YouTube Says It Pays $3 for Every 1,000 Plays

photograph: Paul Domenick (CC 2.0)

Is YouTube seriously paying $iii for every 1,000 views?  Or is that just another 'culling fact'?

How much does YouTube actually pay?  Welcome to the million-dollar question for musicians, studios, and rights owners everywhere.  Or, shall we say, the million micro-penny question.

Just last week, a crack of clarity seemed to poke through the frustrating fog.  Lyor Cohen, YouTube's Global Head of Music, finally wrote a concrete number down for the world to meet.  Here'south what Cohen wrote terminal calendar week in a broader weblog espousing YouTube's beneficial office for the music industry:

"Artists and songwriters demand to truly sympathise what they're making on different platforms. Information technology's non enough for YouTube to say that it's paid over $i billion to the manufacture from ads. We (the labels, publishers and YouTube) must shine a low-cal on artist royalties, evidence them how much they make from ads compared to subscriptions past geography and run into how high their acquirement is in the U.S. and compared to other services.

"For instance, critics complain YouTube isn't paying enough money for advert-supported streams compared to Spotify or Pandora.  I was ane of them!  And then I got here and looked at the numbers myself.

"At over $iii per thousand streams in the U.Due south., YouTube is paying out more than other ad supported services."

Earlier, YouTube executive Robert Kyncl has flat-out refused to offering any physical payout figures.  Instead, Kyncl leaned on a vaguely-gigantic sounding '$1 billion', which the executive claims YouTube had paid content owners over the past 12 months.  "In fact, in the last 12 months, YouTube has paid out over $1 billion to the music industry from advertising alone, demonstrating that multiple experiences and models are succeeding alongside each other," Kyncl stated in December of 2016.

Cohen also tossed around the 'billion' figure as well, multiple times, and for practiced reason.  It simply sounds so damn large, while enervating so piddling detail.  "YouTube's ads hustle has already brought over a billion dollars in 12 months to the industry and it's growing chop-chop," Cohen parroted, with a sprinkle of street slang tossed in.

+ How to Destroy YouTube & Save the Music Manufacture

All of which makes this more concrete number a breakthrough.  Except: is anyone actually getting paid that handsome $iii payout?

Definitely non this artist, who kindly shared his YouTube royalty statements with Digital Music News before this year.

Here's what this musician made afterward crossing one one thousand thousand views (which equals i,000 x 1,000):

That's correct: $64.sixty for 1,048,893 views.

Doing the math, that'south roughly six.1 cents per i,000 streams.  Or, approximately 1/50th the claimed $3 per 1,000 spins figure from Cohen.

Surely, there must exist an mistake?  We asked the artist, who opted to remain confidential, and he informed us that all of these plays were ContentID enabled.  Moreover, the figure was largely in line with the previous year's figures.  "Last year was about one-half a million views at $27," he said.

And so this isn't an aberration or some calculation error.  It's a consistent average for an artist earning ContentID-enabled, high-date views:

Perhaps in that location's another caption?

Nosotros're non experts in YouTube payouts (though we know some people who are).  But these actual figures seem so wildly off the $iii-per-1,000 mark, they raise questions over who — if anyone — is getting paid that much.  Indeed, at $iii-per-i,000 views, a content creator with 1 million monetized views would earn $iii,000.

A video with ten meg views (not uncommon) would earn $30,000.  Not bad!

USA vs. 'Developing Nations'

There is 1 detail worth mentioning here.  In his post, Cohen specifically noted that the $3-per-ane,000 views figure was for United states-only views.  'Developing nations,' on the other mitt, earn far less.  Later on quoting the bombshell $3 payout figure, Cohen hedged as follows:

"Why doesn't anyone know [the $three-per-1,000 views royalty figure]? Considering YouTube is global and the numbers get diluted by lower contributions in developing markets. Only they're working the ads hustle like crazy so payouts can ramp up rapidly all around the world. If they can practice that, this industry could double in the next few years."

That said, the explanation leaves out anybody in-between.  For example, Norway is by no means a 'developing nation'. But per capita, Norway is far richer than the US.  So what does an creative person earn from i,000 views in Norway?

But we tin say this: across the lath, Usa-based advertising fetches a far higher premium online.  Nosotros know this at Digital Music News but by looking at our ad payouts.  It's not a secret in the advertising world, by whatsoever means.

The question is whether YouTube's 'ad hustle' can fundamentally tilt the disparity between developing nation payouts and US-based payouts.

And, whether that US-based payout figure is actually real.