Monetising partners can earn money from ads that are viewed between videos in the Shorts Feed.
What you'll find in this article
This article explains:
Policies that apply to YouTube Shorts monetisation
If you're monetising on YouTube, it's important that your channel follows the YouTube Channel Monetisation Policies, including our policies on repetitious and reused content. This also includes YouTube's Community Guidelines, Terms of Service, copyright and AdSense programme policies.
Turning on Shorts ads revenue sharing
To start sharing in Shorts ad revenue, monetising partners will need to accept the Shorts Monetisation Module – terms that let you earn from ads and YouTube Premium in the Shorts Feed. Shorts ads revenue sharing will apply to your channel's eligible Shorts views starting on the date that you accept. Shorts views accrued prior to accepting the Shorts Monetisation Module are not eligible for Shorts ads revenue sharing.
Content suitable for ads
All content monetising with ads must follow our advertiser-friendly content guidelines. On Shorts, only views of content that follows our advertiser-friendly guidelines will be eligible for revenue sharing.
Ineligible Shorts views
For the purposes of calculating payments, YouTube uses eligible 'Engaged views'. This means that YouTube won't count engaged views that are ineligible. Here are some examples of when ineligible Shorts views may occur:
- Non-original Shorts, such as unedited clips from others' films or TV shows, reuploading other creators' content from YouTube or another platform or compilations with no original content added
- Artificial or fake views of Shorts, such as from automated click or scroll bots
- Views of Shorts that are inconsistent with our advertiser-friendly content guidelines
Blocked Shorts
Shorts over one minute in length that contain claimed content are blocked and not eligible for monetisation. Learn about three-minute Shorts and music eligibility for Shorts.
Ad formats eligible for Shorts revenue sharing
Revenue is shared on ads that are viewed between videos in the Shorts Feed. Shorts views exclusively receive ads revenue sharing from the Shorts Feed, which is separate from long-form video monetisation on the watch page.
How ads revenue sharing works for Shorts
Only monetising partners who've accepted the Shorts Monetisation Module can earn ad revenue from Shorts.
There are four steps to how Shorts ads revenue sharing works:
- Pool Shorts Feed ad revenue. Each month, revenue from ads running between videos in the Shorts Feed gets added together and used both to reward creators and help cover the costs of music licensing.
- Calculate the Creator Pool. Shorts Feed ad revenue is then allocated into the Creator Pool based on engaged views and music usage across Shorts uploaded by monetising creators.
- If a monetising creator uploads a Short without any music, all of the revenue associated with it goes into the Creator Pool.
- If a monetising creator uploads a Short with music in it, then YouTube will split the revenue associated with its views between the Creator Pool and music partners based on the number of tracks used.
- Allocate the Creator Pool. From the overall amount in the Creator Pool, revenue is distributed to monetising creators based on their share of total engaged views from monetising creators' Shorts in each country. For example, if a creator gets 5% of all eligible engaged Shorts views uploaded by monetising creators, they'll be allocated 5% of the revenue in the Creator Pool.
- Apply revenue share. Monetising creators will keep 45% of their allocated revenue, regardless of whether music was used or not.
What's not included in the Creator Pool:
- Revenue associated with views of Shorts uploaded by creators who haven't yet accepted the Shorts Monetisation Module or that aren't yet eligible to monetise their Shorts. This revenue will be used to cover the costs of music licensing and/or be retained by YouTube.
- Revenue associated with views of Shorts uploaded by music partners.
- Revenue associated with views of Shorts that are determined to be ineligible.
- Revenue associated with any ads shown upon opening the Shorts Feed before a Short is viewed (e.g. the YouTube Shorts masthead).
- Revenue associated with any ads shown on navigational pages within the Shorts player.
Understand with an example
Let's review a hypothetical example to better understand how this works.
Hypothetical example
As a monetising creator, let's say that you have uploaded a Short that uses one music track. Here's how we'd calculate what your Short has earned in country A this month.
- There have been 100 million total engaged Shorts views in country A and all are on Shorts uploaded by monetising creators.
- £100,000 has been earned from ads that played between Shorts in the Shorts Feed.
- 20% of these Shorts used one music track, so the Creator Pool is £90,000 and £10,000 is used to cover the costs of music licensing.
- Your Short has 1 million engaged views, so you are allocated 1% of the Creator Pool or £900. Your allocation from the Creator Pool is not affected by your use of a music track.
- The 45% revenue share is then applied to your allocation and you would earn £405 for your Shorts views in country A.
Use of third-party content in Shorts
In certain circumstances, when a Short features third-party content or remixed content, the views allocated to the Short will be divided between the uploader and any third-party rights holders (owners of other content used in a Short) for the purposes of calculating the Creator Pool and revenue share to monetising creators. The following policies describe how this will occur. We may update these policies and will inform you of any changes.
- How the use of third-party content affects the Creator Pool. When the amount of the Creator Pool is calculated, only music content made available by YouTube's music industry partners or generated by Dream Track will be credited as making a contribution to a Short. This means that only when music content is used in a Short will it reduce the amount of engaged views and associated revenue allocated to the Creator Pool. No other category of third-party content will be credited as making a contribution to a Short at this time, even when a Content ID monetise policy is set on that content. However, we are in the early stages of developing our monetisation model for other categories of content.
- The examples above show how engaged views and associated revenue are split to calculate the Creator Pool when music content is used in a Short.
- How the use of third-party content affects allocations from the Creator Pool. When paying monetising creators their share from the Creator Pool, each monetising creator will be allocated 100% of the total number of engaged views on their Shorts, regardless of whether any music (including music generated by Dream Track) is used in the Short. As a result, using music in a Short won't affect a creator's allocation from the Creator Pool or their revenue share rate.
YouTube Premium Subscription Revenue sharing for Shorts
YouTube Premium is a paid subscription option which enables users to enjoy ad-free content, background playback, downloads and premium access to the YouTube Music app. This offering also applies to engaged views on Shorts.
YouTube will pay 45% of the net revenue from YouTube Premium that is allocated to monetising creators for Shorts. A portion of YouTube Premium revenues are allocated to help cover the costs of music licensing. Payments to each creator are based on their share of subscription Shorts views within each country.
Where to see your Shorts Feed ad revenue
YouTube Analytics will start displaying estimated daily Shorts Feed ad revenue along with other performance metrics when available or from the day that you start monetising with Shorts ads. Learn more about how to check your YouTube revenue.
Existing timelines for payment thresholds and other AdSense for YouTube details apply – learn more about AdSense for YouTube.
Studio Content Manager
For Studio Content Manager users, downloadable reports will be available for non-music partners only. These reports will include revenue details segmented by date and country/region for any monetising Shorts uploaded by relevant partners.