This changes what your views contribute to the pool before any split happens. It is the subtraction almost nobody accounts for.
Subject matter moves long-form earnings by a factor of roughly twenty. It is the single largest lever on this page.
Only views longer than 60 seconds, from the For You feed, in one of eight eligible countries, count at all. Duets and Stitches never do. The 37% default comes from a single creator reporting 1.8M views of which ~659K qualified — one data point, labelled as such.
Income tax. Editing software, stock footage, music licences, and any tool subscription. Platform payout minimums that hold your balance until you cross them. The videos that flopped, which cost the same hours and returned nothing. A real net figure is lower than anything on this page.
Why there's a range and not a number
YouTube publishes no official Shorts payout rate. Neither does TikTok. Every figure you have seen quoted to the cent was estimated by someone, usually someone selling software to creators, and the precision was decorative.
The ranges here are the honest span between independent estimates. Where the underlying mechanics are documented by the platform — the pool, the licensing haircut, the 45% split — this tool follows the documentation exactly. Where they aren't, it shows you the uncertainty rather than picking a flattering midpoint.
These ranges narrow as real payout data comes in. If you've been paid for views or for a brand deal, the anonymous rate register takes under a minute and returns where your rate sits against every submission so far. Aggregates are published free, permanently.