"How many views to monetize YouTube Shorts" gets searched constantly, but the honest answer depends on which of two separate monetization tiers a creator is asking about — and most guides only explain one of them clearly.
YouTube Shorts monetization requirements 2026, both tiers
Tier 1 (Fan Funding — Super Thanks, memberships, no ad revenue) requires 500+ subscribers, 3+ public uploads in the last 90 days, plus either 3 million Shorts views (90 days) or 3,000 watch hours (12 months). Tier 2 (Full YPP — ad revenue sharing, Shorts feed ads) requires 1,000+ subscribers plus either 10 million Shorts views (90 days) or 4,000 watch hours (12 months). Both also require no active Community Guidelines strikes, residence in an eligible country, and 2-Step Verification enabled; Tier 2 additionally requires a linked AdSense account.
How many views to monetize YouTube Shorts, the OR that surprises people
Both tiers accept either the Shorts-views path or the long-form watch-hours path — a channel can qualify purely on Shorts performance with zero long-form watch hours, or the reverse. A creator with 4 million Shorts views in the last 90 days already clears Tier 1's 3-million threshold even with 500 watch hours of long-form video, well short of Tier 1's 3,000-hour alternative.
YouTube Shorts RPM calculator, why big view counts still pay modestly
Shorts revenue is pooled monthly and split across the entire Shorts feed rather than paid per view directly, and typical Shorts RPM (revenue per 1,000 views) runs around $0.01-$0.07 — compared to $2-$12 per 1,000 views for long-form video. On 12 million Shorts views in 90 days (about 4 million views/month), that works out to roughly $40-$280 a month — a real number, but a fraction of what the same view count would earn as long-form watch time.