YouTube sponsorship rate calculator

Price against the views you expect in the first 30 days, not your subscriber count. You get a negotiating range — floor, ask and premium — and every parameter says whether it comes from published data or from our own estimate.

What a sponsored video pays, by format

Worked for a channel averaging 25,000 views in the first 30 days, tech niche, mixed global audience, no exclusivity and no usage rights:

Where these numbers come from

Most sponsorship calculators give you a figure and no way to check it. We looked for a public source with a declared methodology that publishes YouTube sponsorship CPMs broken down by format, niche and audience country. It does not exist. So three of the parameters here are anchored to published data and the rest are our estimates, and the page says which is which next to each input rather than in a footnote.

Category exclusivity at about 10% of the base fee per 30 days, paid usage rights at about 20% per 30 days, and a dedicated video running roughly twice a mid-roll integration are anchored to Creators Agency's rate card, built on more than 4,000 negotiated deliverables between 2021 and July 2026. Read it with its bias in mind: roughly 75% finance and business channels and over 95% US campaigns, so it describes the well-paid corner of the market rather than the middle. The CPM levels themselves, and the niche and audience-country multipliers, are our own estimates — no published source breaks those down.

Frequently asked questions

How much should I charge for a sponsored YouTube video?

Price against the views the video is expected to get in its first 30 days, not against your subscriber count. A 60–90 second integration commonly sits somewhere around a $18–$35 CPM against those views, and a dedicated video roughly twice that. Multiply your expected views by the CPM and divide by 1,000. Everything after that — niche, audience country, exclusivity, usage rights — adjusts that starting number.

Should I price on subscribers or on views?

Views. Subscriber count measures the audience you accumulated in the past; expected views measure what the brand actually gets. A 300,000-subscriber channel averaging 8,000 views per video is worth less to an advertiser than a 40,000-subscriber channel averaging 60,000, and pricing on subscribers gets that backwards in both directions.

What CPM is normal for a YouTube sponsorship?

There is no authoritative published figure. The tables circulating online mostly trace back to a single page with no stated methodology, which other large sites then reproduce. The one dataset we found with a declared methodology is Creators Agency's, built on 4,000+ negotiated deliverables — but roughly 75% of it is finance and business channels and over 95% US campaigns, so it describes the well-paid corner rather than the middle. Treat any single number, including ours, as a starting position.

How much extra should I charge for category exclusivity?

Around 10% of the base fee for every 30 days of exclusivity is the figure Creators Agency reports across its negotiated deals, and it's the one parameter in this calculator that matches a published source exactly. Six months of exclusivity is therefore roughly a 60% uplift. Be specific in the contract about which category is locked: 'no competitors' is not a definition, and brands read it more broadly than creators do.

What are usage rights and how much are they worth?

Usage rights let the brand use your video beyond your own channel — reposting it, or running it as a paid ad, which is often called whitelisting. Creators Agency reports roughly 20% of the base fee per 30 days for paid usage. That's a recurring charge, not a one-off: perpetual rights are a different product from 30 days, and pricing them the same is the most expensive mistake in this list.

Does gifted product count as payment?

No. Gifted or loaned product covers the cost of making the video; it doesn't buy access to your audience. Its retail value is also not its value to you, since you can't spend it. If you accept product deals anyway, track what arrived, what it was worth and whether it has to go back — that liability is easy to lose and expensive to discover late.

Why does audience country change the price?

Advertisers bid differently by market, so the same view is worth different amounts depending on where the viewer is. A channel whose audience is mostly in the US, UK, Canada or Australia commands more per thousand views than one with a mostly Latin American audience, for the same content and the same engagement. Almost no rate guide accounts for this, which is why creators outside those markets are routinely quoted numbers that don't apply to them.

Is a sponsored Short worth less than a long-form integration?

Per view, yes, and by a wide margin. A Short's audience is largely non-subscribers passing through, and the format gives a brand far less room to explain anything. The compensation is volume: Shorts often reach many more people. Price them on the same CPM logic and the arithmetic works out on its own.

What if the brand says my rate is too high?

Ask what budget they're working with before you discount. A rate that's too high for one brand is a rounding error for another, and discounting on the first objection sets your ceiling for every future negotiation with them. If you do come down, take something out — shorter exclusivity, no usage rights, fewer revisions — rather than lowering the number for the same work.

Should I charge more for revisions and approvals?

Yes, and most creators don't. Brand-approved scripts, fixed publish dates and multiple revision rounds are work, and they're work with an open end unless you cap it. Two revision rounds included, extra rounds billed, is a normal term and worth writing down before you start.

How accurate is this calculator?

It gives you a defensible negotiating range, not a market price. Three of its parameters are anchored to published data and labelled as such; the CPM levels and the niche and geography multipliers are our own estimates, because no source with a stated methodology publishes those breakdowns. Your real rate depends on your track record with brands, the campaign's budget and how you negotiate — none of which a calculator can see.

Do I have to disclose a paid sponsorship?

Yes. Paid promotions must be disclosed, and YouTube provides a checkbox for it in the upload flow, in addition to whatever your local advertising rules require. Disclosure is not optional and not a negotiating point.

The four parameters in depth

• What to charge for category exclusivity — where the 10%-per-30-days figure comes from, and why the clause's scope costs more than the percentage.
• Rates by audience country — why a brand pays differently for the same view, and how to read your real split in Studio.
• Rates for finance channels — the best-paying niche, and the compliance work almost nobody bills for.
• What to charge for usage rights — why paid usage starts at 20% per 30 days, why the sources disagree, and why YouTube's brand partner access never expires on its own.

This calculator is also available in Spanish, with the figures in euros.