YouTube Shorts Revenue & RPM Calculator (2025)

1. Start from real monthly views, not dreams

Begin with your actual monthly Shorts views from analytics, smoothed over a few weeks instead of a single viral spike. The calculator clamps between 10,000 and 500,000,000 views per month to keep inputs sane. If your channel is still growing, try both your current average and a stretch goal, then see how much revenue difference that growth could make over a full year.

2. Set a realistic RPM range per 1,000 monetized views

RPM is where most of the uncertainty lives. Here it represents revenue per 1,000 monetized views in USD. Pull several recent payouts, compute your RPM for each month, and use a cautious average as the likely value, with a lower and higher RPM for softer and stronger periods. Avoid using a holiday spike or a one-off brand week as your baseline.

3. Use monetized% and multiplier as live proxies for eligibility and niche

Shorts revenue sharing depends on which views can show ads, how music is used, and where those views come from. The monetized view% controls what share of total views count toward revenue, while the multiplier lets you approximate niche or region uplift. A mixed or emerging channel might keep monetized% conservative and multiplier at ×1.00; a stable, high-value niche can experiment with higher settings as data becomes consistent.

4. Read low, likely, and high payouts at a glance

After you hit Calculate, the summary card shows low, likely, and high monthly and yearly revenue side by side. That makes it easy to answer questions like “what does this month translate to per year?” or “how much room do I have for tools, editors, or ads?”. Use the “Copy summary” button to paste the breakdown into a note, spreadsheet, or email so you can track how your assumptions change over time.

5. Keep assumptions visible and update them regularly

The assumptions panel under the calculator spells out the exact formula, so you always know how the numbers were produced. When Shorts monetization rules evolve, when your RPM shifts with different niches, or when your audience mix changes, simply update your inputs and re-run the estimate. Treat this calculator as a living model that evolves with your channel rather than a fixed table of payouts.

Let V be your monthly Shorts views, m the monetized view percentage (between 0 and 100), R an RPM in USD per 1,000 monetized views, and k an optional multiplier for category or region uplift. These four inputs drive the whole model, so keeping them realistic is more important than any tiny rounding difference.

First we estimate monthly monetized views as:
MonetizedViews = V × (m / 100). If you set m to 70, only 70% of your monthly plays are treated as revenue-earning views in the projection.

Because RPM is defined “per 1,000 monetized views”, the monthly revenue in USD for a given RPM is:
Monthly = (MonetizedViews ÷ 1,000) × R × k. The calculator applies this formula to your low, likely, and high RPM inputs and then scales each to Yearly ≈ Monthly × 12 to give you long-term planning numbers.

For breakeven, let G be a one-time gear cost and S your monthly software bill. Using the likely monthly revenue M_likely, the model estimates:

BreakevenMonths ≈ G ÷ max(M_likely − S, 0.01). If you leave gear at 0, breakeven is skipped entirely.

All calculations are rounded to two decimal places and kept in USD. The tool does not factor in taxes, payment processor fees, exchange rates, music usage rules, MCN arrangements, or policy changes. Use it as a transparent baseline you can calibrate against your own analytics rather than a guarantee of future revenue.

Reference: YouTube Help: Shorts monetization · Checked 2025-09-26.