YouTube Shorts Revenue Calculator
Shorts pay from a shared ad pool, so earnings per view are much lower than long-form. Enter your Shorts views and RPM to see the realistic payout.
Inputs
Most channels report $0.01-$0.15 depending on audience country.
Result
$180
estimated Shorts revenue per month
3,000,000 Shorts views at a $0.0600 RPM earn about $180 a month, roughly $6.00 per Short published.
- Per 1,000 views
- $0.0600
- Per Short
- $6.00
- Per day
- $6.00
- Per month
- $180
- Next 12 months with growth
- $3,849
- Views needed for $1,000/mo
- 16,666,667
Formula
- monthly revenue = (Shorts views ÷ 1,000) × Shorts RPM
- revenue per Short = monthly revenue ÷ Shorts published
- views needed for a target = (target ÷ RPM) × 1,000
Methodology
Shorts revenue is not sold per video. YouTube pools all Shorts ad income, sets aside the music licensing costs, allocates the remainder by each creator's share of total Shorts views, then pays out 45% of that allocation.
The practical effect is an RPM one or two orders of magnitude below long-form: typically $0.01-$0.15 per thousand views. This calculator asks for your own observed RPM because the pool rate varies by month and by audience geography.
Every figure here is an estimate. Real earnings move with your niche, audience country, season, advertiser demand and how a platform is paying that month, so treat the result as a planning range rather than a promise.
Example calculation
- A channel gets 3,000,000 Shorts views in a month with an observed RPM of $0.06.
- Monthly revenue: (3,000,000 ÷ 1,000) × $0.06 = $180.
- Across 30 Shorts that is about $6 per Short.
- To reach $1,000 a month at that rate the channel would need roughly 16.7 million monthly views.
Frequently asked questions
How much do YouTube Shorts pay per 1,000 views?
Most creators report $0.01 to $0.15 per 1,000 views. A US-heavy audience sits at the top of that range and a globally distributed audience near the bottom.
Why do Shorts pay so much less than long-form?
Long-form videos run dedicated pre-roll and mid-roll ads for one creator. Shorts ads appear between clips in a feed, and the resulting revenue is split across every creator in that feed after music licensing is deducted.
Do Shorts count towards monetisation requirements?
Yes. Ten million valid public Shorts views in 90 days is an alternative route into the Partner Program alongside 1,000 subscribers.
Does using licensed music reduce my Shorts earnings?
Yes. Music rights are paid out of the same pool before creator allocation, so Shorts using popular commercial tracks earn less than original-audio Shorts.
Are Shorts worth making if the RPM is so low?
For direct ad revenue, rarely. Their value is reach — Shorts are one of the cheapest ways to grow subscribers who then watch monetisable long-form content or buy your products.
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