YouTube Money Calculator: How to Make Money on YouTube

YouTube is one of the best paying social media platforms and has become a reliable additional channel of income for so many people. So we built a YouTube Money Calculator for you.

YouTube Money Calculator: Guide to Real Income

With this video streaming social media, money can be earned by creating content and building your page till it’s qualified to partner, and receive earnings from YouTube.

Table of Contents
- How to Calculate YouTube Revenue?
   - Revenue Calculator
- How Much Does 500K Views on YouTube Pay?
- Does YouTube pay every month?
- How Many YouTube Subscribers Do You Need to Make Money?
- Do YouTubers still get money if you skip ads?
   - Skippable Ads
   - Non-Skippable Ads
- How Quickly Can You Make Money on YouTube?
- How do I Find my YouTube RPM?
   - RPM Calculator
- What is CPM and RPM in YouTube? 
- How do you Increase RPM?
QUICK LINKS
Revenue Calculator
RPM Calculator

YouTube monetization can be divided across three major earning methods:

Advertisement

YouTube runs a lot of ads on their platform which is usually displayed in the created video of a partnered content creator, also referred to as the publisher of an ad, or a YouTuber.

The generated profit for such ads received from advertisers is then divided between the video content creator who owns the channel and YouTube.

Merchandise Sale

While this feature is not fully launched in all countries by YouTube, it is one other method available for YouTube content creators to earn.

To enjoy this, content creators are allowed to upload their official branded merchandise for other YouTube users to purchase.

The earnings here are also split between YouTube and the creator. 

Subscriptions

YouTube also has an ad-free YouTube service where users can enjoy video streaming without ads. This premium services has a cost attached to it.

Therefore, YouTube earns from the subscription of these users and revenue is shared to creators according to the number of subscribers who watch their videos on the premium package. 

Thanks button

The “Thanks” button it’s a fairly new way that YouTube found to monetize channels.

It consists on a button next the Share button, where viewers can donate an amount, as a thank you to the creators.

Enjoying any of these features and earning methods on YouTube is not automatic and there are several things you should know about YouTube Money and how to enjoy monetization.

This article will provide full details for you regarding this. 

How to Calculate YouTube Revenue? 

YouTube Money Calculator: Guide to Real Income

The amount of money generated from a YouTube channel is calculated according to your impressions, video length, playbacks, views, and some other factors.

If you are already partnered as a content creator with YouTube, there’s a revenue tab in YouTube analytics that gives you a breakdown of your earnings and also an estimated value for subsequent videos.

However, if you would prefer to have an estimate outside YouTube, that can be calculated as well, in our calculator below

YouTube Money Calculator

When calculating according to the total acquisition cost (CPA), YouTube pays 55% of your CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions). The formula for this calculation is CPM multiplied by 55 and divided by 100.

Therefore, if your CPM is $4, then $4 * 55/100 = $2.2 (that is your CPA). $2.2 is what you will be paid for every 1,000 views. Remember that these are estimated values and all channels are different.

For Adsense ads, however, YouTube pays 68%. What this means is that if 100,000 viewers watch one of your videos and your CPM is $4 per 1,000 views, calculating your earning would then be $4 * 100,000 dividing by 1,000 which would be $400, then 68% of that views would bring your total earning to $272.

It’s a pretty good amount, taking into account that it’s only one video, and you will be getting views forever (depending on your niche) and earning continually.

Imagine if you had 10 more videos with similar amount of views. Just multiply $272 * 10 and you would get a $2720 for all 10 videos on your channel.

To me that’s a full time income.

Several tools can help you to?calculate and estimate your YouTube earnings for non-Adsense ads based on your estimated activity. You will simply be required to put in your estimated results and you will get an estimated value for payment from YouTube.

We put together our own YouTube Money Calculator, that you can use here.

How Much Does 500K Views on YouTube Pay?

The quick short answer would be: around $1190. Taking into account that your average CPM is $3.5 and YouTube takes its share. However, this depends on so many other factors as we have mentioned before.

To know how much Google will pay you for 500K views, you can use the formula above or the calculator above

Does YouTube pay every month?

Yes, YouTube pays content creators for advertisement monthly as long as you meet all the required criteria.

Payment is made through Adsense. However, for you to get paid at due time by YouTube, you must reach the minimum payment threshold of $100, and be fully in line with YouTube monetization policies.

How Many YouTube Subscribers Do You Need to Make Money?

To make money with YouTube itself, you have to be a YouTube partner. To be a YouTube partner, you need to have a minimum of 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of watch time on your channel.

There are other requirements in addition to this for eligibility to make money on YouTube.

However, there are other ways you can make money on YouTube, that doesn’t require the 1000 subscribers. You can see some ways here.

Do YouTubers still get money if you skip ads?

The answer is no. If an ad is skipped, YouTubers will not get paid. However, YouTube ad payment policies require some more understanding of how ad payment works.

There are 3 ad timelines for streamed ads in your video. The first is pre-roll ads, which are ads that show before a video, the second type is mid-roll ads that show in the middle of a video and there are the ads that show up at the end of your video.

YouTubers are allowed to decide which type they want and each of these ads can be displayed as in two different types of ad format. It’s the action of the viewer based on each format that determines if the YouTuber gets paid or not

These are the two types of ads:

Skippable Ads

Skippable ads are ads where YouTube gives the viewers an option to skip after a few seconds.

For these types of ads, YouTube requires the viewers to click the option to continue watching the video and watch for at least 30 seconds for you to get paid.

If a viewer skips the ad, the advertiser is not charged and hence, there can be no payment.

However, if a viewer does not watch up to the required 30 seconds, but clicks the ad instead, it counts as even more revenue for YouTubers

Non-skippable Ads

These are the ads that do not include an option to skip. In most cases, they are short videos of about 6 seconds long.

YouTube requires that viewers do not skip these ads at all for YouTubers to be able to get money.

However, this ad system is paid with the CPM model, which means YouTubers earn per every 1,000 views and that view is counted once a user watches for up to 2 seconds.

So, do YouTubers get money if you skip ads? Only if that ad is skipped because of a click – otherwise, YouTubers will not get any money.

How Quickly Can You Make Money on YouTube? 

The rate at which you can make money on YouTube is highly dependent on the amount of work you are willing and able to put in.

According to YouTube standards, a YouTuber must have at least 1,000 subscribers and a minimum of 4000 hours of watch time in the channel. Therefore, how quickly money can be made on YouTube depends on how quickly you can get this result.

However, this is only for the first stage of earning on YouTube.

Once you meet the standard above and you are approved for monetization on YouTube, making money now depends on how much, and how fast you can get your viewers to engage ads, merchandise sales, or any other money-making methods you have decided to use.

This determines how fast a decent sum of money can be paid to you by YouTube.

Averagely speaking, to make money on YouTube requires about 2-3 months (depending on your niche), and to make decent money could take about 8-12 months.

Don’t forget though, if you can devote much more time and resources, you can achieve quicker results.

How do I Find my YouTube RPM?

RPM represents Revenue Per Mille, and it is used to know how much income a YouTuber has received from different channels altogether. To find it on YouTube:

  • Go to YouTube Studio.
  • Navigate to YouTube analytics on the left menu.
  • Select “Revenue” from the top menu options.

If you would prefer to calculate it yourself, the formula is Estimated revenue divided by the total number of views multiplied by 1000. 

To give a breakdown, if you earned an estimated revenue of $250 from 50,000 impressions, then your RPM is ($250/50,000)*1000. Your ad RPM, in this case, would be $5. But you can use our RPM Calculator below.

What is CPM and RPM in YouTube? 

YouTube Money Calculator: Guide to Real Income

CPM and RPM are two very important metrics to measure for your YouTube monetization to be very effective. With these two metrics, you can properly estimate, measure, and understand your monetary performance and success of YouTube in income generation.

CPM

CPM stands for cost per 1,000 impressions and it is a metric used to calculate payment made by advertisers to publishers for every 1,000 views on a video.

CPM is useful to content creators on YouTube for increasing their ad revenue, knowing how to have strategic partnerships as well as calculating the amount of value and relevance their content contains.

There is no fixed price for CPM although it is currently pegged at an average of $0.25-$4. CPM increases with consistency and reach, and the higher your CPM, the higher your revenue.

To calculate CPM, you would divide the total estimated amount to be paid to you by advertisers over the total estimated number of views multiplied by 1000.

For example, if your estimation is 100,000 views and a total payment of $5000. Your CPM would be $5000 divided by 100,000 which would equal $0.05, multiplied by 1000 which would then give you a total of $50.

That is the amount that would be split between you and YouTube. 

RPM

RPM, on the other hand, stands for revenue per mile and is used to calculate how much revenue a content creator has earned per 1,000 views across every revenue source, including ads, subscriptions, sales, etc.

It is the actual money earned after revenue share between you as the publisher and YouTube. YouTube refers to RPM as the most holistic way to analyze your performance.

RPM is calculated as RPM = (Estimated revenue / Total number of views) * 1000. This metric is very important because it helps you to determine and have a better understanding of your earning rate at different intervals.

It’s very similar to CPM, with the difference that RPM integrates all revenue sources.

It also helps you to know your revenue according to different videos and your different revenue sources which can help you decide your most profitable topic and if you want to focus more on that niche. 

How do you Increase RPM?

To increase how much you earn on YouTube, you must be able to increase your RPM. Increasing your RPM requires dedication and hard work.

Some of the strategies required to increase RPM are:

Pick a high CPM niche

There are different industries on YouTube and the average RPM according to each industry differs. By doing sufficient research and selecting a niche with a high CPM to focus on, you can increase your RPM.

Develop interesting and engaging content

Loyalty from subscribers would help to increase ad views and clicks. You should create content that will keep your viewers loyal to your channel and this will help build up your RPM.

Use all the different types of ad formats

As I talked about this before, there are different ad formats such as the skippable and non-skippable ones. It is advisable to use both on your video to build your RPM.

Use the different ad timelines

Ads can show on your videos either at the beginning, middle, or end. Making use of all the options available increases your revenue chances.

Make use of all available monetization options

To increase your RPM, you need to explore and maximize all your options. YouTube offers a couple of other monetization options asides from video ads and making use of these helps to grow your RPM.

Conclusions

YouTube is a great platform for building and growing your income at your comfort. You can use the several YouTube money calculations provided in this article to set your goals or project your earnings whether or not you have already started enjoying monetization on YouTube.

If you’re interested in knowing other Passive Income Ideas, then check this article here.

This video streaming platform requires consistency and hard work to maximize the possible results, as well as a proper understanding of how it works, all of which have been provided for you in this article.

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