How Much Does YouTube Pay You for 1 Million Views?

Aspiring to become an influencer and content creator on YouTube, but not sure if it’s a feasible option financially? One of the most frequently asked questions I receive regarding YouTube is, “How much does YouTube pay you for 1 million views?”

YouTube is the largest streaming platform in the world, which makes it a great choice for users interested in making a living creating video content. 

The amount you can make on YouTube depends on a number of factors, such as the type of ad, your audience demographics, and your video's engagement rate. 

In this article, I’ll show you just how much you can earn from a million views on YouTube, and how you can make money on YouTube.

How Much Money Do 1 Million YouTube Views Make?

The average YouTuber earns about $18 per 1000 views ($0.01 – $0.03 per ad view), which means you can earn up to $18000 for 1 million views, but that’s far from the reality.

You’d need to factor in engagement rates, varying ads and how much they’re worth, as well as YouTube’s cut. 

Forbes’ estimates are much more realistic. 

On average, YouTubers make around $5000 for a million views, but some larger channels easily make more than $10,000 on a million views.

This depends on your content, your audience, which ads you’re running, and if you're from an English-speaking country.

How Much Do the Top YouTubers Earn?

If you're looking to make some serious dough on YouTube, you can take inspiration from the top earners.

In this section, let's discuss the earnings of the top YouTubers in 2023.

1. Mr. Beast: $54 Million

Jimmy Donaldson aka Mr. Beast made $54 million in 2022, which is more than any YouTuber before him. His YouTube videos amassed over 10 billion views, which was a twofold increase from the previous years.

Mr. Beast is fantastic at executing enormous feats. In 2020, he spent 50 hours buried alive and produced his unique version of the Netflix show, Squid Game.

2. Jake Paul: $45 Million

Professional boxer and social media influencer Jake Paul's high-profile fights against UFC fighters helped him earn $45 million in 2022. It's a significant turnaround for the creator, who was criticized alongside his brother for some of their vlogs in 2017, which many felt were in poor taste.

3. Markiplier: $38 Million

After nearly ten years on the platform, Markiplier is still one of YouTube's most popular and highest-paid celebrities.

He is best recognized for his gaming, animation, and sketch comedy work. He was third on Forbes' list of the top 10 highest-earning YouTubers of 2021.

According to Forbes, he made $38 million last year, his career's peak. 

According to the profile, Markiplier's income nearly doubled in 2021 because of the strong sales of his merchandise series, Unus Annus, which include T-shirts, sweatshirts, and other things.

4. Rhett & Link (Good Mythical Morning): $30 Million

Rhett John McLaughlin and Link Neal, better known as Rhett & Link, are a popular internet comedy duo. They have been creating viral videos and commercials together for several years.

The pair's YouTube channel, which began as a talk show called, “Good Mythical Morning,” has evolved into something big with spin-offs and brand extensions, boosting their viewership and income. In 2022, their YouTube earnings are estimated to be over $30 million.

5. Unspeakable: $28.5 Million

Nathan Graham is from Houston and has been uploading videos to YouTube for over ten years.

Better known by his YouTube name, Unspeakable, he is addicted to a popular video game, Minecraft.

He has over 20 million subscribers across four YouTube channels, where he records himself playing different games. He also has a knack for making shocking videos. In one such video, he put live alligators in a room.

Unspeakable sold his video catalog to Spotter last year, hoping that it would allow him to expand his brand more quickly.

Want to know which YouTube videos have been viewed the most?Check out my post on, “The list of 25 most watched YouTube videos in 2023.”

What Factors Influence How Much YouTube Pays You for 1 Million Views?

When it comes to earning revenue from YouTube, there are a number of factors that come into play. 

Here's a look at the 5 most important factors that influence how much YouTube pays you:

1. The Type of Advertisement

YouTube makes all of its money from selling advertising space on its platform. But not all ad space costs the same, and it’s up to advertisers to choose how they’re willing to spend their marketing budget.

It doesn’t take long to notice that there are different types of ads on YouTube. For example, some ads allow you to skip them after a few seconds whilst others force you to watch the whole ad.

As of late, more ads have become 15 – 30 second ads that you can not skip. Although there has been backlash over it, more businesses are choosing this option. 

As digital marketing becomes the main priority for businesses, more of the marketing budget is spent on creating ads for platforms like YouTube, and these companies want you to watch these ads that they put a lot of time and effort into.

Here’s an example of an ad that allows you to skip after 5 seconds:

There are mainly two ways to monetize ads on YouTube:

• Pay-per-impression (PPM) – YouTube pays YouTubers for every 1000 ad views. This number is much lower per view than what you’d get for an ad that’s clicked on. 
  
  Calculating the cost of a view to set your budget for the campaign is difficult, and even YouTube offers only rough estimates. However,  PPM ads are generally cheaper than PPC ads. 
  
  If you’ve got a limited budget but are expecting thousands of views on your videos, you should opt for PPM ads.
• Pay-per-click (PPC) – These ads rely on the user to click the ad. These are usually the types of ads that you’re able to skip after 5 seconds. YouTube does account for users that watch the ad past the 5-second mark though.
  
  Advertisers prefer PPC ads because it’s easier to calculate the cost-per-click. What makes it less attractive than PPM ads is that it’s difficult to estimate how many users will actually click on the ad.
  
  It could also happen that someone sees an ad, doesn’t click it but visits the site at a later time.

2. The Advertiser

Advertisements that are displayed on your channel are usually niche-specific, which means companies choose which sort of content they’d like their ads to be displayed in.

Depending on how large the audience is for the niche, as well as the audience’s worth, YouTube will charge advertisers different prices, meaning the niche your content falls within will affect how much you’re paid.

You’ll quickly notice that if you view certain content more than any other, you’ll start getting ads related to that content.

As a digital marketing expert, I’m always watching new content related to digital marketing. And as you can see, most of the ads I get are related to the niche.

In this case, I received an advertisement from Namecheap, a web-hosting platform.

3. Your Audience Demographics

Certain countries/regions are considered higher value, especially to advertisers looking to target a specific audience. 

Advertisers are more likely to pay more to advertise in a country where they will get higher-quality leads, resulting in more sales.

For example, advertising a TikTok tool or app, that is banned in the country it’s advertising in is pointless. But advertising in countries that have the highest number of TikTok users, like the United States (113 million users), are much more valuable.

4. Your Engagement Rate

Speaking about quality leads, the engagement rate of your videos makes a large impact on how much you can earn from your content.

This is particularly apparent when you see large YouTube channels get paid over $20,000 for a million views, and a smaller channel gets less than $5,000.

The higher your engagement rate, the more valuable your million views become.

Advertisers want to see that those million views you get are worth their money. This means that your viewers are actually watching the videos and finishing them. They also look at the comments, number of likes, and how much the content is shared across social media platforms.

5. The YouTube Partner Program

To even be eligible for running ads on your YouTube channel, you need to join the YouTube Partner Program.

To be eligible, you need at least 1,000 subscribers, as well as 4,000 public watch hours. YouTube updated these terms in October 2022 to make users eligible if their YouTube “Shorts” had over 10 million views in the last 90 days.

This is in response to other platforms like TikTok, which specializes in short-form content so that users who want to use YouTube to create shorts can also benefit from the program.

 Looking to start a career on YouTube or want your business to reach a larger audience on the platform? Check out my YouTube Marketing Guide.

How to Successfully Make Money On YouTube

YouTubers don’t just rely on ads to make money. If you're looking to make some serious money on YouTube, you need to dig deeper. 

There are a number of different options available to you, and in this section, I’ll go over seven of them.

1. Ad Revenue

This is the most obvious way, but it’s not the most reliable or easiest way to make money. Especially if you’re a micro-influencer.

To get started with monetization on YouTube, you can set up your own AdSense account. Once you get views, you can earn money through it. However, it's easier to become a YouTube Partner.

The biggest advantage of doing this is that you get access to multiple streams of income. Along with video ads, you can also earn money via Premium subscription fees. 

Using this feature, you can get more revenue via Super Chat, a merchandise shelf, and even channel memberships.

2. Sponsorships

Creating sponsored videos is another way to earn money on YouTube. This is how it works — A brand hires you to promote it to your target demographic, and you get paid for doing so. With the aid of sponsors, the more followers you have, the more money you'll make.

YouTube now allows content creators to add a small tag at the top of a video to show that the video contains sponsored content.

3. Affiliate Marketing

You'll get compensated a commission if you promote a product through affiliate marketing on YouTube. 

Each affiliate is assigned a unique link that takes consumers to the sponsored product or service. You can also embed your affiliate link in the video description.

Some popular types of content to promote affiliate links are how-to videos, reviews, and unboxing sponsored videos.

If you do intend to use this marketing tactic, make sure to add a disclaimer stating that you're going to get paid for every purchase made. You can add it in the description or in the video.

4. Selling Merchandise

Selling items, which may get you a million views on YouTube, is one of the most popular methods to generate money on YouTube. 

T-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, and other products with your logo or name on them can be all put up for sale.

One of the most popular gaming influencers, PewDiePie, launched unisex apparel brand, Tsuki with his wife Marzia Bisognin in 2021. Tsuki is the Japanese word for “moon”.

Their obsession with Japanese fashion, art, and culture is what led them to create the clothing brand.

5. YouTube Shorts

YouTube Shorts are short, vertical videos that may be shot on a smartphone and immediately uploaded to YouTube, much like Instagram Stories. A video can have a maximum duration of 60 seconds on a YouTube short.

So, as a content creator, how can you profit from this?

In February 2023, YouTube stopped the creator's pool fund for YouTube shorts. Instead, they’ve allowed advertisers and eligible YouTube creators to opt into their new revenue-sharing model.

The way YouTube shows ads for shorts is through short ads that will show up in-between two different shorts as a user scrolls through the shorts.

1. Every month, YouTube will add up all revenue gained from ads displayed “Shorts”, which is then used to pay music licensing fees and the creators via a creator pool.

2. From the Creator Pool, revenue is then distributed based on the total share of views a creator had that month. 
   
   For example, if a creator gets 3% of all eligible Shorts views, they’ll be allocated 3% of the revenue in the Creator Pool.
3. From there, YouTube takes its cut, and creators receive only 45% of their allocated amount.

YouTube also sets aside 45% of the net revenue of YouTube premium to monetize YouTube shorts. This strategy helps them compete with other platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Payments to creators are allocated based on how many views their shorts received from premium accounts.

6. Paid Content

Making money on YouTube is also possible via services like Patreon and other paid media platforms. This entails giving your followers and fans exclusive material that they can only get if they pay a subscription fee.

You can also offer memberships for your YouTube channels to give access to exclusive content and features.

If you choose platforms like Patreon, you can provide exclusive content and perks to your patrons, in exchange for a monthly subscription fee.

You can use them to offer things like early access to videos, behind-the-scenes footage, or even personalized messages to your biggest fans.

FAQs

Now You Know How Much YouTube Pays You for 1 Million Views

Reaching a million views won’t make you an instant millionaire, but it’s a great start to earning revenue from YouTube.

Don’t forget that getting a million views will also open doors to other forms of monetization such as sponsorships and product endorsements.

Of course, it's not all easy money. You need to put in the hard work to build up your channel and your audience. But once you hit that 1 million view mark, the rewards can be life-changing. 

So what are you waiting for? Start uploading those YouTube videos!