Free tool

# YouTube Money Calculator

Look up a channel or enter monthly views, then pick a niche and where the viewers are. You get a low, typical and high estimate of ad earnings per day, month and year, for long videos and Shorts.

## How the estimate works

YouTube pays you a share of the ads shown on your videos. The number that sums it up is **RPM**, revenue per mille: what you earn for every 1,000 views after YouTube takes its cut. The calculator does one multiplication:

```
earnings = views ÷ 1,000 × RPM
```

The hard part is the RPM. It changes with your niche, where your viewers live, how long your videos are and the time of year. So the calculator gives a range instead of one number:

- **Low** is what the bottom quarter of channels in that niche earn per 1,000 views.
- **Typical** is the median channel.
- **High** is where the top quarter starts. Some channels earn far more.

If you already have a monetized channel, type your own RPM from YouTube Studio. That beats any estimate.

## YouTube RPM by niche

These are the long-video RPM ranges the calculator uses, in US dollars per 1,000 views, for channels with a mixed worldwide audience.

| Niche | Low | Typical | High |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Education and science | $2.31 | $6.00 | $15.00 |
| Cars and transport | $3.17 | $5.69 | $9.81 |
| Business, finance and investing | $1.50 | $4.00 | $12.00 |
| Lifestyle and vlogs | $1.77 | $2.98 | $5.24 |
| News and politics | $1.79 | $2.60 | $3.62 |
| Entertainment and comedy | $0.88 | $2.43 | $5.02 |
| Crafts and DIY | $1.00 | $2.39 | $3.90 |
| Tech and gadgets | $0.70 | $2.33 | $3.71 |
| Music | $1.35 | $2.28 | $4.16 |
| Food and cooking | $1.50 | $2.25 | $3.11 |
| Gaming | $0.70 | $2.05 | $3.62 |
| Health, fitness and sport | $0.72 | $1.23 | $1.53 |
| Kids and teens | $0.16 | $0.33 | $0.88 |
| All niches | $1.00 | $2.30 | $5.00 |

Source: AIR Media-Tech's study of 300 monetized channels, May 2025 to May 2026 (median and middle half of channels per niche). Their samples for cars, news, food and finance were small. Finance is widened to $1.50 to $12 because finance creators with US audiences often report $10 or more, well above that small sample. Education is pulled in to a $6 middle and $15 top: the study's median was $10.22 with a top quarter starting at $19.50, well above what most other 2026 sources report for education.

### Where your viewers live

Country moves RPM more than anything else. Advertisers pay far more to reach viewers in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Germany and the Nordics. Published country comparisons put US and German RPMs at 5 to 20 times those of India or Brazil. The calculator scales the niche range by a rough factor: 1.8× for a mostly US, UK, Canadian or Australian audience, 1.4× for Western Europe, 0.5× for Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Middle East, and 0.3× for South Asia, Southeast Asia and Africa. These factors are rough. Your own RPM in YouTube Studio is the real answer.

## RPM vs CPM

**CPM** is what advertisers pay per 1,000 ad impressions. **RPM** is what you get per 1,000 views. RPM is always lower, for three reasons:

- YouTube keeps 45% of ad revenue on long videos. You get 55%.
- Not every view shows an ad. Some viewers use ad blockers, and some videos are not ad-friendly.
- RPM counts every view, including the ones that earned nothing.

A channel with a $10 CPM often has an RPM of $3 to $5. Calculators that multiply views by CPM overstate earnings by about two times.

## How much YouTube Shorts pay

Shorts are paid differently. Ads run between Shorts in the feed, and YouTube pools that money each month. It first takes out the cost of music licensing, then splits what is left by each creator's share of Shorts views. Creators keep 45% of their part.

The result is a much lower RPM. In AIR Media-Tech's data from 274 channels, Shorts earned **3% to 14% of the long-video RPM** in the same niche. In practice that is often $0.03 to $0.20 per 1,000 views. Music is the exception, at 41% to 60%, because Content ID pays on the songs used in other people's Shorts. The calculator uses these ratios, so 1 million Shorts views in gaming comes to roughly $60 to $290.

## What raises or lowers your RPM

- **Video length.** Videos of 8 minutes or more can carry mid-roll ads, which often lifts RPM a lot.
- **Season.** Advertisers spend most in October to December, so RPM peaks then. It usually drops sharply in January.
- **Ad-friendly content.** Swearing, violence or sensitive topics can get videos limited ads or none.
- **Who watches.** Adults with buying power earn more than teens. Content made for kids shows no personalized ads, which is why kids' channels have the lowest RPM.
- **Where they watch.** Viewers on TVs and desktops often see more and pricier ads than viewers on phones.

## When you start getting paid

Ad revenue needs the YouTube Partner Program. To share ad revenue you need **1,000 subscribers** and either **4,000 public watch hours** in the last 12 months or **10 million public Shorts views** in the last 90 days. You also need an AdSense account and must live in a country where the program runs. Below that, a lower tier opens fan funding such as memberships and Super Thanks, but not ad revenue. YouTube pays monthly once your balance passes $100.

## Estimate a real channel's earnings

Type a channel's handle or link into the lookup box above. It reads the channel's latest 15 videos and 15 Shorts, adds up the views on everything posted in that stretch, and scales it to a month. It also guesses the niche from the video category and the audience from the channel's country. You get five free lookups a day.

The figure counts views on new uploads only. Older videos keep earning too, so channels with evergreen content earn more than the estimate. To check many channels, or track them over time, use the [YouTube Channel Email Finder](/youtube-channel-email-finder/). It returns every video's views, likes and exact publish date, plus the channel's contact email. It costs $1.50 per 1,000 videos.

Guides that use the same data:

- [How to find YouTube influencers in your niche](/how-to/find-youtube-influencers-by-niche/)
- [How to scrape YouTube Shorts views and likes](/how-to/scrape-youtube-shorts-data/)
- [How to find a YouTube channel's email](/how-to/find-youtube-channel-email/)
- On TikTok too? Try the [TikTok money calculator](/tiktok-money-calculator/).

## FAQ

**How much does YouTube pay per 1,000 views?**

Most monetized channels earn between $1 and $5 per 1,000 views on long videos. The median across niches is about $2.30. Education, finance and cars channels with US audiences can earn $10 or more. Shorts usually pay $0.03 to $0.20 per 1,000 views.

**How much money is 1 million views on YouTube?**

For long videos, usually $1,000 to $5,000, with a typical channel near $2,300. It can pass $10,000 in high-paying niches with US viewers. One million Shorts views usually pays $30 to $200.

**How accurate is this YouTube money calculator?**

It gives a realistic range, not your exact payout. The niche figures come from real channel data, but your RPM depends on your audience, video length and the season. If you have a monetized channel, enter your own RPM from YouTube Studio for a close estimate.

**Why is my RPM so much lower than my CPM?**

CPM is what advertisers pay per 1,000 ad impressions. RPM is what you earn per 1,000 views, after YouTube's 45% share, and it counts views that showed no ad. An RPM of a third to a half of CPM is normal.

**Do YouTube Shorts make money?**

Yes, once you are in the YouTube Partner Program, but much less per view than long videos. Shorts ad revenue is pooled, music costs come out first, and creators keep 45% of their share. Expect 3% to 14% of the RPM your long videos would earn.

**How do I calculate how much a specific channel makes?**

Type its handle or link into the lookup box at the top of this page. It totals the views on the channel's latest videos and Shorts, scales them to a month, and fills in the calculator. For many channels at once, our YouTube scraper exports recent videos with views and publish dates to a spreadsheet.

**How many views do you need to make $1,000 a month on YouTube?**

At a typical $2.30 RPM, about 435,000 long-video views a month. At $5 it is 200,000, and at $1 it is a million. From Shorts alone it takes roughly 10 to 20 million views.

## Check any channel's real numbers

Pull the latest videos, views and contact email of any YouTube channel, or a list of hundreds.
[Open the YouTube scraper](https://apify.com/scrape-lads/youtube-scraper?utm_source=scrapelads&utm_medium=site&utm_campaign=youtube-money-calculator&utm_content=youtube-scraper)