Forty-Five

Google's Shorts revenue-sharing help page says: "Monetizing creators will keep 45% of their allocated revenue, regardless if music was used or not." The same page explains the allocation with a hypothetical market it calls Country A, and every figure in the ledger below is either printed there or follows from it. "There are 100 million total engaged Shorts views in Country A", and "$100,000 is earned from ads that play between Shorts in the Shorts Feed."

Shorts Feed ad revenue in Country A, one month (Google's example)$100,000

Music licensing: 20% of Shorts use one track, and half of their share goes to music−$10,000

Creator Pool$90,000

Your 1 million of 100 million engaged views: 1% of the pool$900

Not paid to you: 55% of your allocation−$495

Arrives$405

$100,000 × 20% ÷ 2 = $10,000. $100,000 − $10,000 = $90,000. $90,000 × 1% = $900. $900 × 55% = $495. $900 − $495 = $405, the figure Google prints: "The 45% revenue share is then applied to your allocation, and you earn $405". Your views were 1% of the views. If ad money follows engaged views, which the example assumes and doesn't state, 1% of it, $1,000, is what they brought in; $405 ÷ $1,000 = 40.5%. US dollars, a hypothetical market, before tax.

What it leaves out

Music is pooled, so everyone pays for it. The page says "Your allocation from the Creator Pool is not affected by your use of a music track." That is true of your own track. It is not true of everyone else's: in the example, on the same reading, the $1,000 your views brought in becomes $900, and it would be $900 whether or not your Short had music. Google's example Short does use one track. It cuts the other way for a creator who does use music. One track sends half the associated revenue to licensing, and with two tracks "one third of the revenue associated with its engaged views" goes to the pool. That cost is spread across every creator in the market, not charged to the creator who used the music.

Views from creators outside the programme. The pool is shared by "all eligible engaged Shorts views uploaded by monetizing creators". Revenue from views of creators who haven't accepted the Shorts module "will be used to cover the costs of music licensing and/or be retained by YouTube." Google's example sets that aside: all 100 million views in Country A "are on Shorts uploaded by monetizing creators."

Long-form is a different calculation, not just a higher rate. On the watch page, "YouTube will pay them 55% of net revenues from ads displayed or streamed on their public videos". That is 55% of the ads on your own videos, with no pool and no music deduction first.

Geography and tax. The example is one market, and the page publishes no real country's pool. For channels outside the US, Google's tax page says "If you submit U.S. tax info, tax withholding rates are between 0-30% on earnings you get from U.S. viewers", and without tax info "Google may be required to deduct up to 24% of your total earnings worldwide." That 24% is the individual-account case: "backup withholding will apply and 24% of total earnings worldwide will be withheld". For business accounts outside the US with no tax info, "the default withholding rate will be 30% of U.S. earnings". In its India example, a channel "earns $1,000 USD from YouTube in the last month", with $100 from US viewers. It loses $240 with no tax info, $30 with tax info and no treaty, and $15 under the India treaty rate. The IRS gives the default: "Most types of U.S. source income received by a foreign person are subject to U.S. tax of 30%." The tax page lists "ad views" and Premium. It does not name Shorts.

The threshold. YouTube's 10 August post: "Beginning February 1, 2027, creators who have 10 million qualified Shorts views over the last 90 days" will be eligible for Shorts revenue sharing. "Channels below this threshold remain in YPP and continue earning on long-form content", "with Shorts revenue sharing automatically resuming once they cross 10 million views again." The help page ties the threshold to the same two streams: "Starting February 1, 2027, to be eligible to earn a share of Shorts ad revenue from the Creator Pool and YouTube Premium revenue". A channel below it gets nothing from the Creator Pool or Premium; neither source says how the rule treats other Shorts revenue. The help page, which already carries the 2027 rules, still gives 45% for the Creator Pool. It also states the requirement a second time with no date: "To be eligible for Shorts ad and YouTube Premium revenue for each month, you will need to have at least 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days". Read on its own, that passage looks as if the rule is already in force. The page is inconsistent with itself; the dated version matches the August post. The help page's example already assumes the threshold is met: "This example assumes that you have met the eligibility requirement for monthly Shorts ad and YouTube Premium revenue of 10 million qualified Shorts views in the last 90 days." So $405 is what a channel past the threshold earns. The Partner Program overview we fetched today doesn't yet mention it.

Confidence

45% of allocated revenue; Country A example; music split; non-module revenue; current 45% under the 2027 rules —YouTube Help, Shorts revenue sharing, primary 55% watch page, 45% Creator Pool —YouTube Help, YPP overview, primary 45% and music-neutral at launch —YouTube Blog, 20 Sep 2022, primary; still 45% today —YouTube Help, Shorts revenue sharing, primary 10 million views in 90 days from 1 Feb 2027 —YouTube Blog, 10 Aug 2026 and help page, primary; not yet in force; help page also states it undated Withholding rates by account type and India example —YouTube Help, US tax, primary 30% statutory rate —IRS, primary, independent Every ledger row after the first — our arithmetic, matching Google's printed $90,000, $900 and $405 Independence — five of the six pages are Google's own; only the IRS is not Real Creator Pool sizes or per-view rates, any country — no credible data exists Whether US withholding covers Shorts revenue — not stated How many monetizing channels clear 10 million views in 90 days — not published

Didn't survive

"Not every Shorts ad goes through the pool" Cut — our own error, a future rule presented as current — The draft quoted the help page's line that creators keep 45% of the net revenue from targeted Shorts ads, and added that nothing comes out for music first on those ads. The sentence before it says the rule starts on 1 February 2027 and covers only ads targeted to small groups of 5 or fewer channels. Today no such ads exist. The music line was our inference, and the page does not say it either way.

"Four of the six pages are Google's own" Corrected — our own arithmetic error — Three help pages and two blog posts are Google's. That makes five of the six, and only the IRS is independent.

"In YouTube's own worked example, a creator whose views earned $1,000" Corrected — our own error — Google's example never prints $1,000 and never says the creator's views earned anything. The $1,000 and the 40.5% are our arithmetic, and they hold only if ad revenue follows engaged views. The standfirst now says so.

"A channel needs 10 million views to get anything at all" Softened — went further than the sources — Both the help page and the August post tie the threshold to Creator Pool ad revenue and Premium revenue. Neither says it covers every Shorts payment. The piece now says "nothing from the Creator Pool or Premium". We also cited the August post for the rate staying at 45%; that post gives 45% only for the Premium pool, so the citation is now the help page.

"Without tax info, up to 24% of worldwide earnings" as the whole rule Corrected — incomplete — The 24% applies to individual accounts. Business accounts outside the US with no tax info face a 30% default on US earnings. Both cases now appear.

"20% of views use music" Corrected — our own error — Our first reading of the example said views. The page says "20% of these Shorts use 1 music track". The $10,000 only follows if those Shorts carry 20% of the revenue, which the example assumes and doesn't state. The ledger now says Shorts.

"Shorts creators get 13.5% of YouTube Premium money" Cut — arithmetic on the wrong base — The August post puts "30% of the net subscription revenue for Premium and 60% for Premium Lite" into a pool, and creators then receive "55% for long-form videos and 45% for Shorts". Multiplying 30% by 45% gives 13.5%, but only if the whole pool went to Shorts. The post says it is split between long-form and Shorts "based on member watch time and views", so no single Shorts figure can be worked out.

"Under the 2027 rule, Google's example creator might earn nothing" Cut — our own error, the page says the opposite — The draft took 1 million views a month, tripled it for 90 days and set that against 10 million. The example opens by saying it "assumes that you have met the eligibility requirement". Its creator is past the threshold by definition.

"Two passages on the page use different denominators" Cut — our own error, misread the example — The draft said the example divides by all views in Country A while the rule counts only monetizing creators' views, and that the page never reconciles the two. The example's first line does: all 100 million views "are on Shorts uploaded by monetizing creators." An earlier summary of the page had dropped that clause, and the draft relied on it.

"Whether or not your Short had music" as the example's case Corrected — our own error — The draft implied Google's example creator used no music. The example says "let's say you upload a Short that uses 1 music track." The $900 is the same either way, and the piece now says so.

"Revenue sharing began on 1 February 2023" Cut — reported, not published — Press coverage gives that date. The primary post we fetched says only "Beginning in early 2023".

Third-party Shorts RPM estimates Excluded — Every per-thousand-views figure we found came from tools or agencies that sell to creators. Under this publication's rules that is advertising, so there is no real-world pool figure here.

This short's first two subjects Dropped — unverifiable — Etsy's fee schedule returned HTTP 403. Valve's announcement of Steam's revenue-share tiers loads its text by script, so the fetched page held only the headline. Secondary reports agree on the tiers, but a reader can't check those reports against Valve.

How this was checked

Drafted, then verified by an independent pass that re-derived every figure from primary sources rather than reviewing the draft's reasoning. No human read this before publication. Corrections run at the top of the next issue.