How Much Does YouTube Pay For 1 Million Views? [Calculator + Case Studies] (2024)

Before we get into the nitty gritty of how much you can earn per view on YouTube, it’s important to understand that professional content creators don’t just rely on YouTube payouts to make a living. Most have multiple income streams, so that they can generate a solid income even if their YouTube earnings fluctuate.

To start with, most YouTubers use affiliate marketing. You’ve seen this: They include links to products they mention or recommend in their video descriptions. When viewers click on these links to buy the products, they get a commission.

Plus, many also sell merchandise, from t-shirts to notepads, to their loyal fans. Jake Paul, for instance, has anentire merch storededicated to boxing-themed sports apparel.

Plenty of creators also sell digital products like onlinecourses and e-books, or offer premium content ontipping and subscription platformssuch as Patreon.

Most high-profile YouTubers also havesponsorship agreementswith various companies or are brand ambassadors. PewDiePie, for instance, has been sponsored by Ridge, Opera, World of Tanks, and NordVPN. Audible, G Fuel, and Loot Crate have all sponsored Markiplier.

Want to learn more? Check outour guide to YouTube monetization here!

That said, let’s move on to theper-view revenueyou can earn directly from YouTube.

There is one basic thing you need to do before you can start getting paid by YouTube at all. You need tojoin the YouTube Partner Program.

Otherwise, you won’t earn a cent, even if one of your videos goes viral and gets several million views.

To get a cut of the ad revenue YouTube makes off your videos, you need to:

• followYouTube’s community guidelinesandmonetization policies
• have uploaded 3 public videos over the last 90 days
• have at least 1,000 subscribers
• exceed 4,000 valid public watch hours OR 10 million Shorts viewsover the last 90 days
• have a linkedGoogle AdSense account
• live in a regionwhere the Partner Program is available

Only once you’ve checked all of these boxes and havesigned up for the Programvia YouTube Studio will you be able to start earning money off the platform. Plus, you’ll also have access to other on-platform monetization features.

Generally, there are three main modules that factor into how much money YouTube pays you for 1 million views:

• Shorts monetization
• Ads on horizontal video
• Commerce produce module

The first of these, YouTube Shorts monetization, means you opt into Shorts Feed Ads. As a result, YouTube pays out 45% of its revenues on Shorts, with your share based on how many views you got compared to other Shorts creators. The funds come from the common Creator Pool.

Want to learn more about that works? Check out our full Shorts monetization guide here!

Second, YouTube will pay you 55% of the net revenues it makes from ads on your horizontal videos. This is known as Watch Page Ads, but also applies if your content is streamed on other sites or in apps through the YouTube Video Player.

Finally, the commerce produce module includes additional monetization features like channel such as Super Stickers, Super Chat, Super Thanks, and channel memberships:

• Super Stickers and Super Chat let viewers highlight their messages in the comments during a live stream.
• Super Thanks allows them to leave tips on videos of yours they love.
• Channel memberships, finally, allow them to access perks like extra stickers, exclusive content, and 1:1 live chats.

Once you’ve joined the Partner Program, there are two metrics to help you figure out how much money you’ll earn through advertisem*nts via AdSense.

One is YouTubeCPM, the otherCPC.

CPM stands forCostPerMille (“mille” is just Latin for one thousand). It tells you how much money advertisers pay for 1,000impressions. Usually, advertisers who place theirads at thebeginning of a videowill pay rates in CPM. A higher CPM, means a higher income per 1 million views.

After YouTube’s share is deducted from CPM, you’re left withRPM– that’sRevenuePerMille. That’s not the whole story, though. That’s because the RPM you’ll see in your video analytics also includes earnings fromother monetization featuresthat benefit creators more directly, such as Super Thanks.

CPC stands forCostPerClick. This metric tells you how much advertises pay for each click on one of their ads. Advertisers typically pay via this model for theads around the video, but not actually in it.

When projecting your YouTube revenue, it’s best to focus on CPM / RPM as a metric, as it is more predictable than CPC.

TypicalCPC rateson the platform are around $0.50. On average,CPM ratesrange between $2 and $15, though for some videos they can be as low as $0.50 or as high as $43.

Based on CPM, the range for how much YouTube pays you for 1 million views stretches from $500 to $43,000, with an average of $7,600.

That’s a huge difference! So what are the factors that can help younarrow it down? Here’s the scoop.

To begin with, your average ad income will depend partly onwhat your niche is.

For example, ad rates for channels that cover financial topics and entrepreneurship are higher than for channels that focus on fashion or cooking.

According to a review of over 50+ “What YouTube Paid Me” articles by Joseph Hogue – whose channelLet’s Talk Moneywe’ll take a closer look at below – ad rates for gaming channels can be as low as $2 CPM, while vlog and entrepreneurship channels hover around $5.

The reasons for this are fairly straightforward.Finance-related nicheshave much higher revenue potential for advertisers. And that makes them happy to pay more in YouTube’s auction-based ad allotment system. (Interested in what the most profitable niches are? Check out our in-depth article here!)

Another factor that determines how much money you’ll make from 1,000,000 views are thedemographicsof your audience.

Ultimately, your ad revenue is determined bywhat ads play on your videos. That, in turn, depends on viewers’ location, watch history, gender, Google search history, age range, and mobile ad usage.

Consequently, an audience withmore disposable incomewhose spending habits and generalinterests in high-potential nichesare evident from their search and watch history will earn you more per million views.

A third factor to consider when calculating your income is geography. You need to factor in your owngeographic location, thelanguageof your videos, and your target audience’s geographic location.

Generally, YouTube creators will find the highest CPM rates in Western European countries, where people have high purchase power. According to anunofficial survey, Norway and Germany offer the highest CPM potential, with rates of $43 and $39 respectively.

YouTubers in these places can produce content in local languages targeted at local audiences in high-income countries.

In contrast, a YouTuber in Cambodia producing content in Khmer, the local language, will see average CPM rates of $0.52.

Finally, another factor that influences how much 1 million views will earn you is thelengthof your video, since it influences how many ads you can place and where.

If your video isat least 5 minutes long, YouTube lets you insertback-to-backads in the middleof your video. These mid-roll ads boost your overall earnings, especially if you insert them at strategic points in your content.

You’ll find examples of this in the Case Study videos below.

Other types of ads you can place in your content include:

• skippable ads (5 seconds)
• bumper ads (up to 6 seconds at the start of your video)
• non-skippable ads (15-20 seconds)
• overlay ads (= a text banner)

Which ad formats appear on your video is up to you – you can control it via AdSense. However, your video length is the basic determining factor of what type of ads make sense. After all, if it’s a short clip of 2.5 minutes, a 20-second non-skippable ad at the start will turn off potential viewers.

Got a headache yet? Not surprising. All these different factors are tricky to add up. But we’ve got your back!

Based on public CPM data for different niches and locations, we’ve created a calculator tool. Use it to estimate how much YouTube will pay you for different numbers of views.

Here we go!

YouTube Revenue Calculator

Here’s how much 💰💰💰 you’ll earn:

We’ll start off with Mick Staudinger’s channelDog World. His video “15 Poodle Mix Breeds That Will Melt Your Heart” earned over 1.8 million views since it was originally published in July 2020.

Two years after, the revenue on this video tallied in at $16,504.33. That’s $9,708 per 1,000,000 views.

Next up, we have Joseph Hogue’sfinance-orientedchannelLet’s Talk Money. Since its launch in 2017, it has generated over 31.7 million views all in all. The channel’s overall ad revenue was $480,763 as of the time of this writing. At about $15 per thousand views, it’s at the higher end of the average CPM range.

Two of Joseph’s videos are particularly successful – “The 10 Best Side Hustle Ideas” and “7 Monthly Dividend Stocks That Will Pay Your Rent”.

The former, first published in September 2018 earned $23,173 on 1.3 million views. That’s$17,825 per million views. The latter, which premiered in April 2021, made Joseph $29,511 after 1.3 million views. That converts to$24,592 per million views.

Clubhouse Convos’ case is an interesting one, as the channel has toshare its revenuewith the artist, the Opry, and NBC Universal/Comcast according to the automated Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) system.

Consequently, Brian’s own return on this video is at the lower end of the spectrum, at $961.83, or$739 per million views.

Reading.com’s videoLearn ABCs with the Alphabet Songhas earned over 5.1 M views in the year after it was launched.CPM for child-oriented content is typically low, at about $0.50.

The reason for this is that many advertisers don’t have products that theycanpromote on kid content. That’s partly because YouTubeapplies a stricter standard– it’s legally required to. Nevertheless, channels that produce learning content for children are among the most successful on YouTube.

And, as Ryan Kaji has shown, kid channels can certainly be among the most profitable.

In the case ofLearn ABCs With the Alphabet Song, the video has earned just over $1,640 over the past twelve months, which means thatevery 1 million views earned the channelabout $300.

Katie shared the view from YouTube Studio with us:

Finally, we have another case study from the kids’ educational niche – and a great illustration of how earnings can vary significantly by geographical region.

Kal Kal Kidsis a Hindi-language channel run by Sachin Yadav. It offers educational content for children, such as bedtime stories, nursery rhymes, and songs to learn colors, animal sounds and letters.

Its videoEk Mota Hathi Jhoom Ke Chal, a nursery poem, reached1.4M views in the twelve months after it was posted. Here it is!

Overall, predicting how much YouTubepays you for 1,000,000 viewsis tricky. There’s some major variation depending on your geographiclocation, audiencedemographics, videolength, and overallniche.

On average, though, you can expect to earn around $7,600 for a million views onoriginal content, though the number can be significantly larger in high-income countries and niches such as finance and entrepreneurship.

At the end of the day, these insights can give aspiring YouTubers valuable information – abouthow to choose their nicheand how tostructure their contentfor maximum revenue potential.

Wondering about how YouTubers get paid based on their subscriber count? Check out this post on how much one YouTuber earned with 100 k.

Mick Staudinger is an online entrepreneur and luxury enthusiast who is passionate about building online businesses and buying luxury watches. On his blog, he gives interesting insights in his entrepreneurial journey and information about the best and affordable luxury watches on the market.

Joseph Hogue graduated from Iowa State University after serving in the Marine Corps. He holds a master’s degree in business and the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation. He worked in corporate finance and real estate before starting a career in investment analysis at a venture capital research firm. Since leaving the corporate world, he’s grown his community on YouTube (Let’s Talk Money) and the blog My Stock Market Basics.

Brian Penny is a former operations manager and business analyst at Bank of America turned whistleblower and freelance journalist. His work is featured in Forbes, Cracked, HuffPost, High Times, and more.

The Reading.com YouTube channel features a sneak peek of content that is featured in the full Reading.com app, the ground-breaking phonics program specifically designed for a parent and child to use together. Check it out at @_readingcomand on the website!

Sachin Yadav is a qualified SEO professional with over 10 years of experience in developing SEO analytics, keyword research, site auditing methods, and SEO. On his blog, Technologers.com, he shares interesting tech news, Cool Tips and top 10 software. You can follow him on LinkedIn and Facebook!