YouTube Earnings Calculator (Estimate)
Estimated ad revenue from monthly views and your niche's RPM band — with the honest ranges, not fantasy numbers.
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How YouTube Money Actually Works
The metric that matters is RPM — revenue per 1,000 views after YouTube's 45% cut. It swings wildly by niche because advertisers pay for the audience, not the views: entertainment/vlogs run ~$0.5-2, gaming $1-3, education $2-6, tech $3-8, finance $5-15+. Viewer geography multiplies it: US/UK/DE audiences pay several times more than most markets. A million monthly views is $500 in one niche and $10,000 in another — same effort, different audience.
Requirements to monetize: 1,000 subscribers + 4,000 watch hours (or 10M Shorts views). Shorts RPM is far lower (~$0.05-0.2). Real creator income usually stacks sponsorships, affiliates and products on top — ads are the floor, not the ceiling.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my RPM differ from these bands?
Seasonality (Q4 ads pay ~2× January), viewer countries, ad-blocker rates and video length (8+ minutes allows mid-rolls) all move it. Your YouTube Studio RPM is the truth — use the custom fields to match it.
Do Shorts views count the same?
No — Shorts monetize from a shared pool at roughly 10-50× lower RPM. A channel mixing both should estimate the two separately.
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YouTube Earnings Calculator (Estimate)