The real answer varies wildly depending on where those views come from, what topic they're about, and which platform they're on. Here are the actual numbers.
The range is that wide because "100,000 views" can mean completely different things depending on context. 100,000 views of a finance tutorial from US viewers in Q4 (when ad budgets peak) is a completely different proposition from 100,000 views of a gaming video from viewers in Southeast Asia in January. Google's ad revenue system responds to advertiser demand — and that demand varies enormously by topic, audience, and timing.
The metric that determines how much you earn per view is called RPM — revenue per thousand views or pageviews. A $3 RPM means you earn $3 for every 1,000 views, so 100,000 views would earn $300. A $15 RPM means the same 100,000 views earns $1,500. Understanding RPM is the key to understanding why identical view counts can produce very different earnings.
Advertisers pay more to reach certain audiences than others. Someone searching for mortgage rates is worth more to an advertiser than someone watching cat videos — because that person is closer to making an expensive financial decision. The more valuable your audience is to advertisers, the higher your RPM.
| Niche | Typical YouTube RPM | Typical Website RPM |
|---|---|---|
| Finance / investing | $12 — $40 | $10 — $30 |
| Business / entrepreneurship | $8 — $25 | $8 — $20 |
| Technology / software | $6 — $18 | $5 — $15 |
| Health & fitness | $4 — $12 | $4 — $12 |
| Food & recipes | $2 — $6 | $2 — $8 |
| Travel | $2 — $8 | $3 — $10 |
| Gaming | $1 — $4 | $1 — $3 |
| Entertainment / memes | $0.50 — $2 | $0.50 — $2 |
US, UK, Canadian, and Australian viewers generate dramatically higher RPMs than viewers from most other countries. A US viewer watching a finance video might be worth $0.05 to an advertiser. The same video watched by someone in India might be worth $0.002. This is why "100,000 views" from a US audience can be worth 10-20x more than the same view count from a global audience with heavy traffic from lower-income countries.
Advertising spend follows predictable patterns. Q4 (October-December) is consistently the highest-earning period because companies dump their annual marketing budgets before year-end. January is notoriously the lowest-earning month as budgets reset. The same content can earn 2-3x more per view in November than in January just based on ad market timing.
If you're considering buying a website or YouTube channel that's already monetized through Google, understanding RPM helps you evaluate whether the stated revenue is realistic given the niche and audience. A gaming channel claiming $5 RPM is suspicious — gaming typically runs $1-4. A finance website claiming $2 RPM is leaving money on the table compared to industry norms of $10-30 in that niche.
It also helps you project what a site or channel could earn after you buy it. If the current owner has 50,000 monthly visitors earning $150/month ($3 RPM) but the niche is personal finance (where $10-15 RPM is normal), there's a clear opportunity to improve monetization through a better ad network — potentially tripling revenue without adding a single new visitor.
For website owners, moving up the ad network ladder is the highest-leverage move: AdSense ($1-5 RPM) → Ezoic ($2-8 RPM) → Mediavine ($10-25 RPM) → Raptive/AdThrive ($15-30 RPM). Each step up requires meeting traffic minimums, but the RPM improvement can be dramatic. A site earning $200/month on AdSense at 50,000 pageviews could potentially earn $600-800/month on Mediavine at the same traffic level.
For YouTube creators, the levers are niche selection (moving toward higher-RPM topics), audience development (growing the percentage of US/UK viewers), and consistent publishing (which keeps videos in the recommendation algorithm, where most views actually come from).
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