How to increase your YouTube RPM: 7 ways

RPM is your total revenue per 1,000 views. Growing views takes months; raising RPM can sometimes be done with one decision. Yet much of the advice online ("put expensive keywords in the title", "stretch every video to 10 minutes") either does nothing or drives viewers away. The seven ways below are ordered by the size of their effect, and for each we note what YouTube's own documentation says.

First, know what RPM is made of

By YouTube's definition, RPM is revenue from ads, channel memberships, YouTube Premium, Super Chat and Super Stickers, divided by total views. It is calculated after YouTube's share and it counts views that showed no ad. That gives three levers: raise the share of views that carry ads, raise the price of those ads, and add revenue that does not depend on ads. The definitions are covered in detail in our RPM vs CPM guide.

7 ways to raise your RPM

1. Shift views from Shorts to long-form

This has the largest effect. In our rate table, 1,000 long-form views pay $0.50–$20 with a US audience, while 1,000 Shorts views pay $0.03–$0.10. Shorts views enlarge the denominator of channel RPM and add very little to the numerator. You do not need to stop making Shorts. The aim is to carry Shorts viewers over to long-form: point to the related long video at the end of a Short, and cut Shorts as trailers for it.

2. Widen where your audience lives

YouTube notes that advertisers choose which geographies they want to reach. In our rate table the US range for a niche is about three times the range for other countries. If your content does not depend on language (cooking, crafts, gaming, music, visual storytelling), translating titles and descriptions and adding subtitles is the first step. Channels with advanced features access can also upload audio tracks in several languages to a single video, and viewers automatically get the track in their preferred language.

3. Pass 8 minutes and turn on mid-rolls

On monetized videos that are 8 minutes or longer you can place ads in the middle of the video. You can let YouTube find the slots automatically, place them by hand, or combine the two. Two cautions. YouTube does not guarantee that an ad slot serves an ad; its systems decide which slots get one. And padding a 6-minute topic to 8 minutes lowers watch time. If the topic already fills 8 minutes, this is the easiest gain available.

4. Move toward the valuable corner of your topic

You do not have to change niche. Inside every niche there are sub-topics advertisers pay more for: gear and hardware reviews for a gaming channel, budgeting and spending videos for a vlog, software and career topics for an education channel. We compare the eight niches in our highest-paying niches guide.

5. Stay out of limited ads

Videos that fall outside the advertiser-friendly content guidelines receive limited ads (the yellow icon) or none. The guidelines cover topics such as inappropriate language, violence, adult content, shocking content, harmful acts, sensitive events and controversial issues. Filling in the self-certification questionnaire accurately at upload, and requesting human review when you think the system flagged a video wrongly, is the fastest way to recover lost revenue. Titles and thumbnails are assessed too.

6. Plan your calendar around the ad year

YouTube says advertisers bid higher or lower depending on the time of year. According to MilX, one of the sources behind our rates, ad budgets spike in the fourth quarter, especially November and December, and reset in January, when a 30–50% dip in RPM is expected across almost all niches. Scheduling your strongest videos for the fourth quarter, and not reading the January dip as a sign your channel is broken, is enough.

7. Turn on revenue beyond ads

Creators keep 70% of net revenue from channel memberships, Super Chat, Super Stickers and Super Thanks, and all of it counts inside RPM. These features also open at the lower Partner Program tier that starts at 500 subscribers. For channels with a small but loyal audience they can add more per view than ads do. Sponsorships and merchandise do not show up in RPM at all, yet they are often the largest line in total income.

A worked example: the same 500,000 views, three different channels

Take an entertainment channel with 500,000 views a month and a US audience, and price three situations with our rate table (US entertainment $1–$3.50, US tech $4–$12, US Shorts $0.03–$0.10 per 1,000 views).

Going from A to B, which only changes the format, multiplies revenue by more than three. Going from B to C, which moves half the long-form audience to a better-paying topic, more than doubles it again. Overall the same number of views produces eight to nine times the money. The other ways on the list, such as mid-rolls, timing and ad suitability, are real but smaller gains. Look at format and audience first.

What our own data says

We applied our rate table to each of the 250 most-subscribed channels worldwide, using each channel's own mix of formats (data from 30 October 2026). Grouping the channels by how much of their viewing comes from videos under three minutes makes the difference plain:

• 45 channels with over 90% of views from short videos: a median estimated $0.065 per 1,000 views.
• 135 channels that mix both formats: $0.65.
• 70 channels with under 10% of views from short videos: $0.78.

The 250 largest Turkish channels fall in the same order at lower levels: $0.02, $0.26 and $0.35. These are estimates built from our own rates, not measured earnings, but they show how large the format effect is.

What you cannot change

• The revenue share. Creators get 55% of ad revenue on long-form and 45% of their pool allocation on Shorts. It is not negotiable.
• The overall level of the ad market. Advertiser budgets rise and fall with the economy, and every channel's RPM moves with them.
• Ad blockers. A viewer who sees no ads produces no ad revenue.
• The new Shorts floor. From 1 February 2027, earning from the Shorts pool each month will require maintaining 10 million Shorts views over the last 90 days.

To see how much each change would matter for your own channel, enter long-form and Shorts views separately in the YouTube money calculator and try different niches and countries.

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