YouTube Shorts money calculator

Shorts don't have their own ads. YouTube adds up the money from ads that play between Shorts in the feed each month, takes out the cost of the music used in Shorts, and splits what's left between creators in the Partner Program by their share of engaged views in each country. You keep 45% of what's allocated to you.

YouTube's own example: if your Shorts got 1% of the engaged views in a country whose pool held $90,000, you'd be allocated $900 and keep $405. The pool's size isn't published, which is why the rate per 1,000 views varies from month to month and country to country.

Since March 31, 2025, a Short's public view count includes every play, with no minimum watch time. Money and the Partner Program are still counted on engaged views: people who stayed past the first seconds. In YouTube Studio, your Shorts RPM is per 1,000 engaged views, so use those in the calculator, not the bigger public number.

YouTube has announced that from February 1, 2027, a channel needs at least 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days to share in Shorts ad revenue, checked every month. Channels under it stay in the Partner Program and keep their long-form earnings. New applicants will need 1,000 subscribers and 20 million Shorts views in 90 days, or 8,000 watch hours in a year.

For more on rates, the rules and how clips fit in, read how much YouTube Shorts pay.

A clip of someone else's video, however good, isn't original content to YouTube's Partner Program, even with the creator's permission. That's why most clippers earn from clipping campaigns instead: creators and brands pay a set amount per 1,000 views on the clips you post, usually far more per view than Shorts ad revenue. See what yours could earn with the clipping earnings calculator, and read YouTube's reused content policy, for clippers.