YouTube streamer Ludwig Ahgren revealed just how little money he made from a YouTube Shorts video that received 12 million views, compared to a similar clip video not using the shorts algorithm.
In January 2021, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki revealed YouTube Shorts in her annual letter to creators. Shorts was released as the companies attempt to compete with TikTok, which has dominated the internet with short-form video content.
Since then, creators around the world have gained popularity using the new Shorts platform, and existing established creators made entirely new channels for their fans to enjoy.
However, Ludwig decided to use his existing clips channel to upload videos into the website’s Shorts algorithm. Now, Ahgren has officially had a video reach over 10 million views and he has revealed just how much money he made from it.
Ludwig reveals how little he makes
After four years of uploading content on his various YouTube channels, Ludwig has revealed that he has had a video reach over 10 million views.
Ahgren detailed that shorts automatically make less money because they do not show ads. Instead, YouTube’s payments for shorts are more of a “homie move,” in which they just pay you an amount for getting a large number of views.
He said: “You can find your own video sponsors and do one-minute sponsored videos, but let’s ignore that and go just off of what the site pays you outright so we can figure out how much 12 million views gets you paid.
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“Take a guess. 100? 1000? 10,000? No. $85.02.”
The YouTuber went on to explain that while he’s not explicitly complaining about how much he makes from shorts, he does feel that it’s a bit of a bummer for his editors who get half of what is earned from the videos they edit.
To put the amount into perspective, Ludwig pulled up a 29-second video that is not using the YouTube shorts algorithm, has less editing, and is shorter, to reveal that he made over $1,700 on that upload.
Ahgren explained that he didn’t make the video as a “woe is me” type of upload, but instead, wanted to be transparent with his fans who may be looking into creating content on the platform in the future.