How Much Does YouTube Pay Per 1,000 Views in 2026?
Typical answer: about $6.50 per 1,000 long-form views. Real answer: anywhere from $2.50 to $12 — and your niche matters more than your view count.
Published October 22, 2026 · 7 min read
"Per 1,000 views" is the unit creators actually budget with, because it maps directly onto RPM — the revenue you keep per thousand views after YouTube's 45% share of ad revenue. Here is the full 2026 picture, with the math shown.
The 2026 per-1,000-views table
| Format | Low | Typical | High |
|---|---|---|---|
| Long-form video | $2.50 | $6.50 | $12.00 |
| YouTube Shorts | $0.03 | $0.08 | $0.16 |
These are take-home RPM figures — what lands in your AdSense, not what advertisers paid. Advertisers may have paid two or three times more in CPM; YouTube keeps 45% and only monetized playbacks generate revenue at all.
Scaling the number: what bigger view counts pay
| Views | Low ($2.50) | Typical ($6.50) | High ($12.00) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | $2.50 | $6.50 | $12.00 |
| 10,000 | $25 | $65 | $120 |
| 100,000 | $250 | $650 | $1,200 |
| 1,000,000 | $2,500 | $6,500 | $12,000 |
| 10,000,000 | $25,000 | $65,000 | $120,000 |
The formula never changes: views ÷ 1,000 × RPM. Our YouTube pay per 1,000 views calculator runs it with your own RPM, country and season.
Why the range is so wide: niche
Advertisers bid on audiences. A thousand views from people researching loans, software or insurance can be worth ten times a thousand views of prank compilations. Finance and business channels regularly report RPM at or above the $12 high scenario; gaming and general entertainment often sit near the $2.50 low. Same platform, same view count — completely different paycheck.
Why the range moves: season and country
Two more multipliers stack on top of niche. Season: December advertiser demand pushes RPM roughly 1.5× the annual average, while January drops to about 0.65× — the same 1,000 views can pay $9.75 in December and $4.23 in January at the typical rate. Country: a US audience indexes around 1.5× the global average in our model, while audiences in lower-CPM markets index well below 1.0×. A US finance video in December is playing a different game from an entertainment video elsewhere in January — which is why any single "YouTube pays $X per 1,000 views" claim without conditions is not worth trusting.
Shorts are a different economy
Shorts revenue comes from a pooled fund shared across all Shorts creators, so per-1,000 pay is roughly 80× lower than long-form: $0.08 typical. One million Shorts views ≈ $80; one million long-form views ≈ $6,500. Use Shorts for discovery and subscriber growth, and long-form for revenue — our Shorts vs long-form breakdown shows the trade-off in detail.
Before any of this pays: monetization
Ad revenue starts only inside the YouTube Partner Program — currently 1,000 subscribers plus 4,000 watch hours or 10 million Shorts views. Note for planners: for new applicants those thresholds rise on 1 February 2027 to 8,000 watch hours or 20 million Shorts views, so channels close to the bar should treat late 2026 as the window to qualify under the current rules.
How Much Does YouTube Pay Per 1,000 Views in 2026? — questions
How much does YouTube pay for 1,000 views?
About $6.50 at the typical long-form RPM in 2026, within a realistic $2.50–$12 range depending on niche, audience country and season. Shorts pay far less — about $0.08 per 1,000 views.
Is the per-1,000 figure before or after YouTube’s cut?
The figures here are RPM — after YouTube’s 45% share. What advertisers pay (CPM) is higher; RPM is what you actually receive per 1,000 views.
How much is 100,000 views on YouTube?
At the typical $6.50 RPM, 100,000 long-form views earn about $650 (range $250–$1,200).
Why does my RPM differ from these numbers?
RPM reflects your actual advertiser mix: niche, viewer country, video length, season and how many views were monetized. Use your YouTube Studio RPM in our calculator for a channel-specific estimate.
Primary references
Official eligibility and revenue-share rules for the YouTube Partner Program.
Open source →Official explanation of how Shorts ad revenue is pooled and shared with creators.
Open source →How our RPM ranges, country factors and seasonality multipliers are built.
Open source →