YouTube Money Calculator

How to use the YouTube money calculator

1. Enter your views. Use your average views per month (or per day). For a new channel, use a realistic target, not your best month.
2. Enter your RPM range. Open YouTube Studio → Analytics → Revenue, note your RPM for the last 6–12 months, and enter your lowest and highest month. A range is more honest than a single number.
3. Add Shorts if you post them. Shorts revenue is calculated differently and usually has its own RPM, so enter Shorts views and Shorts RPM separately.
4. Read the range. The calculator shows daily, monthly and yearly estimates and how many views you would need for a monthly income goal.

Not in the Partner Program yet? Press “Use example numbers” to see how the maths works. The example uses an RPM of 1 to 3 purely for illustration; it is not an average and may be far from your channel’s real figure.

RPM vs CPM: the difference that matters

Many online calculators multiply views by a CPM, which overstates what creators receive. YouTube Help defines the two metrics like this:

Because RPM is after the revenue share and counts every view, it is lower than CPM, and it is the right number for estimating your income. That is why this calculator only asks for RPM.

Why we do not show “average RPM by country”

YouTube does not publish average RPM or CPM figures by country or niche. Lists you see online come from small creator surveys or guesses, and they go out of date quickly. Your RPM depends on your audience’s countries, your topic, the time of year (advertisers often spend more before holidays), video length, how many viewers use ad blockers or YouTube Premium, and which monetisation features you use. The only number that reflects all of that is the RPM in your own Analytics.

YouTube Partner Program requirements

To share in ad revenue, a channel must join the YouTube Partner Program. According to YouTube’s eligibility page, you can apply once you reach either threshold:

• 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 qualified public watch hours in the last 12 months, or
• 1,000 subscribers and 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days.

Watch hours from Shorts viewed in the Shorts feed do not count towards the 4,000 hours. Meeting a threshold lets you apply; YouTube then reviews the channel against its policies. Use the checker above to see how far you are from each path.

YouTube has announced higher entry thresholds for new creators from 1 February 2027: 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 (Changes to the YouTube Partner Program). The checker uses the thresholds in force today. Our YouTube Partner Program requirements guide covers every condition, the 500-subscriber level and how to apply.

How Shorts revenue works

Shorts ads run between videos in the feed, so revenue cannot be tied to a single Short. Per YouTube’s Shorts monetisation policies, ad revenue goes into a Creator Pool, is allocated to monetising creators by their share of eligible engaged Shorts views (after covering music licensing costs), and creators keep 45% of their allocation. In practice Shorts RPM is often different from long-form RPM, which is why the calculator keeps them apart.

From 1 February 2027, YouTube says channels will also need 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days to earn from the Creator Pool each month. See the full breakdown in our YouTube Shorts monetization guide.

Need the views first? Our practical guide on how to grow on YouTube Shorts covers hooks, consistency and Shorts analytics.

Don’t have a channel yet? Read how to start a YouTube channel step by step.

Ways to raise your earnings (without guessing RPM)

• More views from the right audience. Consistent uploads, clear titles and thumbnails, and topics people actively search for. Draft titles with the YouTube title generator.
• Longer, useful long-form videos. On monetised videos of 8 minutes or longer you can turn on mid-roll ads; place them where they do not hurt the viewing experience.
• Diversify. Memberships, Super Thanks, sponsorships and your own products do not depend on ad rates.
• Repurpose. Turn each long video into Shorts that point back to it. Find angles with the Reels and Shorts ideas generator.

Growing a channel takes steady output. Our YouTube management plan covers 15 Shorts and 15 community posts a month: research, scripts, Shorts editing from your footage, SEO titles and descriptions, and publishing support. Start with a free social media audit of your channel.