YouTube money calculator, from views to income and back
Two sums on one page. What a month of views earns at your RPM, and how many views a monthly income takes. Nothing is sent anywhere: the maths runs in your browser. It is an estimate, not a forecast of what your channel will pay.
Views to money
What a month of views earns at your RPM.
All views across your videos in a month, from YouTube Studio
Revenue per 1,000 views, read from the Revenue tab in YouTube Analytics
Views / 1,000 x RPM
Twelve months at this rate
Money to views
How many views a monthly income target takes at your RPM.
What you want the channel to pay each month
Revenue per 1,000 views, read from the Revenue tab in YouTube Analytics
What you actually publish, not what you plan to
Total views in the month
Spread across your uploads
On a 30-day month
Views a month for a monthly income
Each cell is the income divided by the RPM, times 1,000. The RPM columns are a plain spread to show how much the answer moves, not what a channel earns.
| Monthly income | $1 RPM | $2 RPM | $4 RPM | $8 RPM |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | 500,000 | 250,000 | 125,000 | 62,500 |
| $1,000 | 1,000,000 | 500,000 | 250,000 | 125,000 |
| $2,000 | 2,000,000 | 1,000,000 | 500,000 | 250,000 |
| $3,000 | 3,000,000 | 1,500,000 | 750,000 | 375,000 |
| $10,000 | 10,000,000 | 5,000,000 | 2,500,000 | 1,250,000 |
Which RPM to use
Use your own. YouTube defines RPM as the revenue you earned per 1,000 video views, counted after YouTube's revenue share and across all views, including ones that showed no ad. CPM is a different number: what an advertiser pays per 1,000 ad impressions, before the revenue share. Revenue is not CPM times views, so a CPM quoted in a video is not your RPM. YouTube's definitions.
Once you are in the Partner Program, open YouTube Studio, choose Analytics, then the Revenue tab. The content performance report there includes RPM. YouTube's guide to the revenue reports. Before that, there is no RPM to read, and any figure you type in is a guess. Try a low one and a high one and see the spread.
For context on how the numbers differ by format, read Shorts against long-form RPM and how much faceless channels make. For the cost side, use the channel cost calculator.
Questions people ask
How many YouTube views do I need to make $2000 a month?
It depends on your RPM, the revenue you earn per 1,000 views. The formula is views = income / RPM x 1,000. For $2,000 a month that is 1,000,000 views at a $2 RPM, 500,000 views at a $4 RPM and 250,000 views at a $8 RPM. Those RPMs are examples to show the spread, not what a channel will earn. Read your own RPM in YouTube Studio and use it in the calculator above.
Sources: YouTube Help: Understand your revenue metrics (RPM and CPM), YouTube Help: Check your YouTube revenue
How many YouTube views do I need to make $10,000 a month?
Same formula, views = income / RPM x 1,000. For $10,000 a month that is 5,000,000 views at a $2 RPM, 2,500,000 views at a $4 RPM and 1,250,000 views at a $8 RPM. Divide that by the number of videos you publish in a month to get the views each video needs. The calculator above does that for you.
Source: YouTube Help: Understand your revenue metrics (RPM and CPM)
Does YouTube pay 3$ for 1000 views?
YouTube does not publish one rate per 1,000 views. It defines RPM as "how much money you've earned per 1,000 video views", and your RPM is whatever your own channel shows. If your RPM were $3, 100,000 views would be $300. YouTube also says that revenue "will not be equal to your CPM times your views", because CPM is what advertisers pay, not what you earn. Check the Revenue tab in YouTube Analytics for your own number.
Sources: YouTube Help: Understand your revenue metrics (RPM and CPM), YouTube Help: Check your YouTube revenue
Can 500 subscribers make money?
Yes, but not from ads. In eligible countries the expanded YouTube Partner Program opens at 500 subscribers, with 3 valid public uploads in the last 90 days and either 3,000 qualified watch hours in the last 12 months or 3 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. YouTube describes it as "earlier access to fan funding and Shopping features". A share of ad revenue starts at 1,000 subscribers, plus either 4,000 qualified watch hours in the last 12 months or 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days. Meeting a threshold is not approval: once you apply, the channel goes "through a standard review process".
Sources: YouTube Help: Overview of the expanded YouTube Partner Program, YouTube Help: YouTube Partner Program overview and eligibility
How much money is 1,000,000 views on YT Shorts?
YouTube publishes no per-view Shorts rate. Shorts ad revenue goes into a monthly Creator Pool shared by each creator's share of engaged views, and "monetizing creators will keep 45% of their allocated revenue". Your Studio RPM already accounts for that. As arithmetic only, 1,000,000 views is $500 at $0.5, $1,000 at $1 and $2,000 at $2 RPM. Those are examples, not typical Shorts rates. The page also requires at least 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days to earn a share of Shorts ad revenue in a month.
Sources: YouTube Help: YouTube Shorts monetization policies, YouTube Help: Understand your revenue metrics (RPM and CPM)
Do faceless YouTube channels make money?
YouTube's monetization policies do not treat a channel without a face as a separate category. They ask that content "should be original and authentic" and not be "mass-produced, generic, repetitive, or manipulative". A faceless channel that meets the Partner Program thresholds and those policies can earn from ads like any other. How much is views multiplied by RPM, and that is what the calculator above works out. We have no earnings data to quote, and we do not promise any income.
Sources: YouTube Help: YouTube channel monetization policies, YouTube Help: YouTube Partner Program overview and eligibility
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