--- title: 'CPM vs. RPM: How YouTube Pays You Explained! (2025 Update)' source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=nptN8bU1iCM' video_id: 'nptN8bU1iCM' date: 2026-06-14 duration_sec: 624 --- # CPM vs. RPM: How YouTube Pays You Explained! (2025 Update) > Source: [CPM vs. RPM: How YouTube Pays You Explained! (2025 Update)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=nptN8bU1iCM) ## Summary This video explains the key metrics YouTube uses to pay creators: CPM (Cost Per Mille) and RPM (Revenue Per Mille). The host clarifies the difference between what advertisers pay and what creators earn, and shows a real dashboard example. ### Key Points - **Two Key Payment Metrics** [00:35] — YouTube uses CPM (cost per mille) for advertiser cost and RPM (revenue per mille) for creator earnings. - **CPM Definition** [00:47] — CPM stands for cost per mille (thousand). It is the cost an advertiser pays for every 1,000 times their ad is displayed on a video. - **RPM Definition** [01:55] — RPM stands for revenue per mille. It is the revenue a publisher (YouTuber) earns for every 1,000 ad impressions. - **Impression Click-Through Rate (CTR)** [03:30] — CTR measures how often viewers click on a video thumbnail after seeing it. It is calculated as (clicks / impressions) * 100. - **Dashboard Example: Impressions and CTR** [06:01] — A video had 1.8 million impressions and 156,600 views, resulting in a 5.1% CTR. - **Dashboard Example: CPM and RPM** [06:50] — For the same video, CPM was $5.77 (advertiser cost per 1,000 impressions) and RPM was $1.08 (creator earnings per 1,000 views). - **Factors Affecting RPM** [08:58] — RPM depends on ad placements and viewer retention. Longer watch times and more ad views increase RPM. ### Conclusion Understanding CPM and RPM helps creators gauge their earnings. While CPM reflects advertiser spending, RPM shows actual creator revenue, influenced by viewer engagement and ad placement. ## Transcript Hello and welcome to Victor Shamaki. Today I just want to talk with uh those who are on YouTube and those who are about to start YouTube and one of the key parameter or key aspect of or the key questions I've received over the time is how much do you pay? how do you two pay and all of that. So in this video we're going to demystify it and we're going to explain it one by one. It may take long but just be patient and follow through. So we have two key parameters or two key things that I've been used on YouTube. One is CPM and the other one is RPM. So the CPM is stands for cost per mile. Now the cost per mile is an advertiser what it's the cost that the advertiser pay for every 1,000 times their art is been displayed on your video and their focus is on impression. That is if an advertiser's video appear or ad app appears on your video 1,000 times what they are willing to pay. Don't forget their focus is not on impression. All right. So it f while the focuses on uh uh perspective indicating how much they are spending for art visibility. For instance, if an advertiser pays $10 for every 1,000 ads impression, their CPM is $10. So I hope this is clear now. Now secondly, RPM revenue per mile. Now, this is uh the revenue a publisher for me example me as a YouTuber or website or app owner earns for every 1,000 terms their ads is displayed. Now basically like those who do all they call it um ad mop those who do anything that has to do like all those people that have apps that you know you be watching like uh all these let's say um if you are mining Pi or you're mining most of these crypto projects you realize that they have uh an ads being displayed on their video. So those ads that been displayed per 1,000 times that those ad are displays on their this thing. So the revenue they will get. So but in this instance YouTube I am a YouTuber like every 1,000 times that those are display how much I make. So the CPM focus on the cost of the advertiser that they pay and the RPM focus on how much I get. Now the focus here is on how much they are earning. That is the ad publisher is making in their ad space. So if a publisher earns $5 for every 1,000 ads impression, their RPM is $5. Now before we go into the practical aspect, I want to explain few things also. Impression clickth through rates. Now what is this impression clickthrough rate? Uh on YouTube it measure how often viewers click on a video thumbnails after seeing it. So to tell you that your thumbnail is very important how let's say just see a thumbnail and then what by seeing that thumbnail because YouTube know how to distribute videos to different people by recommendation and all of that. Now after they see it, as they click to it, that's what it means by impression clickthrough rate indicating how well the video is re resonating with potential viewers. It's calculated by dividing the number of clicks on a video by the total number of impression that times the thumbnail is displayed and multiplying by 100. Now key aspect of the impression clickthrough rate what it measures it measure the percentage of people who click on a video after seeing its thumbnails. Now the calculation is that the number of clicks divide by number of impression multiply by 100 which is equals to your uh click through rates. Now importance it provide insight into the video's engagement and whether it is successfully capturing the attention of viewers. Factor affecting CPR CTR sorry thumbnails design title description and relevance to the target audience. Example, if a video gets 1,000 impression as thumbnail display 1,000 times and 30 people click on it, the click through rate will be 3%. Meaning 30 / 1,000 multiply by 100 will give you three. All right. So these are very important factor to how YouTube pay. while the last one, the click-through rate deals with how well your video can do when people click on it. But these two CPM and RPM are how YouTube how you get paid and how your calculation is been made. So now let's go. I'm going to show you a dashboard to one of my YouTube channel and I'm going to explain some certain things. So let's go to reach for for uh click through impression clickthrough rate. Now this video has 156.6,000 with an impression of 1.8 million but the impression clickthrough rate is 5.1%. So uh the impression is 1.8 8 million and out of that 1.8 million only 156,000 watched it or view it. So that's why by that calculation we just I didn't want to go back into those calculation again. So you can see our impression click rate to be 5.1. Now going to the main thing which is the CPM and the CPR which is what is bringing us here. How much advertisers pay? CP R cost per mail CPM is 5.77. So you can see CPM for 1,000 view these advertisers are willing to pay $5.77. Now CP uh RPM revenue per mill here is my own revenue per this video has 156,000 but my revenue per mill that is revenue per 1,000 views RPM is 1.08. So if you multiply 1.08 time uh 156.6,000 6,000 you will get this amount. So let's try it and see. With my calculator pulled up, we have 100 156. It's in,000 or let me just say 156 7,000. Let's leave it like that. 7,000 multiply by 1.08. So it may be more than exactly what we see here, but let's say equal to and see. So you can see what I'm saying. We have 169 2369 approximately we have 168.4 uh 45. All right, here is 169. So just because I added some figure that's over 400 views that's what I just added was 156.6 that's 156,600 and something views. That's why you can see. So this is how much you earn. Now the impression this is calculated by how well your video do. And I think from my little experience I've come to realize that uh this one is calculated by you know arts. If you check how many times let's say this video is 14 minutes if we check how many uh placement of arts it may be 5 6 7 8 9 10 placement or four placement of the video as it plays on. Now if all the people didn't watch this video till the end maybe or watch some certain number of ads that's how this RPM is affected. So most of times people just watch few little time and go you know and all of that I know this is a teaching class so naturally teaching class is boring so except someone who really some most of the time people get to save and download the video. So this is how all of these things is calculated. So I feel like sharing uh this insights to you and you could continue making your own research. This may be just part of what you need. So you just make your own research and continue researching. So I'll keep bringing things of this magnitude your way. And uh don't forget to like, share, comment, and subscribe to this channel. I'll see you in the next video.