In this video I talk about the cut that YouTube takes from your earnings.
What’s Your Cut vs. YOUTUBE?
For every dollar an advertiser pays YouTube to place an add on your video, you the creator keeps 55% and YouTube keeps 45%.
When Did YouTube Start Paying Creators?
“In 2007, YouTube made a decision that created a career out of what was previously just a hobby: the company announced it would give over half of the revenue it earned running ads on videos to creators themselves. Fifteen years later, that creator cut—55%—supports the nearly 400,000 people in the US working 40-hour weeks as YouTubers.” — MIT Technology Review
CPM vs. RPM
There’s a difference between CPM vs. RPM. CPM is the cost per 1000 ad impressions before YouTube revenue share. RPM is your total revenue (after YouTube’s revenue share) per 1000 views, which is the actual revenue earned after revenue share.
CPM can vary significantly from country to country, and from topic to topic.

A few of the highest paying YouTube niches
| How to make money online | $13.52 |
|---|---|
| Social media marketing | $12.41 |
| Finance and investing | $12.25 |
| Educational videos | $9.89 |
In addition to the niches listed above, I find technology and general tech tutorials to be lucrative as well, such as the ones created on the Feisworld Media YouTube channel.
How CPM Can Change Over Time
October 2022

One year average from Oct 2021 – Oct 2022

How Much Do Youtubers Get Paid per View?
According to a variety of sources, YouTubers can make anywhere between $0.01 to $0.03 per view with AdSense, with an average of $0.18 per view. However, the amount of money YouTube.com will pay depends on a variety of factors, such as: The number of views your video receives, the number of clicks an ad receives, watch-time of the ads, the number of occurrences ads appear on your video, even seasonal and holiday impacts.
Written by
Fei WuFei Wu is the founder and CEO of Feisworld Media, a Massachusetts-based digital media company helping brands get discovered by people and by AI. An Adobe Global Ambassador and brand partner to ElevenLabs, Synthesia, and 50+ other tech and AI companies, she hosts the Feisworld Podcast (400+ episodes, 500K+ downloads — guests have included Seth Godin, Steve Wozniak, Chris Voss, and Arianna Huffington) and co-created the documentary Feisworld: Live Your Art on Amazon Prime. Fei writes for CNET, Lifehacker, and PCMag, and her work has been featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and WIRED. She has been publishing on the internet since 2014 — long before AI discoverability had a name.
View all posts by Fei Wu→Stay updated
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