YouTube Money Calculator
Estimate what your views could earn from ads — as a range, with the reasons it varies stated. Free, no login, nothing stored.
Estimated ad revenue
Per month
$300 – $1,200
Per year
$3,600 – $14,400
Based on 100K views/month at an RPM of $3.00 – $12 per 1,000 views (education & how-to).
This is a range, on purpose. YouTube publishes no RPM data, so nobody — us included — can tell you what a given video will earn. The same channel routinely sees its RPM double between January and December, and shift again with viewer country, video length and which ad formats are switched on. Any calculator that hands you one exact number is guessing with more confidence than the data supports.
This covers ad revenue only, and only for views on a channel already accepted into the YouTube Partner Program. Sponsorships, affiliate links, memberships, Super Thanks and merch are usually the larger half of a working creator's income and aren't counted here.
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Set your monthly views and your niche and this estimates the ad revenue those views could produce, as a range. Every other calculator prints a single confident figure; that figure cannot be supported, because YouTube publishes no RPM data and real rates swing by a factor of three or more across the year for the same channel.
How the estimate is calculated
It's deliberately simple arithmetic: monthly views ÷ 1,000 × RPM. RPM is revenue per thousand views afterYouTube's 45% share, so it already reflects what lands in your account — there's no second split to apply. The niche presets are the commonly reported spread for each category among English-language audiences. If you already know your own RPM from YouTube Studio, use it: your number beats anyone's benchmark.
Why the range is so wide
Five things move RPM more than anything you can control in an editor: viewer country, the season (Q4 advertiser demand can roughly double Q1), whether your videos are long enough to carry mid-rolls, how many ad formats you've enabled, and how much advertisers are competing for your topic. A finance channel and a gaming channel with identical view counts can be an order of magnitude apart.
Ads are the smaller half
For most creators who make a living at this, ad revenue is not the main line. Sponsorships, affiliate links, memberships and merch usually overtake it well before a channel is large — we covered the full picture in how to make money on YouTube, and the thresholds you have to clear first in the YouTube Partner Program guide.
The part that decides the number
Everything above is arithmetic on a view count. Growing the view count is the actual job — and that comes down to making videos that answer what people are searching for better than the ones already ranking. The Video SEO Checkercatches what's holding an existing video back, and VidHaloshows you what the top-ranking videos in your niche cover, where they're thin, and what viewers are still asking for.
Frequently asked questions
How much does YouTube pay per 1,000 views?+
For most long-form channels the reported range is roughly $1–$12 per 1,000 views after YouTube's cut, with finance and business content at the top end and entertainment, music and kids content at the bottom. Shorts pay far less per view because they draw from a separate pool. There is no single correct number — YouTube publishes none — which is why this calculator shows a range.
How much does YouTube pay per view?+
Divide the figures above by 1,000: somewhere between a tenth of a cent and just over a cent per view for typical long-form content. Per-view thinking is misleading, though — advertisers pay per ad impression, not per view, and not every view carries an ad.
What's the difference between RPM and CPM?+
CPM is what advertisers pay per 1,000 ad impressions, before YouTube's share. RPM is what you actually keep per 1,000 views of your video, after YouTube takes its 45% of ad revenue and after accounting for views that showed no ad at all. RPM is always lower than CPM, and it's the number that matters — that's what this calculator uses.
Why is my real RPM different from this estimate?+
Because RPM moves constantly. The biggest drivers are where your viewers are (a US or UK-heavy audience earns several times more than the same views from lower-CPM markets), the time of year (Q4 advertiser demand can roughly double Q1 rates), video length (videos over 8 minutes can carry mid-roll ads), how many ad formats you've enabled, and your topic's advertiser competition. Your own Studio RPM beats any estimate — tick the box above and enter it.
Do I need to be in the YouTube Partner Program to earn this?+
For ad revenue, yes. You need to be accepted into the YouTube Partner Program before ads run on your videos at all. Until then your views earn nothing from ads, however many there are.
Is this all a YouTube channel earns?+
No, and for most working creators it's the smaller half. Sponsorships, affiliate links, channel memberships, Super Thanks and merch typically out-earn ad revenue well before a channel gets large. This tool deliberately estimates ad revenue only, because that's the part driven by view count.
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