How Many Views Does it Take to Make Money on YouTube?

How many views does it take to make money on YouTube?  This is a common question asked and it really depends on who you ask.  You may have heard that you’ll make one dollar per thousand views or that it’s $1,000 per Million Views.  Some say it’s $5 per thousand views.  Well, we’re asking the wrong question.  We should be asking, “How much ENGAGEMENT does it take to make money on YouTube?”

You don’t make money based on the amount of views you have.  You make money based on people’s engagement with the ad.  Engagement here means clicking or watching a ad for more than 30 seconds.  YouTube Advertising is managed in the Adwords platform. Advertisers choose ads on a Cost Per Click (CPC) or Cost Per View (CPV) model.

Types of Ads

Cost Per Click (CPC)
CPC is when an advertiser pays money based on clicks.  So if a certain keyword has a CPC of $3 and someone clicks on that ad, it will charge that advertiser $3. These text ads pop up in the lower part of the screen during the video and can also show up as a square banner on the right side of your channel.

Cost Per View (CPV)
CPV is when an advertiser pays money based on views.  A view for the advertiser means someone watches an Ad for at least 30 seconds or half of the ad; whichever comes first.  That person could click that ad 50 times but it still wouldn’t charge the advertiser more because they’re not paying for the click, they’re paying for the view.

TrueView: Pre-Roll, In-Search & In-Display Ads

Pre-Roll Ads are the ads that act as a preview before the video starts and viewers can skip it after 5 seconds.

In-Search Ads show up in the search results and are surrounded by a light yellow box.

In-Display Ads show up on the right side of YouTube in the suggested video area

*  There are also third party pre-roll ads that force users to watch for a certain amount of time.  Since these forced don’t apply to the majority I’m leaving them out.