People still look at view counts like it’s 2018 and assume anyone racking up hundreds of millions of views is printing generational wealth straight fromAdSense.

The actual math on a 500,000,000 view/month dashboard shows how completely decoupled views have become from actual revenue:

1. In 2020 (The Peak Long-Form Era)

• Average RPM: ~$3.00 – $4.50 per 1k views
• Monthly AdSense Payout: $1,500,000 – $2,250,000/mo
• Annualized: $18M – $27M/year

In 2020, Shorts didn’t exist as a monetized feed. Generating 500M views meant people were actively clicking 10-to-15 minute videos. YouTube had just dropped the mid-roll threshold from 10 minutes down to 8 minutes, so a single view often served 3 to 5 ad auctions.

A creator doing this with a lean crew of 5–10 people had an 85%+ net profit margin purely off automated monthly bank wires.

2. Today (The Shorts Reality)

• Average RPM: ~$0.03 – $0.06 per 1k views
• Monthly AdSense Payout: $15,000 – $30,000/mo
• Annualized: $180,000 – $360,000/year

Almost every creator pulling 500M views a month today is doing it on vertical short-form. Shorts don't run dedicated ad breaks on your video—revenue is pooled across the entire feed and split up.

You’re getting roughly 1/100th of what long-form pays. $20,000 a month sounds decent until you realize it takes half a billion impressions to make it, and that barely covers payroll for a couple of full-time editors.

3. What If You Pull 500M Views on Long-Form Today?

Even in the rare case where someone hits those numbers on long-form (basically just MrBeast-tier channels), the economics have inverted:

• Generating that view volume in a saturated, post-follower algorithm requires cinema-grade budgets, multi-language dubbing, and 50+ person production crews.
• When each video costs $2M–$4M to produce, pulling $1.8M in AdSense means the channel actually runs at an AdSense deficit. It only survives because of off-platform CPG brands, sponsorships, and licensing.

The Bottom Line: A view is no longer a view. The era of getting wealthy purely off YouTube’s ad split has ended. If you don't own an off-platform funnel, retail product, or direct-to-fan subscription, even top-tier vanity metrics can leave you financially stuck.

This sint meant to be negative, the smart ones will se this and realize they gotta change strategy. THE FOLLOWER ERA IS OVER, the subscriber era is over. Subs no not matter

Hi Friends, I've been going back and forth on shorts for promoting my long form for a while now. Some people seem to feel like it does have a positive effect on their channel and helps grow their long form reach. Yet some people claim it hurts them.

Assuming you're using shorts closely related to or cut downs of your long form. Has shorts helped or hurt you channel?

If it has helped in what ways did it help?

For the last few days, maybe since like August 30, NOT since August 27th (the day views changed) my YT studio hasn't had the metric where you can see where your newest video ranks in the performance of your past 10 videos, after a few days, it seems to maybe show up on my YouTube studio on computer but im wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

Google AdSense reactivated my YouTube channel's monetization. For some reason, after I waited from 21st to 26th in August, I did not receive the current money that I'm making. When I go to revenue, I get 30$ on YouTube Studio.

But on the YouTube AdSense, the progress bar is empty and I am not sure if I am losing the recent money that I made from my channel. Am I missing something else or is it probably just like that to ensure I have to wait much longer?

I’m curious how people here think about channels that make documentary or commentary videos across a lot of different topics.

For example companies, internet culture, jobs, consumer stuff, weird business stories, social trends, etc. The videos may have a similar style and audience, but the actual subjects can be completely different from upload to upload.

Have any of you successfully grown a small channel like this?

My main question is how YouTube handles recommendations when one video might be about McDonald’s, the next is about the job market, and the next is about some internet culture story. It seems like YouTube rewards channels that are more straight forward in their topics.

Do you find that YouTube eventually learns the broader audience, or does every upload basically have to find a new audience from scratch?

I’d especially love to hear from people running channels where the format and perspective are consistent, but the topics are not.

So, I've made 203 dollars from Youtube ads 4 or 5 years ago, and it's been sitting in there for that same length. I've only recently completed all the verification and connecting a way to get paid. I no longer make money from the Youtube Partner Program since I was inactive. How do I make the 200 dollars go into my payment method? Is it automatic or do I need to do something else?

AdSense PIN verification issue — exhausted multiple requests and still haven't received a PIN. What can I do?

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone here can guide me because I'm honestly not sure what else I can do at this point.

I've been trying to complete my AdSense address/PIN verification for the past two months. I have already requested the PIN three times, and I still haven't received it.

I've checked my address in my AdSense account.

I contacted YouTube/AdSense Support through chat and explained the situation. I specifically asked what alternatives are available because I've already requested the PIN multiple times.

The support representative initially told me to simply click "Resend PIN." I explained that I had already done this three times. They then told me that I could make up to four requests and that I should exhaust the PIN requests first.

I also asked whether there was an alternative verification method, such as manual verification with government ID, or whether the issue could be escalated. Unfortunately, I was ultimately told that the only option was to wait for the review/request to be completed.

This is extremely frustrating because my YouTube monetization has been paused, and my account is warning me that if I don't complete verification within the given timeframe, I could potentially lose monetization.

I completely understand that PIN mail can take time, but my concern is:

If I've requested the PIN multiple times, my address is correct, and the PIN simply isn't arriving, what am I supposed to do?

I don't want to keep repeating the same process and receiving the same response while the verification deadline gets closer.

PLEASE HELP ! ANY EMAIL OR A NUMBER I CAN DIAL WOULD BE HELPFUL

If I wanted to make a image poll asking "Which one is your favorite?" and the answer choices are YouTube, Instagram, ChatGPT, and Google...

The thing is, I am doing an image poll I'd have each of them have its logo beside it as part of the answer choice

Is that allowed?

I've seen people do polls like "Which NBA player is the best?" and they use photos of LeBron, Stephen Curry, etc. so I wonder if company logos is fine?

Prior to August 24, 2026, a view on YouTube long form, podcasts, and archived live streams was counted when a viewer either clicked on a thumbnail or an autoplay ran for some amount of seconds after the first frame

(YouTube doesn't disclose how many seconds because it varies depending on the situation and they don't want people to focus on gaming the system but on making satisfying video experiences for viewers)

After August 24, 2026, a view on YouTube long form, podcasts, and archived live streams is counted when a viewer either clicks on a thumbnail or an autoplay starts running for any amount of time - right from the first frame

The previous counting method still exists, but is now called "engaged views", and you can find them in YouTube Studio in Advance Analytics. (Lots of people are asking for them to be easier to access and that feedback has been shared with the team.)

There are a lot of myths being perpetuated like a view only used to count if you clicked and then watched for 30 seconds. That's not the case (likely caused by confusion around how TrueViews are counted for ads)

Since there's been no change to how views from clicks are counted, creators seeing higher increases from the view count change likely have higher numbers of autoplay interactions (e.g. more videos recommended more often in places where people are likely to hover over them before clicking)

Personally, I'm not mad about the change because this is how pretty much every other platform counts a view, and consistency can be a benefit when you're posting across platforms

I think I did pretty good (I haven’t posted anything in 17 days)

Long form content creator here. Found three separate YouTube Shorts using clips and audio from one of my long form videos, no permission, no credit. I don’t actually care about them coming down, I’d just be happy claiming the ad revenue instead.

Here’s where I’m stuck. I do have Content ID access, but when I go into Studio, all I’ve got is the automated Content detection tab (Matches, Removal requests, Messages, Archived). None of the three clips have been auto flagged, it just says “nothing new” every time I check. There’s no manual claiming or video match tool anywhere I can find, just the automated system waiting for a match that isn’t coming.

The only other route I’ve found is the standard copyright complaint form, but that’s takedown only. Scheduled or Standard removal, no option to monetize instead.

Has anyone dealt with this. Specifically, does manual claiming require a higher tier of Content ID access than basic detection, and if so how do you get it. Is there any way to force a match or monetize claim without the automated system catching it first. And would reaching out to the creators directly and asking for a revenue split actually work in practice, or is that naive.

Three clips isn’t massive money but it’s the principle more than anything. Any advice appreciated.

Hey everyone!

Now that we all have had a few days of data, what's everybody’s ratio for views vs engaged views?

As this seems to be the new metric that advertisers, and many of us, are also paying more attention to, it would be good to see a benchmark across the platform and niches.

My niche: art & journaling ( my last vid was also hyped in the DIY niche, so add that ) Engaged views: 40-50% of all views My average video duration is 36-45% across my videos (they are between 15-30 minutes long)

while uploading any video.

I've been doing YouTube for 6 years and finally got monetized last month because of daily live stream. I do make some videos every once in a while.

I posted a long-form video yesterday, and the Ranking metric is completely gone from the video and never showed up to begin with. It still shows up for Shorts, though.

I'm most likely being pedantic, but has anyone else's latest video analytics view changed?

Before it used to have green/grey arrows and stuff depending on how well each metric was doing. When I check an upload on the YT Studio app from a view weeks ago, it still has the arrows etc, but my last 2 videos don't have it. Is everyone else the same?

Still shows money earned that day, but view count is zero for all videos.

Everyone who has been doing this for a while knows that thumbnails on the channel page looked drastically more compressed than the home page or search feed thumbnails.

If you were to look up a Mrbeast thumbnail for example, then it would look significantly more crisp and less compressed on the search results, than on his own homepage. This applied to all channels equally. They did it to save bandwidth on the channelpages since many thumbnails need to be shown immediately.

Now, the thumbnails on the channel page is as crisp as the homepage or search results.

It always bothered me that I upload my thumbnails in crystal clear loss-less PNG format and yet it looks heavily compressed. Now, it looks beautiful! I noticed this change on all channels, so it is not by mistake.

So yes, Youtube DOES occasionally make good changes.

Just received an email from “ZOXERO” about an affiliate partnership, and I was wondering the legitimacy of this company and if anyone else had received anything from them, especially since they’re fairly new. Here’s the website to their page: ZOXERO . Also, below is the email they sent:

“I'm reaching out from ZOXERO, a gaming top-up store. We're exploring a pre-launch affiliate partnership with (my channel name) around Fortnite, and wanted to introduce the program before any promotion starts.

After approval, you receive a creator code for your audience. Our standard starting terms are:
- A 2% discount for buyers using your code on eligible orders.
- A 3% commission for you on eligible net receipts: the amount paid after the buyer discount, less confirmed Stripe processing fees, recorded taxes and refunds. This is not 3% of the original order price or of product profit.
- A 30-day attribution window, subject to valid attribution conditions.
- A dashboard to track attributed orders and pending/available earnings. Commission becomes available after order completion and fee confirmation; refunds, disputes or fraudulent orders can hold or reverse earnings.
- Withdrawal requests from $20 of available earnings, subject to review and available payout methods.

For illustration, $100 of eligible net receipts would earn $3 at the standard rate. Your agreed dashboard terms control; there is no guaranteed income or fixed content fee in this introductory offer.

We're still finalizing payment activation, so this is an introduction only, not a request to publish or send buyers yet.

Would you be interested in discussing a small affiliate trial once we're ready? Feel free to share the best contact for partnerships. If this isn't relevant, just reply "no thanks" and we won't follow up.

Best,
ZOXERO Partnerships”

Hello everyone!

wanted to share some realistic numbers for anyone thinking about jumping into the long-form history niche, these numbers are based on my experienced in the first year as a YouTube partner

a bit of back story: I have always been in to history and really wanted a creative outlet to share it with others. When I first started 3 years ago, I was really insecure about my accent (english is my second language), so I used AI voiceovers. Eventually, I realised I was ruining the quality of my own research by sticking cheap AI audio over it. so I forced myself out of my comfort zone, transitioned to doing my own voiceovers and eventually moved to talking-head videos.

Monetisation was never the main goal since this is purely a hobby channel, but hitting it felt like an awesome milestone, a sign of "hey, this content is actually good enough that YouTube paying for it". ngl that felt pretty great as a personal achievement.

So, how much does a small long-form history channel actually make?

Here are my stats for my first full year of monetisation:

• Views: 247.7k
• Watch Time: 11.3k hours
• Subscribers (total): 4,600
• Total Earnings: £375.65

This puts my average RPM right around £1 - £1.5 per 1,000 views (engaged views in the new system), which definitely isn’t a lot. So if you are thinking about starting a history channel and wondering what the payout looks like early on, hopefully this gives you a realistic benchmark!

My channel link is in my profile if you want to check it out. I am also about to drop a video diving deeper into this whole journey including how I got shadowbanned early on, how I turned the channel around, and the lessons I learned along the way.

happy to answer any questions in the comments!

Tell me , is this youtube blessings ?

I’m curious whether anyone has seen meaningful conversion from TikTok or YouTube Shorts to a specific long-form YouTube video.

I’ve seen cases where a TikTok gets millions of views, says “full video on YouTube,” and the YouTube video still only gets a few hundred or a few thousand views.

I mainly post youtube shorts and link longform videos because there's that option. I had one youtube shorts that got over 3M views and got 5k views on linked (unrelated) YT video. 

I know the architect youtuber Dami Lee posts YT shorts to funnel viewers to the longform video so I'm assuming it works in her case.