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This YouTube Short got 10 million views. So how much do you think it earned? Ten thousand dollars? Five thousand? The answer is less than $500. Some creators report making as little as $10 for a million views, while others in high-value niches might make over $100.
You’ve seen the insane view counts and the channels blowing up overnight, and you’ve probably thought, “they must be rolling in it.” But what almost no one tells you is the brutal truth about the YouTube Shorts payout system. It’s a system that looks simple on the surface but is deeply confusing in practice, leaving creators totally frustrated when their viral success doesn’t show up in their bank account.
In this video, we’re finally pulling back the curtain. We’re going to dissect the confusing 45% creator payout, I’ll show you with real-world numbers what one million, ten million, and even one hundred million views are actually worth, and most importantly, I’ll reveal how the top creators are really making serious money with Shorts—and I promise you, it’s not from the ad revenue. This isn’t just about exposing a system; it’s about giving you the playbook to navigate it and actually win.
The Viral Hangover: When Millions of Views Pay Just a Few Dollars
You’ve poured your heart into a 30-second video. You obsessed over the first three seconds, you found the perfect trending audio, you edited it to perfection. You post it, and then… it happens. The algorithm blesses you. The views start pouring in. 100,000. 500,000. It smashes the million-view mark. You’re ecstatic. You’re checking your phone every five minutes, just watching the numbers climb. You’ve finally done it. You’ve gone viral.
A month later, you open your YouTube Studio analytics, heart pounding. You click the revenue tab, ready to see the reward for your masterpiece. And then your stomach just drops. For those millions of views, YouTube paid you… $50. Maybe $100, if you got lucky. It’s a soul-crushing moment. It feels like a joke, like a scam. How can millions of anything translate to pocket change? This is the silent reality for so many creators, and it’s what we’re tackling today. The brutal truth is that Shorts ad revenue, on its own, can be a letdown. But the real secret? You’re chasing the wrong prize.
Why Shorts Payouts Feel Like a Slap in the Face
Let’s get real about that feeling of frustration because it’s completely valid. The disconnect between seeing massive views and getting an insulting payout is jarring. You see a video with 20 million views and your brain, conditioned by how traditional YouTube works, calculates a huge payday. For a long-form video, 20 million views could mean anywhere from $40,000 to well over $200,000, especially in a profitable niche. So when you see a payout of maybe $1,000 for 20 million Shorts views, it feels like a mistake.
The root of this feeling is a massive misunderstanding of how Shorts monetization actually works. It’s a totally different beast. On a traditional YouTube video, an advertiser pays for an ad that runs on your video. You get a direct 55% cut of that money. It’s a clean, one-to-one relationship.
Shorts don’t work that way. Ads don’t run on your Short; they run between Shorts in the feed. Think about how you watch them. You swipe from one video to the next, and every few swipes, an ad pops up. So, who gets paid for that ad? The creator you just watched? The one you were about to see? What if you scrolled past it in half a second?
This is why YouTube had to invent a whole new system called the Creator Pool. This is the first, most critical piece of the puzzle. Forget everything you know about traditional RPMs; they don’t really apply here. Instead of earning from ads on your video, you’re earning a tiny piece of a giant, shared pot of money. And how that pot gets divided is where the brutal truth of your earnings is hidden.
Before we get to that, you first have to jump through the eligibility hoops. To get full ad revenue, you need to be in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP), which means having 1,000 subscribers and either 4,000 watch hours on your long-form videos in the last year or 10 million public Shorts views in the last 90 days. There is a lower tier to unlock fan funding features, which requires 500 subscribers, 3 public uploads, and either 3 million Shorts views or 3,000 watch hours.
So after all that work, you look at a check for $80 from 2 million views and you have to ask, “Is this it?” Well, yes and no. The direct ad revenue can be pretty rough. The common Revenue Per Mille (RPM), or earnings per thousand views, for Shorts can be anywhere from $0.01 to $0.13. Let’s do the math: one million views at a $0.04 RPM is just $40. No wonder you’re confused. You’ve been trained to chase views, but the platform changed the value of those views. Now, let’s demystify the whole thing.
Slicing the Pizza: A Breakdown of the Shorts Payout System
If you can wrap your head around this next part, you’ll be ahead of 99% of other creators. I want you to think of all the money YouTube makes from ads in the Shorts feed as one giant pizza.
Step 1: The Pizza is Baked (The Total Ad Revenue Pool)
Every month, in every country, YouTube gathers all the money from advertisers whose ads ran in the Shorts feed. This is the total revenue pool. Let’s just pretend for this example that in the US, for one month, this pool is $100 million. This is our pizza. It looks huge.
Step 2: The First Cut (Paying for the Music)
Before creators even get a look at this pizza, YouTube has to pay for the toppings—and the most expensive topping is music. A ton of Shorts use popular, licensed music. To make things simple, YouTube handles the licensing fees by taking a cut from the total ad pool before it gets to creators.
The way they calculate this is complex, but here’s a simplified version: If a Short uses no music, all of its associated revenue goes into the “Creator Pool.” If it uses one licensed track, about half the revenue is used to cover music costs, and the other half goes into the Creator Pool. If it uses two tracks, roughly two-thirds covers music, and only one-third goes into the pool.
So, in our made-up example, let’s say music licensing costs eat up $30 million of that $100 million pizza. That money is gone, off to the record labels. What’s left for creators is now just $70 million. Our pizza just got a lot smaller. This is the “Creator Pool.”
Step 3: Calculating Your Slice (Your Share of the Views)
Now we’re looking at a $70 million Creator Pool. How is your tiny piece decided? It’s based on your share of the total eligible views from all monetizing creators in your country.
Let’s use another wildly exaggerated number for our example: say there were 700 billion eligible Shorts views in the US that month. And your channel, with its viral hit, got 70 million views. To find your share, you divide your views by the total views: 70 million / 700 billion. That gives you 0.01% of the total views. So, your slice of the Creator Pool is 0.01% of that $70 million, which comes out to $7,000.
Step 4: The Final Payout (The 45% Creator Share)
But you don’t get that $7,000. This is the most misunderstood part. The famous 45% creator share applies now. You, the creator, keep 45% of that allocated revenue. YouTube keeps the other 55%. So, your final payout is 45% of $7,000, which is $3,150.
Now let’s run that with a more typical viral hit. Say you get 5 million views in that same month.
Your share of views is 5,000,000 / 700,000,000,000 = 0.000714%.
Your allocated revenue from the $70 million Creator Pool is about $500.
Your final payout is 45% of that $500, which is $225.
Suddenly, those shockingly low payouts make sense, don’t they? A million views, which feels huge, is just a tiny drop in an ocean of hundreds of billions of monthly views. Your share of the pool is therefore minuscule. And you only keep less than half of that. That’s the brutal truth. However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Recent reports from Google’s CEO have stated that in the U.S., Shorts now generate comparable or even higher revenue per watch hour than traditional videos, meaning the format is becoming more viable, even if the per-view RPM is still low. But if you’re banking on ad revenue alone, you might be missing the point. The smartest creators know Shorts are still a goldmine, just not for the reason you think.
The Real Goldmine: Shifting Your Focus from Payouts to Power
Okay, so we’ve established that the direct ad money from Shorts is… underwhelming. If you stopped here, you’d probably think making Shorts is a colossal waste of time. And you’d be completely wrong.
The brutal truth about the money is only half the story. The other half is the incredible, unprecedented power of Shorts as a growth machine. Thinking of Shorts as a primary income source is like using a hammer to bake a cake. You’re using the wrong tool for the job. The real job of a Short is to attract. It is the single most powerful discovery tool YouTube has ever given us.
Let’s break down the real value you’re getting from those millions of views.
1. Unprecedented Subscriber Velocity
Shorts are arguably the fastest way to grow a subscriber base on YouTube in 2025. A single viral Short can bring in tens, or even hundreds of thousands of new subscribers in days. Compare that to long-form. A long-form video with a million views might bring in a few thousand subs. A Short with the same views can easily bring in 10 times that.
Why? The barrier to entry for a viewer is zero. They don’t have to commit to a 15-minute video. They just swipe, and you have three seconds to hook them. If you do, hitting that subscribe button is an easy, low-friction action. These subscribers are the true currency of the Shorts ecosystem. They’re a captive audience you can now market to in much more profitable ways.
2. The Ultimate Idea-Testing Lab
Think about the effort that goes into a traditional YouTube video—research, scripting, filming, editing. It can take days, even weeks. If it flops, that’s a huge loss of time.
Now, a Short? You can get an idea, shoot it on your phone, and edit it in under an hour. Post it, and you get immediate feedback from the algorithm. A Short is a small, low-risk bet. You can test ten ideas in the time it takes to make one long-form video. The top creators use Shorts as a data-gathering machine. When a Short about a specific topic goes viral, that’s not the end; it’s a giant, flashing sign from your audience saying, “We want more of this!” That data is priceless. It tells you exactly what your next high-earning long-form video should be.
3. Building a Brand and Community
While the revenue per view is low, the brand impression per view is just as high as any other platform. A Short with 10 million views has introduced your face, your style, and your channel’s vibe to millions of people. You are building brand recognition at a scale that used to require a massive ad budget. This is the handshake, the introduction that starts the relationship with a potential fan.
So when you see that disappointing $225 payout from your 5 million views, you have to reframe it. You didn’t just earn $225. You earned $225 plus maybe 50,000 new subscribers, invaluable data on what your audience loves, and brand exposure to millions of people. When you look at it that way, Shorts are an essential part of any modern YouTube strategy. The ad revenue is just a small bonus. The real payment comes next.
The Creator’s Playbook: How to Actually Monetize Your Shorts
This is where it all clicks. We’ve accepted the low ad revenue and understood the real value is audience growth. So, how do we turn that audience into a real income? The top creators treat Shorts as the front door to an ecosystem designed to lead viewers toward high-value monetization. Here’s the playbook.
Strategy 1: The Golden Bridge to Long-Form Content
This is the most powerful strategy. You use Shorts as “trailers” to drive traffic to your main course: long-form videos. Remember the RPM difference? A Short might earn you $0.05 per thousand views, while a long-form video in a good niche can earn in the upper range of $10, $20, or even $30 per thousand views. The whole game is moving a viewer from the low-RPM world to the high-RPM one.
Here’s how to do it:
- The Content Teaser: Create a Short that’s a condensed, high-impact version of a longer video. For example, if you have a video on “The 10 Best Productivity Hacks,” your Short could be “This 30-Second Hack Will Save You An Hour Every Day.” Then, your call to action is: “I break down nine other hacks just like this in my full video, linked in the related video below.”
- Use YouTube’s Tools: YouTube has a built-in feature to link a Short to a long-form video. Use it. Every. Single. Time. It’s a clickable link right above your channel name.
- The Pinned Comment: Verbally direct people to your pinned comment. “For a full breakdown, check out the link in my pinned comment.” This is your most valuable real estate.
By doing this, a Short with 10 million views that earns $400 might also send 100,000 of those viewers to your long-form video. If that video has an RPM of $8, those views just made you an extra $800. You’ve more than doubled your earnings from the same audience.
Strategy 2: The Affiliate Marketing Machine
Shorts are perfect for quick, authentic product recommendations. Because the format is so fast and personal, it can feel more like a genuine tip than a sales pitch.
- Micro-Reviews: A 30-second video on “The one travel gadget I can’t live without.” It’s visual, to the point, and creates immediate interest.
- Problem/Solution: Show a problem and present a product as the solution. “Tired of your phone dying? This is the best portable charger I’ve tested.”
- Link Everything: Use your pinned comment and description for affiliate links from services like Amazon Associates. A Short with millions of views can drive thousands of clicks, which can generate hundreds or even thousands of dollars—far more than the ad revenue.
Strategy 3: The Unbeatable Power of Brand Deals
This is the endgame for most big Shorts creators. Here’s the secret: brands don’t care about your tiny ad revenue payout. They care about your reach. A screenshot of a Short with 10 million views is an incredibly powerful negotiating tool.
Think about it from their side. They can pay you to integrate their product into a Short that you have a proven ability to make go viral. You offer them guaranteed reach to an engaged audience for a fraction of what traditional ads would cost. A creator who consistently gets millions of views per Short can command thousands of dollars for a single video. This is where the real money is. A single brand deal can be worth more than your entire year’s ad revenue from Shorts.
Strategy 4: Fan Funding and Direct Sales
Once you use Shorts to build a loyal community, you unlock other income streams.
- Channel Memberships & Super Thanks: These features, which you can unlock at that lower YPP tier, let your most dedicated fans support you directly. A viral Short can cause a surge in Super Thanks, where viewers can tip you on the video itself.
- Selling Your Own Products: Are you a fitness creator? Use Shorts to drive traffic to your workout plan. A chef? Link to your recipe book. A musician? Link to your merch. Shorts act as the marketing funnel for your own business, where you keep 100% of the profit.
By combining these strategies, the ad revenue becomes what it should be: a small, extra bonus, not the main prize.
The Final Verdict: Are Shorts Worth It?
So, what’s the brutal truth about YouTube Shorts money? If you’re only chasing ad revenue, you’re going to be disappointed. The system is built for massive scale, where the payout for a single viral video is a fraction of what you’d expect.
But the real truth, the one that smart creators have figured out, is that the ad revenue is a distraction. The true value of YouTube Shorts is its unparalleled power to build an audience—a discovery engine that can bring millions of people right to your digital doorstep.
The money isn’t in the views; it’s in what you do with them. It’s in guiding that audience to your high-earning long-form content. It’s in leveraging your reach for lucrative brand deals. It’s in selling your own products to a community that you built, one 30-second video at a time.
Stop thinking of Shorts as a way to get paid. Start thinking of them as a way to get found. Build the audience first, and the money will follow—just not from where you were looking. The brutal truth is that Shorts ad revenue won’t make you rich. But using Shorts the right way absolutely can.
