YouTube Long Form vs Shorts Earnings Comparison 2026: Which Pays More?

Here is the direct comparison for US-audience content in 2026. Long-form RPM by niche: Finance/investing: $15-$40. Business/B2B: $10-$30. Technology: $8-$20. Health/wellness: $6-$15. Gaming: $2-$6. Entertainment: $1-$5. Shorts RPM regardless of niche: $0.03-$0.08. This means a finance creator earns 200-500x more per 1,000 views from a long-form video than from Shorts. Even a gaming creator earns 25-75x more per 1,000 long-form views than Shorts views. The gap is not close — long-form wins on per-view revenue by a massive margin in every niche.

Despite lower RPM, Shorts serve critical functions: subscriber growth (Shorts can grow a channel 5-10x faster than long-form in some niches), audience discovery (Shorts introduce your channel to viewers who would never find you via search), and supplemental income at scale (10M Shorts views/month adds $300-$800 to your total earnings). The strategic framework: use Shorts aggressively to grow subscribers, then convert those subscribers to long-form watchers who earn you 10-100x more per view. A channel with 100K subscribers watching 10-minute finance videos earns dramatically more than a 100K-subscriber channel that only posts Shorts.

Scenario A — Shorts Only Creator: 1M Shorts views/month, US audience, $0.05 RPM = $50/month from revenue share. Scenario B — Long-Form Only Creator (Finance Niche): 100,000 long-form views/month, $20 RPM = $2,000/month. Scenario C — Hybrid Creator: 500,000 Shorts views/month growing channel + 50,000 long-form views/month = $25 Shorts revenue + $1,000 long-form revenue = $1,025/month total, with Shorts driving subscriber growth that increases long-form views over time. The hybrid model consistently outperforms either format alone in both income and growth trajectory.

The optimal content mix for most YouTube creators in 2026: 1 long-form video (8-15 minutes) per week for primary ad revenue — this is your income engine. 5-7 Shorts per week repurposed from long-form content for subscriber growth — each Short can take under 10 minutes to produce using FluxNote. Monthly long-form should accumulate 4-8 videos building topical authority in your niche, increasing search rankings and evergreen ad revenue. This ratio maximizes per-view earnings from long-form while using Shorts to continuously expand your audience. FluxNote's AI generation makes producing both formats from a single long-form idea practical for solo creators.