{"id":845126,"date":"2025-05-01T22:13:04","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/how-youtube-shorts-revenue-compares-to-long-form-video-revenue-for-creators\/"},"modified":"2025-05-01T22:13:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:13:04","slug":"how-youtube-shorts-revenue-compares-to-long-form-video-revenue-for-creators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/how-youtube-shorts-revenue-compares-to-long-form-video-revenue-for-creators\/","title":{"rendered":"How YouTube Shorts revenue compares to long-form video revenue for creators"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Alexander Lee<\/a><\/span> \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 February 25, 2025<\/span> \u00a0\u2022<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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<\/p>\n

\n Ivy Liu <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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Two years after YouTube launched the YouTube Shorts revenue share program<\/a> in February 2023, creators are finding that their payouts for short-form content are still dwarfed by the ad revenue they can glean from long-form videos.<\/p>\n

Six creators who have traditionally focused on long-form content told Digiday that their RPMs (revenue earned per 1,000 views) for YouTube Shorts were consistently beneath $0.20, compared to average RPMs of between $3 and $6 for their long-form content.\u00a0It\u2019s worth noting that long-form YouTube videos can carry multiple ads, which would help to boost a video\u2019s RPM, whereas YouTube Shorts revenue is shared among creators based on viewership<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis month, I had an idea for a long-form video, worked on it all night, and after being live for one week, it had made more money than an entire months\u2019 worth of shorts,\u201d said the \u201cMagic: The Gathering\u201d video creator Maldhound<\/a>, who asked to keep his real name private to protect his personal information. He told Digiday that his average RPM for 20-to-30-minute long-form videos was roughly $5.50, compared to an average RPM of $0.18 for Shorts.<\/p>\n

At the moment, more than 25 percent of channels in the YouTube Partner Program are earning through YouTube Shorts\u2019 revenue share, per a YouTube representative who spoke on background, who added that over 80 percent of the creators who joined the program by meeting its Shorts eligibility thresholds are also making money through additional features such as YouTube Premium and BrandConnect.<\/p>\n

YouTuber LordDraconical<\/a>, who similarly requested to keep his real name private, said that his Shorts content typically garners RPMs of roughly $0.20, compared to around $3.33 for his long-form videos. However, he feels pressured to make Shorts content in order to follow audience behavior and keep up with YouTube\u2019s algorithm, and recently hired a dedicated consultant to help build his short-form presence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we trend towards Shorts being a more and more important part of the algorithm soup, people\u2019s retention on long form content is dropping,\u201d he said, \u201cand I think it\u2019s a real shame I don\u2019t have a good solution for it, other than playing the game \u2014\u00a0and here I am, making Shorts.\u201d<\/p>\n

A dedicated approach<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Of the YouTube creators Digiday interviewed for this article, the ones who have achieved the highest RPMs for Shorts content are not traditional long-form creators, but rather more faceless creators who operate dedicated channels built to take advantage of short-form viewership habits from the ground up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to his long-form channels about juggling and personal finance, for example, the YouTube creator Bennett Santora and his partners operate a network of short-form channels such as AJAnimalKing<\/a> and StoriezTold<\/a>. Although the channels\u2019 RPMs hover between $0.15 and $0.30, their quick-hit content achieves tens of millions of views per month, and Santora and his team are satisfied with their Shorts revenue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s way easier to get views on Shorts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Music royalties<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One element of YouTube Shorts monetization that has benefited creators is YouTube\u2019s music royalties program, which allows creators to partner with music companies by using their music in Shorts content, padding those videos\u2019 RPMs. Santora, for example, said that he has been able to increase his Shorts\u2019 RPMs by an average of $0.15 by using music from the company Blastoff Media in his content.<\/p>\n

The music royalties aspect of Shorts monetization has been particularly beneficial to dance creators such as Dana Alexa<\/a> and Matt Steffanina<\/a>, who told Digiday that it has allowed them to generate revenue from content that would have been automatically demonetized for copyright purposes if posted as long-form videos. Although the RPMs are still relatively low \u2014\u00a0Steffanina said that he typically sees RPMs of about $0.18 for short-form videos \u2014 they believe that some revenue is still better than no revenue at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Shorts, the fact that YouTube seems to be giving a real percentage back to creators is really important,\u201d Steffanina said. \u201cI think a lot of people have been moving from different platforms onto YouTube because of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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https:\/\/digiday.com\/?p=569800<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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By Alexander Lee \u00a0\u2022\u00a0 February 25, 2025 \u00a0\u2022 Ivy Liu Two years after YouTube launched the YouTube Shorts revenue share program in February 2023, creators are finding that their payouts for short-form content are still dwarfed by the ad revenue they can glean from long-form videos. Six creators who have traditionally focused on long-form content […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":845127,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27550,49,104640],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-845126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-revenue","8":"category-youtube","9":"category-youtube-videos"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=845126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/845126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/845127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=845126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=845126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=845126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}