---
title: 'How Much YouTube Pays for 1,000 Subs'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=q6Y5W1kRAi8'
video_id: 'q6Y5W1kRAi8'
date: 2026-06-17
duration_sec: 0
---

# How Much YouTube Pays for 1,000 Subs

> Source: [How Much YouTube Pays for 1,000 Subs](https://youtube.com/watch?v=q6Y5W1kRAi8)

## Summary



## Transcript

I did not make life-changing money on
YouTube in 2025. Neither did most of the
creators in today's video. I went
through the real revenue numbers of all
of these channels to figure out what was
actually going on. Because here's what's
strange. One creator with 2 million
views made less money than a creator
with 19,000 views. And what's even more
wild is that a creator with 1,200
subscribers made $18,000 while a creator
with double that made $71. And that's
exactly why I'm making this video today.
Because whenever you watch these videos
of people saying, "I made this much
money as a small channel in this amount
of time." The numbers are always wildly
different and I wanted some answers.
Before we get into the numbers here, let
me just explain two concepts that you
need to know so you understand all the
nuances about how money moves around on
YouTube. First, it's the difference
between CPM and RPM. And this is pretty
simple. Let's say it cost an advertiser
$100 to put an ad on your video, which
is not a realistic number, but I just
want want to work with a nice round
number here. The $100 is the CPM. That's
how much it costs the advertiser. you
get $55 because that's the cut YouTube
shares with creators. That's the RPM,
cost per millie, revenue per millie.
It's pretty simple. The second thing you
need to know is that YouTube has two
different levels of monetization. The
first is unlocked when you hit 500
subscribers and 3,000 hours of watch
time. And when you unlock this level of
monetization, you're not earning ads
just yet. But you can do things like
start up a YouTube membership program
and have super chats, super thanks,
things like that. But once you've hit
1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of
watch time, that is when you hit YouTube
AdSense and you will start getting money
from the YouTube ad campaigns that run
all across the platform. And just a
quick note, those 4,000 hours have to
come from long form videos or live
streams. They can't come from shorts.
So, with that out of the way, now we can
get into your first practical tip that
has to do with those requirements. Eva
had been building her channel for over a
year. She was consistent. She was
growing. And then one day, she hit her
monetization requirements. She applied,
she got approved, and then nothing.
Signing up for YouTube AdSense and the
YouTube partner program took me a little
bit longer than I expected. You have to
wait about 3 weeks to get a code from
them in the mail that lets you finalize
your AdSense signup.
>> 3 weeks because of a letter and her
videos are sitting there approved for
monetization but earning no money. So,
here's advice from someone who lived it.
Once you reach 500 subscribers and 3,000
watch hours, I would sign up for the
YouTube partner program then and get
approved and get your AdSense all in
order so that when you hit 4,000 watch
hours and 1,000 subscribers, you will
immediately be able to start collecting
that money and get your payout.
>> Try not to leave weeks of earnings
sitting there in the ether just because
of an envelope. Maybe sort that out as
early as you can. But, okay, how much
money does YouTube actually pay
creators? This is a question that I'm
sure Google is tired of answering by
now. Our first real life example today
is Jess and Dave. They're a Canadian
travel couple who quit their jobs to
travel to Southeast Asia and document
their journey on YouTube. In their first
6 months after being monetized, they
were posting one video every 4 days, and
they made $1,716
Canadian, which is roughly $1,200 US.
Not life-changing money, but real
consistent and steadily growing. But
here's something that $1,700 Canadian
won't tell you. Not all views are
created equal. And this comes down to
something creators really don't think
about a lot. Where in the world are your
views actually coming from? Kinetic
Passports proved exactly why. They're a
travel channel very similar to Jess and
Dave, and they had a video about their
experience in Cairo, Egypt. It blew up.
For them, that meant 15,000 views, which
is no small moment for a channel of this
size. However,
>> even though we're higher in our view
count and watchtime hours, because most
of the viewers on that video are from
Egypt, the RPM is lower. I believe we're
just over $2 for RPM on that video. And
that's why this month's earnings look
pretty similar to June, even though all
of the other parameters would indicate,
you know, a higher earning for the
month.
>> So, practically speaking, what does this
mean for you? It doesn't mean that you
should pretend that only the US or
Western audience exists. That would be a
mistake. It does mean, though, that if
you feel like you have healthy view
counts on your channel and your earnings
still feel suspiciously low, it probably
has something to do with geography.
We're going to talk more about that in a
little bit because not only can this
vary from channel to channel, but RPMs
can fluctuate video to video. Before we
get there, though, I want to talk about
something that can be very confusing to
a lot of creators, especially when it
comes to making money on YouTube, and
that is the difference between short
form and long form. Specifically, the
thing nobody warns you about. Now, by
now, everybody knows that YouTube shorts
don't pay nearly as much as long- form
videos. But exactly how much less are we
talking? Well, let's start with Adriel.
In October 2025, he had a moment that
every small creator dreams about.
>> But I had one short that went ultra
viral. It was a short about flying
Singapore Sweets First Class. And you
can see this purple line here showing
that video jumping way up. For the
month, I got just under 2 million views
and 18,000 watch hours. And I gained
over 3,000 subscribers.
>> 2 million views. And for context, that's
more views than most creators will get
on a single video during their entire
YouTube career. However, since it was a
short form video, not a long- form
video, even though it got way more
views, the money paid out was still less
because the payout rate for a short is
not as high as a long form video. Want
to see exactly how much less? Over 1.8
million views. Estimated revenue $197.
If we do the math, that works out to
about 11 cents per thousand views. And
here's the proof. This orange line is a
single long- form video titled The Real
Cost in 2025. It's 20 minutes long. It
got almost 93,000 views, which is a long
way from 2 million, but it earned him
$727.
That makes the RPM on this video $7.83
per thousand views. Compare that to the
short that made 11 cents per,000 views.
And we're looking at a video that made
71 times more money with 20 times fewer
views. And before you think, well,
that's just one channel, I want you to
meet Paul Stingray. He runs a gardening
channel in Australia. And here's what
happened in a single 48 hour window.
>> I've got 1436 views. Most of those are
shorts views. So I got 619 long form
video views and 816 short form views. So
technically you're only really going to
be making money well enough to actually
notice on the long form views.
>> And what does that look like in actual
dollars? Well, he breaks that down video
by video.
>> So my top video was growing corn in
pots. Now in 7 days it got 1,700 views.
So roughly about 4,000 views and it
would have got about 48.
Yes. terribly exciting. A whole 48
cents. Now, my long form views, growing
lotus from seed, roughly that would have
got about 1,400 views and it's made
$14.96.
So, a little bit better than the shorts
views. So, if that short was a long form
view, we'd be making a lot more money
about now.
>> 4,000 shorts views for 48 versus 1,400
long form views for $14.96.
That's the same pattern. It's less than
a third of the views and 30 times more
money. But if you want the single most
devastating number for this entire
video, let's take a look again at Jess
and Dave. They posted shorts
consistently alongside their long- form
content for six full months. In their
own words,
>> "We had posted a few shorts over this
time, but the revenue from that was
pretty negligible, earning us a whopping
62 over the 6 months."
>> So, here's the verdict. Even though
shorts make a little more money than
they used to, they are still nowhere
near a stable revenue stream. They might
bring you some new eyeballs, but you're
not going to be writing your meal ticket
with them. So, if shorts are not the
answer to making a living on YouTube,
then what does it come down to? Well, in
one word, inventory. Not all viewers are
worth the same amount of money to
YouTube. Unfortunately, the niche you're
in determines how much money an
advertiser is going to pay YouTube for
advertising on your content. Think of
YouTube niches like a leaderboard. On
the top end, you have the channels that
advertisers are willing to fight each
other over, and on the lower end, you
have the channels that they barely
notice. So, using the data that has been
provided by all the creators we're
looking at today, I've gone ahead and
set up the 2026 YouTube RPM tier list.
Keep in mind these numbers are going to
shift around based on season and where
viewers live, but this is the current
map of the money. In the Dtier, we have
gardening and Paul Stingray is going to
be our benchmark. In his first two weeks
being monetized across all of his
videos, he made $36.92 Australia. That's
roughly $24 in US at the time of
recording. And remember, this is the
same channel that got 4,000 shorts views
and only earned 48 cents. Long form
helps, but if you're in this niche,
hopefully you're doing it for the love
of the craft because it doesn't feel
like AdSense is where it should be. In
the C tier is going to be the fitness
niche. And for that, we're going to look
at a channel like Justin Lie, who after
11 months of being monetized, made a
total of $79,6.68.
His RPM range from $2 on his muscleup
video all the way to $6 on his marathon
content. As far as this list goes,
fitness does sit a rung higher than
gardening, but it is on the lower half
of the spectrum. And in a little bit,
we'll get back into that $2 and $6
difference between those videos. But
next is the B tier. I'm going to call
the B tier our wild card because we're
going to be looking at travel channels.
And travel channels are just notoriously
inconsistent. As we already discussed,
geography can very much determine your
RPM, and it really just comes down to
where your viewers are watching from.
You have Kinetic Passports, who made
$87.36
in their first two months. You have Eva,
who made $433 Canadian in 9 months
despite barely posting. And then Jess
and Dave, our most datarich channel.
They averaged a $6.77 RPM across their
first 6 months for a grand total of
$1,716
Canadian. So, while the potential in
this niche can be pretty high, there's
just too many factors to account for
when it comes to travel. It just really
depends on what part of the world you're
focusing on. And now we get to the A
tier, which is pretty interesting
because this niche is going to surprise
you. Kids and family, in essence, is a
kids channel. They started back in
August of 2023 and they were monetized
by November. How much money do you think
they made?
>> My first YouTube paycheck was $957.18.
I know, right? And keep in mind this is
me as a new YouTuber. First time, just
started this page 6 months ago.
Children's page. Wasn't sure what I was
doing, but I was just doing it. and I
made close to $1,000. I would say that's
pretty good for a journey to passive
income
>> for a brand new channel. That's a really
strong number. So, I'm putting in
essence in the A tier because at least
with the way they're approaching kids
content, this is a pretty high potential
niche. However, they will tell you
themselves that seasonality plays a role
here.
>> If you going to start your channel, try
and get it started like now. It's
February currently when I'm making this
video. So that by December time, you can
put out your Christmas content and then
you, you know, you can see that step up.
>> The holiday bump is a real thing
basically for every niche on YouTube. So
that is something to look out for. An
even stronger niche, though, still
remaining in the A tier is going to be
filmography and photography. First up,
we'll look at Tracy Flynn's channel.
She's from New Zealand and covers
photography and creative businesses, and
she made $86.99 Australian in her first
month. And then you have Dallas and
Jill. They're a Canadian filmmaking
channel with a CPM ranging from 15 to
$42 per thousand views. The upper end of
that gets into some really serious
money. And in a little bit, we're going
to explore the spikes that happen within
different niches. But then we get into
the S tier. And if you looked at
different YouTube niches in the past to
determine how much makes the most money,
this probably won't surprise you. At the
top end of the spectrum, you have Adriel
from earlier in the video. He breaks
down his entire 2025. In this video,
>> I uploaded 33 long form videos and 111
short form videos. I racked up 6.9
million views and 117,000 watch hours
combined between my long form videos and
my shorts.
>> 6.9 million views. And how much did that
earn him?
>> So, in all of 2025, my total YouTube ad
revenue was $4,471.
Now, that might sound low for 6.9
million views, but don't forget that 111
of those videos were just YouTube
shorts. So, we need to strip those out
because in terms of revenue, they barely
move the needle. Adriel mentioned that
the majority of the $4,471
came from only two long- form videos
that took off. Real estate and
construction advertisers, mortgage
companies, building suppliers,
contractors are all willing to pay pay
to reach that audience. And finally, at
the very top end, you have the business,
finance, and online education niche. And
this is where the numbers get pretty
staggering. Mark on business made
$877.36
cents in AdSense and that was with his
revenue suppressed due to an invalid
traffic bug that was happening around
that time. This artificially lowered his
earnings. George Alexander, a creator
education channel, tells it best
himself. You
>> can see that when I got monetized, my
RPM was $2.73.
And this number is pretty low. But you
can see that over the course of the next
6 months, my RPM slowly but surely
improves all the way up to $658,
which is crazy because that means I'm
making 2 to three times more money for
every 1,000 views that I get on my
videos.
>> Hi. Myers in the YouTube education niche
gained 50,000 views, which made him $218
in AdSense in his first 90 days, as well
as $43 through supers and another $14
through memberships. Advertisers in this
space include software companies,
financial products, investment
platforms, and online course providers.
They're all competing for the same
audience. In that niche, your viewers
are people who are actively trying to
make andor save money. And that is an
incredibly valuable viewer to an
advertiser, and RPMs are going to
reflect that. But here's the thing most
highest paying niche videos miss every
time. Where you sit on this list is only
half the story. You could have an S tier
niche like finance but still be in the D
tier in terms of revenue depending on
the topic you cover. And that's what I
want to look at next. How two videos on
the same channel can have a 500%
difference in pay. So far in this video,
we've talked a lot about niches and your
potential earning ceiling that you could
hit depending on which niche you're in.
The thing is, each video you post has
its own ceiling in terms of revenue. It
just kind of depends on what topic
you're covering that determines how high
that ceiling is. Let's take a look again
at Jess and Dave, for example. two
videos, same channel, same month. One
video exploring Koron in the Philippines
had an RPM of $4.87. The other, Incat
Trail to Machu Picchu, had an RPM of
$24.70.
And to be clear, that's the RPM. That's
the money that they're earning per,000
views on that video. This is a five
times difference. Two very similar
videos attracting two very different
audiences. So, what's going on? Well,
the people who are searching for Incat
Trail are probably folks in the US, UK,
and Australia. in which case those would
be higher income countries which have
higher advertising budgets and thus
higher RPMs. Meanwhile, the video about
Cororon, which I'm not sure I'm saying
correctly, is a destination that may
attract viewers from Southeast Asia.
There advertiser budgets are just going
to be lower and therefore RPMs are going
to reflect that. But here's where it
gets more interesting because this isn't
just a travel thing. That fitness trend
we looked at earlier, Justin Lie,
noticed something in his own analytics.
>> For my marathon videos, they tend to do
really high. So you got $6 here, whereas
my muscle up video is only on $2. So
even though my marathon video has 19,000
views and my muscle up video has 42,000
views, the marathon video still pays me
more because it's got a higher RPM. And
I think that's super interesting because
it means that views don't necessarily
equal money.
>> Think about what you just said there.
42,000 views on one video and it earned
less than a video with 19,000 views on
the same channel. So what's the
difference? Well, marathon content
attracted viewers who were researching
running gear, race entries, nutrition
supplements, basically higher value
customers for advertisers. The general
workout content may be more broad and
attract a lot more new eyeballs to the
channel, but because it's so broad, it's
less commercially specific. Then you
have Dallas and Jill, our Canadian
filmmaking and photography channel.
>> My average cost per thousand as a film
making photography-ish channel is is in
the $15 to $16 per,000 views. That's
Canadian dollars. Some videos that's as
low as $8 per thousand views. And on the
Flash video, which was the one video we
got published the month after being
monetized, it got as high as $42 per,000
views. $8 Canadian on one video and $42
Canadian on another video on the same
channel. And that is no small swing.
This is a different earning bracket and
it all depends on what your video is
about. So, after looking at all this, my
big takeaway here was basically that
it's not enough to just pick a niche
with a high RPM and hope for the best.
The specific topic of each video you
make determines how many advertisers are
going to show up and how much money
they're willing to shell out. And when
you think about it, this makes a lot of
sense when you consider how much money
brand deals can go for on YouTube in
general with some of the largest
creators on the platform. There are
creators who make thousands of dollars
off of a brand deal where they take
maybe 60 seconds out of their video.
They look at the camera and they speak
directly about one product for that
entire minute. When it comes to hypersp
specific targeted advertising,
advertisers pay more money for that. So,
it stands to reason that even if you
don't have a sponsorship on that video
about your marathon, it's a very
specific audience that you're targeting
and therefore the advertisers are going
to pay more money to have ads on that
video. Meanwhile, your more broad
fitness content isn't going to do as
well in terms of advertising dollars,
but it could introduce a lot of new
people to your channel. Meanwhile, a
travel video about Peru is going to
attract a different wallet than a travel
video to the Philippines. Once you
understand all this, it helps you stop
focusing on your channel as one thing
all by itself. And instead, you can
focus on how each video is an
opportunity to target different
advertisers and different viewers.
YouTube can monetize your content, but
only you can monetize your audience
because AdSense is real. It's great.
It's genuinely there. and it's like
passive money for showing up and doing
the work that day, but it's not the full
picture. If you want to set up your
channel the correct way for monetization
beyond just AdSense, I'm going to
encourage you to watch this video next,
which will set you off on the right path
when it comes to getting monetized in
the first