Shorts are paid in a completely different way from long-form videos. There's no ad attached to your Short, no per-video ad price and no mid-roll. Instead, YouTube collects the money from ads in the Shorts Feed, sets aside a share for music, and divides the rest by views. Once you see the steps, it's clear why the same number of views pays so much less on Shorts.
Why Shorts can't be paid per video
On a long-form video, an ad runs before or during your video, so the money from that ad can be tied to you. In the Shorts Feed, ads play between Shorts. A viewer swipes through a dozen creators, sees an ad, and keeps swiping. That ad doesn't belong to any one Short. So YouTube pools the money and shares it out afterwards.
How the revenue is shared, step by step
According to YouTube Help, Shorts revenue sharing works in four steps, every month.
1. The ad revenue is pooled
Revenue from ads running between videos in the Shorts Feed is added together. This pool pays creators and also covers music licensing costs.
2. Part of it goes to music
Each Short's views determine how much of the pool it accounts for. YouTube Help says that if a monetizing creator's Short uses music, the revenue associated with its views is split between the Creator Pool and music partners, based on the number of tracks.
YouTube Help gives two examples:
| Music in the Short | Share that goes to the Creator Pool |
|---|---|
| No music | All of it |
| One track | Half |
| Two tracks | One third |
3. The Creator Pool is allocated by views
Monetizing creators receive a share of the Creator Pool in each country, based on their share of total engaged views from monetizing creators' Shorts in that country. YouTube Help is explicit that using music doesn't reduce your allocation. Music changes how big the pool is, not how it's divided.
4. You keep 45%
Monetizing creators keep 45% of their allocated revenue, whether they used music or not.
What isn't in the pool
YouTube Help lists revenue that never reaches the Creator Pool, including:
- Revenue tied to views of Shorts uploaded by music partners
- Ads shown when someone opens the Shorts Feed, such as the Shorts Masthead
- Ads on navigation pages inside the Shorts player
- Revenue from image posts in the Shorts Feed
- Revenue from Shorts by creators who haven't accepted the Shorts Monetization Module
Which views count
Payment is based on eligible engaged views, according to YouTube Help. Views from non-original Shorts, artificial or fake views, and views that conflict with the advertiser-friendly guidelines are left out.
This matters because the public view count measures something else. According to YouTube Help, from August 24, 2026, views are counted the moment a video starts to play, across all formats including Shorts. YouTube Help says this change doesn't affect Partner Program earnings, which still use engaged views. In practice, the view count under your Short is usually higher than the number your share is calculated from. Don't divide your earnings by the public count and expect it to line up.
"Non-original" is also worth noting. A Short that's mostly someone else's clip may get views and still not count toward your share.
Why Shorts RPM is low
Put the steps together and the low RPM isn't a mystery. Compared with a long-form video:
- No ad of your own. Viewers can watch several Shorts between ads, so there's less ad revenue per Short watched.
- Music takes a share first. If your Short uses one track, only half of its associated revenue goes into the Creator Pool.
- The share is 45%, not 55%. Long-form creators keep 55% of net ad revenue from the watch page.
- The pool is split by country. Your allocation depends on your share of engaged views in each country, and advertisers spend different amounts in different countries.
- RPM counts every view. Many Shorts views never come near an ad, and RPM still divides your earnings across all of them.
YouTube Premium adds some revenue too. The official YouTube blog says creators receive 45% of the Premium revenue tied to Shorts, compared with 55% for long-form. It's usually a smaller part of the total.
The 2027 change
On August 10, 2026, the official YouTube blog announced that from February 1, 2027, Shorts ad and subscription revenue sharing will only apply to creators with 10 million qualified Shorts views over the last 90 days.
According to the post:
- Channels below that number stay in the Partner Program and keep earning from long-form videos.
- Shorts revenue sharing turns back on automatically once a channel crosses 10 million again.
- YouTube plans other ways for these channels to earn, with details to come.
If your channel earns mostly from Shorts and you're well below 10 million qualified views per 90 days, plan for Shorts revenue to stop from that date. If you're close to the line, watch the 90-day number in Studio, because it's a rolling window.
Realistic expectations
Since the share depends on a pool that changes every month and every country, no one can give you a fixed Shorts rate. Some practical points instead:
- Judge Shorts by what they do for the channel, not only by their own RPM. A Short can bring viewers to your long videos and subscribers to your channel, and that value doesn't show up in Shorts revenue.
- Use your own numbers. In YouTube Studio, the Revenue tab shows your actual earnings once you're in the Partner Program. Look at Shorts separately from long-form.
- Watch the music trade-off. A track can make a Short better, but it reduces the money that Short adds to the Creator Pool. Original audio keeps the full amount in the pool.
- Keep Shorts original. Engaged views from non-original Shorts don't count.
How our Earnings Calculator helps
The Earnings Calculator has a Shorts mode with its own RPM ranges, separate from long-form, because the two are paid so differently. Enter daily views, pick your audience's countries and see estimated daily, monthly and yearly earnings as a low, expected and high range. Switch between Shorts and long-form to see how big the gap is for the same views.
You can also paste a Short or a channel URL. For a single video, we fill in daily views from its public view count divided by the days since it was published. You can change any value afterwards.
The limits:
- Our numbers are estimates. YouTube doesn't publish Shorts RPM by country, so our ranges come from earnings creators have shared publicly and from ad market reports.
- Public view counts include every playback that starts, while payment uses engaged views, so an estimate built on public views can run high.
- The calculator doesn't model music splits or the 10 million threshold that starts in 2027. It assumes the channel is in the Partner Program and earning from Shorts.
Worth keeping in mind
- Shorts revenue is pooled, split for music, allocated by engaged views and then shared at 45%.
- Music lowers what a Short adds to the pool, not your share of the pool.
- Public view counts and paid views are now measured differently.
- From February 1, 2027, Shorts revenue sharing needs 10 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days.