Shorts can rack up millions of views in days, and that leads plenty of creators to expect a big payday. The reality is more modest. This YouTube Shorts money calculator shows what your Shorts views are realistically worth, as a low, typical and high monthly range.
Shorts are paid very differently from long-form videos. Ads run between Shorts in the feed rather than inside your video, so YouTube pools that ad revenue, works out a “Creator Pool” and shares it out according to each channel’s portion of engaged views in each country. Monetising creators then keep 45% of the revenue allocated to them. If your Shorts use licensed music, part of the money is set aside for music rights, which can shrink your share.
YouTube doesn’t publish a Shorts RPM, so we rely on creator-reported figures. In 2026 these mostly fall around $0.03–$0.15 per 1,000 views for audiences in the US, UK, Canada and Australia, and around $0.01–$0.03 for India. There isn’t reliable public data for African audiences yet, so our Nigeria and Africa range is our own clearly labelled estimate and sits slightly below India’s. Even at the top of the range, a million Shorts views tends to earn tens or low hundreds of dollars, not thousands.
That doesn’t make Shorts worthless. They are one of the fastest ways to get discovered, win subscribers and reach the YouTube Partner Program threshold (1,000 subscribers plus 10 million Shorts views in 90 days, or 4,000 long-form watch hours). Many creators use Shorts as a shop window and earn their real money from long-form videos, brand deals and affiliate links.
How to use it
- Enter your Shorts views per month from YouTube Studio. If you can see engaged views, use them, because they are the number YouTube pays on.
- Choose where most of your viewers live and your preferred currency.
- Press Estimate my earnings, then create a share card if you want to post the result.
Long-form videos usually pay many times more per view, so try our YouTube money calculator too. All results are estimates, not guarantees.
How it's calculated
- Shorts ads are pooled and shared out by each channel's share of engaged views in each country. Creators keep 45% of the revenue allocated to them.
- YouTube does not publish a Shorts RPM, so we use creator-reported 2026 ranges: about $0.03–$0.15 per 1,000 views for US, UK, Canadian and Australian audiences and $0.01–$0.03 for India. African figures are our own estimate ($0.005–$0.03) because no reliable public data exists yet.
- Shorts that use licensed music share part of the pool with music partners, which can lower your share.
- "Engaged views" can be lower than the view count you see, so treat the result as a ceiling for your total view count.
Rate data last reviewed: 8 October 2026. Sources: YouTube Help: Shorts monetisation, ytcalculators Shorts guide, Miraflow Shorts RPM, AIR Media-Tech niche study.
Frequently asked questions
How much do YouTube Shorts pay per 1,000 views?
Usually only a few cents. Creator reports in 2026 cluster around $0.03–$0.15 per 1,000 views for US-heavy audiences, and less for audiences in India, Africa and Latin America.
How much do YouTube Shorts pay for 1 million views?
Roughly $30–$150 for a US-heavy audience and around $10–$30 for a mostly Indian audience, based on the ranges above.
Why do Shorts pay so much less than long videos?
Shorts ads sit between videos in the feed rather than inside your video, and the money is pooled across many creators. A 2026 study of 274 channels found Shorts RPM was usually 3–14% of the same channel's long-form RPM.
Can I monetise Shorts from Nigeria?
Yes. The YouTube Partner Program is open to creators in Nigeria. Your earnings depend on where your viewers are, so a mostly Nigerian audience earns at the lower end of the range.