YouTube RPM Calculator

RPM is the YouTube number that actually pays rent: your real earnings for every 1,000 views, after YouTube's cut and after the views that never showed an ad. This calculator works in both directions — from actual revenue and views to RPM, or from an advertiser CPM forward to the RPM it implies — and projects earnings per 100,000 and per million views.

Two Modes, One Metric

Earnings mode (the definition): divide total revenue by total views and scale to a thousand:

$\text{RPM} = \frac{\text{Total revenue}}{\text{Total views}} \times 1{,}000$

This matches the RPM in YouTube Analytics, which folds in all revenue — ads, Premium, memberships, Supers — over all views.

CPM mode (the forecast): start from what advertisers pay and strip it down to creator reality:

$\text{RPM} = \text{CPM} \times \frac{\text{Monetized playback rate}}{100} \times \text{Creator share}$

The creator share defaults to 0.55 — YouTube's standard 55% split of net ad revenue — and the monetized playback rate is the share of views that actually served at least one ad. Both are adjustable, because both are where CPM leaks away.

| Input | Mode | Meaning | | --- | --- | --- | | Total revenue / total views | Earnings | Your actuals for the same period | | CPM | CPM | Advertiser cost per 1,000 monetized playbacks | | Monetized playback rate | CPM | % of views that served an ad (default 100%) | | Creator share | CPM | Your revenue split (default 55%) |

Worked Examples

Earnings mode: $600 revenue on 150,000 views →$600 ÷ 150,000 × 1,000 = **$4.00 RPM**. Projected:$400 per 100,000 views, $4,000 per million views.

CPM mode: a $20 CPM with a 60$20 × 0.60 × 0.55 = **$6.60 RPM**. That single line explains most creator confusion: the advertiser's$20 became $6.60 through the two filters of unmonetized views and the revenue split.

The tool also rates the result: an RPM of $8 or more is "excellent," under$3 is "low," and between them "solid" — benchmarks calibrated to typical long-form channels, not laws of nature.

Why RPM Varies So Much

Advertisers bid on audiences, not videos. Finance, insurance, and B2B software channels reach viewers worth dollars per click and see RPMs of $10–$30+; gaming and entertainment reach broad young audiences and often see $0.50–$2. Geography is the other giant lever — a view from the US, UK, Canada, or Australia can be worth several times one from a low-ad-spend region — and December's advertiser rush reliably lifts RPMs while January's hangover cuts them. Two structural notes: only monetized playbacks earn, so ad-blockers, non-embedded plays, and ineligible content dilute the earnings-mode figure; and Shorts run through a separate revenue pool with a 45% creator share of pooled music-adjusted revenue — set the share to 0.45 in CPM mode for a rough Shorts model, but treat it as approximate. To raise RPM: longer videos unlock mid-roll ads, advertiser-friendly topics raise bids, and non-ad revenue (memberships, Supers, Premium watch time) counts in earnings-mode RPM even though it never appears in a CPM.

Frequently Asked Questions

RPM vs CPM — which one should I track?

RPM, for decisions: it is your actual take per thousand views and the only one you can multiply by expected views to forecast income. CPM is diagnostic — it tells you what advertisers think your audience is worth before the platform's cut and unmonetized views intervene.

Why is my RPM lower than the CPM YouTube shows me?

Three compounding reasons: CPM is measured per 1,000 monetized playbacks while RPM is per 1,000 total views; YouTube keeps 45% of ad revenue; and some views carry ads that pay little or nothing. The CPM-mode example above shows a typical compression: $20 of advertiser spend arriving as$6.60 of creator revenue.

Does the YouTube Money Calculator on this site do the same thing?

It solves the neighboring problem: where this tool computes and projects rates, the money calculator estimates total earnings from a view count and an assumed RPM. Feed the RPM you find here into it to forecast a video's or channel's revenue.