RPM means revenue per mille, the amount a creator actually earns per 1,000 views across all income on a video. Calculate it as total revenue divided by total views, times 1,000. Unlike CPM, RPM is after the platform cut and reflects real take-home.
I keep seeing RPM in my YouTube dashboard and mixing it up with CPM. What is RPM and how is it calculated?
RPM is your take-home per thousand views, CPM is what the advertiser pays before cuts. People mix them up constantly but RPM is the honest one for a creator.
RPM stands for revenue per mille, mille being Latin for thousand, so it is what you actually earn per 1,000 views. The formula is simple: take your total revenue over a period, divide by your total views, then multiply by 1,000. If you made 60 dollars from 30,000 views, that is 60 divided by 30,000 times 1,000, which is a 2 dollar RPM.
The key difference from CPM is whose money it measures. CPM, cost per mille, is what advertisers pay per 1,000 ad impressions, before the platform takes its share. RPM is your number, after the platform cut and across all revenue sources on the video, ads, memberships, the lot. RPM is always lower than CPM and it is the one that reflects your real take-home.
RPM also reminds you why platform income alone is thin. Even a healthy RPM means a lot of views for modest money, which is why brand deals, paid at a flat fee rather than per view, are where many creators earn most. Flinque is where brands find creators for exactly those deals.
Total revenue over total views, times a thousand. Include everything, not just ads, if you want your true RPM rather than the ad-only slice.
Do not get attached to a single RPM. It swings with season, niche and audience country, so look at the trend rather than one month.