 2 days to show, is adjusted after 1 week and again in the middle of the next month, and the finalized amount appears in AdSense for YouTube between the 7th and 12th.

Your revenue share is written in your agreements: in YouTube Studio, Settings, then Agreements, then View agreement next to each one.