YouTube Shorts vs Long Form: RPM, Views, and Watch Time Data (2026)
Short answer: in the YouTube Shorts vs long form debate, Shorts win on reach and long-form wins on money. Shorts made up 61% of YouTube views in Metricool's 2026 study of 799,718 videos, but in AIR Media-Tech's data from 274 monetized channels, Shorts RPM was only 3 to 14% of long-form RPM in almost every niche. For most channels, Shorts brought in less than 2% of total revenue.
This page puts the numbers we could check today, October 22, 2026, into tables you can cite. Every figure links to its source, and the method notes are at the end.
The rules: how YouTube pays each format
Shorts and long-form videos are paid in different ways, which explains most of the gap.
| Long-form | Shorts | |
|---|---|---|
| Creator share of ad revenue | 55% of net revenue from ads on your videos | 45% of revenue allocated to you from a shared pool |
| Where ads run | On your video (pre-roll, mid-roll) | Between Shorts in the feed |
| Mid-roll ads | Allowed on videos 8 minutes or longer | Not applicable |
| Format | Anything that isn't a Short | Up to 3 minutes, square or vertical |
| Full YPP threshold | 1,000 subs + 4,000 watch hours in 12 months | 1,000 subs + 10 million Shorts views in 90 days |
| Expanded YPP threshold | 500 subs + 3,000 watch hours in 12 months | 500 subs + 3 million Shorts views in 90 days |
Sources: YouTube partner earnings overview (55% and 45%), Shorts revenue sharing (the pool), mid-roll ad breaks (8 minutes), three-minute Shorts, and the expanded YPP overview. Both expanded tiers also need 3 public uploads in the last 90 days.
The pool works like this: YouTube adds up a month of Shorts feed ad revenue per country, takes out a share for music licensing when a Short uses music, and splits the rest among monetizing creators by their share of engaged views. From February 1, 2027, you'll also need at least 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days to earn Shorts ad revenue for a given month (YouTube Help). We go through the details in how to make money on YouTube Shorts.
YouTube Shorts vs long form RPM
AIR Media-Tech pulled data through the YouTube Analytics API from 274 channels in 13 niches (3,044 channel-months). Its Shorts vs long-form report, last updated September 16, 2026, found:
| Finding | Figure |
|---|---|
| Shorts RPM as a share of long-form RPM | 3 to 14% in almost every niche |
| Typical Shorts RPM | about $0.07 to $0.20 per 1,000 views |
| Gaming example | $1.79 long-form vs $0.17 Shorts |
| Music (the exception) | Shorts at 41 to 60% of long-form RPM |
| Shorts share of total revenue | under 2% for most channels |
| Shorts share of total views | 1 to 35% |
Music is the only niche where Shorts came close. Everywhere else, the gap is large.
How many Shorts views equal 1,000 long-form views
The same report worked out how many Shorts views it takes to earn what 1,000 long-form views earn:
| Niche | Shorts views to match 1,000 long-form views |
|---|---|
| Music | about 1,100 |
| Kids & Teens (large channels) | about 2,156 |
| Most other niches | 11,000 to 26,000 |
| Crafting | about 34,000 |
Pay for 1 million views
| Format | Approximate earnings per 1M views (AIR) |
|---|---|
| Long-form (median across niches) | about $2,300 |
| Shorts, US-heavy audience | about $300 |
| Shorts, mixed global audience | about $150 to $250 |
AIR also lists Shorts RPM by country: US $0.328, Australia $0.193, UK $0.166, Canada $0.165, Germany $0.163. For long-form RPM by niche (Education at $10.22 is the top), see our niche RPM data and how much YouTube pays per view.
Views and watch time: where Shorts win
Shorts are where the audience is. These are the figures we could verify:
| Metric | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Shorts daily views | over 200 billion on average | YouTube CEO Neal Mohan at Cannes Lions, reported by Search Engine Journal, June 18, 2025 |
| Shorts share of YouTube views | 61% | Metricool 2026 YouTube Study, 799,718 videos, 71,177 accounts |
| Shorts views growth, Feb 2025 to Feb 2026 | +127% | Metricool |
| Long-form views growth, same period | +76% | Metricool |
| Time spent per Short vs per long-form video | three times less per Short | Metricool |
One caution on Shorts view counts. Since March 31, 2025, YouTube counts a Shorts view every time a Short starts to play or replay, with no minimum watch time (TechCrunch, March 26, 2025). The old count is now called "engaged views," and that is still what monetization and YPP eligibility use. So year-over-year Shorts view growth that spans that date isn't a like-for-like comparison, and the view count you see in Studio can be well above the views that count toward the 10 million threshold.
If you'd rather make videos than read about it, VidPuff turns a title into a faceless video. No waitlist, cancel anytime.
Watch time is the other half. Shorts views don't count toward the 4,000 watch-hour route to YPP; they are a separate route (YouTube Help). A 10-minute video watched halfway adds five minutes of watch time per view. A Short adds at most three minutes, and usually far less.
Does posting Shorts hurt long-form earnings?
AIR's report tried to answer this by comparing months with and without Shorts on the same channels (149 channels that posted Shorts irregularly). The results varied by niche:
| Niche | Channel RPM in months without Shorts | In months with Shorts |
|---|---|---|
| Entertainment | $4.58 | $1.84 (60% lower) |
| Kids & Teens | 26% lower | |
| Gaming | $3.29 | $3.42 |
In Entertainment, AIR found RPM fell further the more Shorts a channel posted: $4.99 at zero Shorts a month and $1.15 at 21 or more. AIR's suggested sweet spot was 1 to 5 Shorts a month. Treat this as a pattern, not proof: the comparison shows that blended RPM drops, which is partly just the math of mixing low-RPM Shorts views into the total, and the report doesn't control for every other change on those channels.
YouTube Shorts vs long form: what it means for a new channel
If your goal is income, the data points to long-form as the main product and Shorts as a way to get found. A few practical takeaways:
- Earn on long-form. It pays 55% of the ads on your own video, and videos of 8 minutes or more can carry mid-roll ads.
- Use Shorts as trailers. A few Shorts a month that point to a related long video gets you the reach without making Shorts most of your views. Daily autopilot Shorts tools push the other way (our AutoShorts AI review covers the trade-off).
- Check engaged views, not views. In Studio's Advanced Mode, engaged views are the number YouTube pays and qualifies you on.
- Pick the niche first. The format gap is smallest in Music and largest in niches like Crafting. Education had the highest long-form RPM in AIR's data and no channels posting Shorts in the sample.
If you run a faceless channel and want to keep a long-form schedule, VidPuff turns a title into a 16:9 video: it writes the script, adds narration, a visual for each scene, music and captions, and you review each stage before uploading to YouTube from the app. It doesn't make Shorts, so you'd cut those yourself. Plans start at $25/month, or pay once from $5. For the setup steps, see how to make a faceless YouTube channel.
FAQ
Is it better to make YouTube Shorts or long videos?
For income, long-form. In AIR Media-Tech's data, Shorts RPM was 3 to 14% of long-form RPM in almost every niche, and Shorts made under 2% of revenue for most channels. Shorts are better for reach, since they were 61% of views in Metricool's study.
Do YouTube Shorts pay less than long videos?
Yes. Creators keep 45% of their allocated Shorts pool revenue versus 55% of the ads on their own long-form videos, and the pool pays far less per view. AIR puts 1 million Shorts views at about $150 to $300, against about $2,300 for 1 million long-form views.
Do Shorts views count toward 4,000 watch hours?
No. Shorts views are a separate route to YPP: 10 million qualified Shorts views in 90 days instead of 4,000 watch hours in 12 months.
How long can a YouTube Short be?
Up to three minutes, in a square or vertical format, for videos uploaded from October 15, 2024 on (YouTube Help).
Sources and method
We opened each source on October 22, 2026, and used only figures stated on the page. Where a source gave no number (for example, AIR's Kids & Teens RPM values for the within-channel test), we left the cell blank.
- AIR Media-Tech, Shorts RPM vs long-form, last updated September 16, 2026. 274 channels, 3,044 channel-months, 13 niches, data via the YouTube Analytics API. The per-niche RPM tables on that page are images, so we only quote the figures written in its text.
- Metricool, 2026 YouTube Study, August 6, 2026. 799,718 videos from 71,177 accounts, February 2025 vs February 2026.
- YouTube Help: partner earnings overview, Shorts revenue sharing, expanded YPP overview, mid-roll ad breaks, three-minute Shorts.
- Search Engine Journal, June 18, 2025, on the 200 billion daily Shorts views figure.
- TechCrunch, March 26, 2025, on the Shorts view counting change.
Limits: AIR's sample is channels that work with AIR, not a random sample of YouTube, and its within-channel results are correlations. Metricool's sample comes from accounts connected to its tool. Neither publishes confidence intervals.
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