Estimating the amount of money you can earn from a YouTube video is normally a complicated process with a broad range that doesn’t provide you with much insight. To combat this, I created this YouTube money calculator.
You can use this free tool to easily estimate how much money a YouTube video or a YouTube channel may earn from ads. This tool takes into consideration many of the different factors that affect video revenue, like the video niche, the audience location, engagement, and various other factors that can impact potential earnings.
How to use the YouTube Money Calculator
1. Add the number of views the video or channel has received in the “No. of views” field.
2. Select the most appropriate niche of the YouTube video (or YouTube channel) from the dropdown menu (I.e. what is the video/channel about).
3. Switch the “Video Length” toggle to the on position if the video is longer than 8 minutes (or the average video length on the channel is generally longer than 8 minutes) if not, then leave the toggle in the off position.
4. From the “Audience Location” dropdown, select the location where the majority of the viewers are based (I.e. if 50%+ of the viewers are in the US, then select the first option).
Note: If you would like to see the earning potential of a channel/video you have not yet created, you can add the information to the fields with your intended audience for an estimate.
YouTube Money Calculator
This is an estimate based on industry averages. It is the approximate amount that the creator would receive from YouTube (minus YouTube’s cut already). For older videos, these numbers can vary greatly as the industry changes over time. This tool is only intended to be used as a rough guide that accounts for many important variables that other tools don’t include.
Factors that affect how much you can earn with YouTube Ads
There are a lot of factors that go into determining your earning potential with YouTube Ads. These factors can play a massive role in the amount of money you receive from YouTube at the end of the day for your efforts.
The YouTube Money Calculator tries to incorporate as many of these factors into the final estimation of money earned for the number of views as possible, but no matter how many variables are included, there is no accounting for the unique content you create on your Channel.
Below are some of the most important factors that affect your YouTube ads income.
1. Channel Niche
Your channel niche is the topics your cover in your YouTube video.
If you make videos about high-value topics, like insurance for example, then advertisers will pay higher rates to show their ads on your channel as you have an audience already interested in the products and services they are selling. The same insurance company, however, may not be willing to pay as much on a gaming channel though, as the audience will have a much lower likelihood of converting.
If we stick with the insurance example, these are also high-value products/services being sold, which means the advertising companies can spend more to acquire new customers.
With a gaming channel, an advertiser that sells gaming accessories with an average value of $80 will not be able to spend that much on advertising. Also, there are many more gaming channels around than there are insurance-related channels, meaning that the advertiser, they have a lot of options, so the price of ads on that type of channel stays low, whereas the insurance channel only has so many spots that can be sold.
2. Audience Location
The location of your audience means where your viewers are from. This is not where the channel creator is based, as you can have a channel that is located in Australia, but still talk to a largely American audience.
Your audience location plays a massive role as they are the people the advertisers actually want to reach. The United States is by far the largest spender when it comes to online advertising, having spent 285 billion U.S. dollars in promotional activities in 2021. This means there are a lot of competing businesses, but also a lot of willing buyers.
Whereas in other places where online advertising is not as advanced yet, the cost to acquire a customer will be a lot lower, but they may also not have as much disposable income, meaning they could be less valuable for advertisers overall.
Not to mention companies that only service certain regions.
3. Video Length
The video length plays a role in the revenue you can generate from a video, largely due to the ability to include mid-roll ads when a video is longer than 8 minutes in length.
These ads can play in the middle of a video which can have a massive impact on the amount you earn per view. These videos also tend to be more engaging for an advertiser, as viewers are more accustomed to seeing and skipping ads at the beginning of videos.
You may have noticed a few years ago that many creators were making videos just longer than the 10-minute mark. This was mostly because of the mid-roll minimum being a 10 minute YouTube video at the time. Now that it has been dropped to 8 minutes, creators can more naturally reach that mark without having to “stretch” things out.
4. Retention Rate
The retention rate is another factor that mostly involves the number of ads a viewer sees. If you have 3 mid-roll ads and one at the end, a longer retention rate will result in more ads being spent on your video.
Retention rate however is more important for video virality. If people are engaged and watch more of your videos, there is a higher possibility of YouTube’s algorithm suggesting it to like-minded individuals. This won’t increase your revenue per view per se, but it will increase the number of viewers that watch your video.
5. Advertiser-Friendliness
The Adpocolypse is something many long-time YouTubers will remember. It was a time when many advertising brands were pulling their ads from YouTube because they were appearing on channels that they did not really want to be associated with.
The Adpocolypse has come and gone, but it has had lasting changes.
YouTube is now more strict with the type of content that they allow into the YouTube Partner Program, and advertisers pay a lot less money when appearing on channels that curse, cover sensitive topics, show violence, etc. (if those videos are monetizable at all).
If you’re not sure how advertiser-friendly your content is, have a look at the content guidelines directly from Google here.
6. Time of Year
Lastly, the time of year that your video gets the majority of its views can have a massive impact.
Seasonality is the keyword here.
There are two types of seasonality to look out for, the first and easiest to pinpoint is advertising seasons.
Think of Black Friday and Cyber week, these are most often the times of the year when advertising rates are at their highest. But there are other advertising seasons throughout the year that mostly coincide with a holiday or popular event. During these times, companies tend to have specials and spend more promoting said specials.
The other type of seasonality is more niche specific. An example of this would be skiing, if your content is mostly skiing-related, you’ll receive the bulk of your viewers during the prime skiing months in Winter.
This could also be the same for the advertisers, as more companies compete for ad space during the period of greater interest.
YouTube channel monetization requirements
A big sticking point on how much money you can earn from YouTube ads is whether or not you can even run ads on your YouTube channel.
If you want to run ads on your YouTube channel, you need to be accepted into the YouTube Partner Program. What used to be quite a simple process that happens fairly quickly can take a bit of time nowadays if you are just starting out.
The minimum requirements to join the YouTube Partner Program are:
- Follow all the YouTube channel monetization policies.
- Live in a country/region where the YouTube Partner Program is available.
- Have no active Community Guidelines strikes on your channel.
- Have more than 4,000 valid public watch hours in the last 12 months.
- Have more than 1,000 subscribers.
- Have a linked AdSense account.
While this may stop some from creating content, it also helps remove spammers, scammers, and other unwelcome individuals from ruining the revenue-earning potential of YouTube ads and potentially stopping any adpocolypse events in the future.
Recommended reading
If you want to start, grow, or leverage your YouTube channel to earn more money, then have a look at these best resources (or visit my YouTube library here).