Guide · Money
YouTube RPM by niche in 2026: what's measured and what's recycled
Every "highest RPM niches" list says history earns $5–12 and finance $15–45. Almost none of those numbers were measured. Here's the data that does exist, what it means for documentary, true-crime, horror and sleep channels, and our own numbers from 288 faceless long-form channels.
Updated October 20, 2026 · Sources at the end
Short answer. The largest measured dataset we could find (about 300 monetized channels, May 2025 to May 2026) puts the median RPM across niches at about $2.30, and education and science channels at about $10. Nobody has published measured RPM for history, true crime, horror or sleep. Plan with a range of roughly $3–8 for a well-made, US-heavy documentary channel, and check your own Studio numbers before trusting anyone's table.
1. RPM vs CPM, in YouTube's words
CPM is "the cost per 1000 ad impressions before YouTube revenue share", counted only on views that showed an ad. RPM is "total revenue (after YouTube's revenue share) per 1000 views", counted on every view, including those with no ad, and including Premium, memberships and Super Chat. YouTube says RPM is "typically lower than CPM".
That gap is where most bad numbers come from. Long-form creators keep 55% of ad revenue, and not every view shows an ad, so a niche with a $15 CPM can easily have a $5 RPM. When a blog lists "finance: $15–45 RPM", it is very often a CPM range relabelled.
2. The measured data that exists
AIR Media-Tech, a YouTube network (so not a neutral party), published medians from verified Studio data: 300 channels and 3,595 channel-months between May 2025 and May 2026.
| Niche | Median RPM | Middle half of channels |
|---|---|---|
| Education & science | $10.22 | $2.31–19.50 |
| Entertainment | $2.43 | $0.88–5.02 |
| Gadgets & tech | $2.33 | $0.70–3.71 |
| Gaming | $2.05 | — |
| Business & finance (under 10 channels) | $2.01 | $0.73–5.17 |
| Kids | $0.33 | — |
| All niches | ~$2.30 |
Two findings matter more than the niche labels. The median channel showed ads on only about half its views (tech: about a third), which is why a healthy CPM turns into a small RPM. And seasonality is large: the pooled median was lowest in January and highest in November, about a third apart.
History, true crime, horror and sleep aren't broken out. A history channel that plays like an education channel can plausibly earn like one; a channel that plays like entertainment probably earns like that. The table above has a four-fold gap between the two.
3. Realistic ranges for documentary niches
These are planning ranges for long-form channels with a mostly US, UK, Canada or Australia audience. Confidence is low because no one has measured these niches; we've put the reasoning next to each.
| Niche | Planning range | Why |
|---|---|---|
| History / documentary | $4–10 | Closest to education when the tone is explanatory |
| True crime | $4–10 | Advertisers accept crime documentaries; graphic detail cuts ads |
| Mystery / unsolved | $3–9 | Similar audience to true crime, less news-sensitive |
| Dark history | $3–9 | Depends on how graphic the telling is |
| Mythology, biographies | $3–9 | Educational tone, brand-safe |
| Disasters | $3–8 | Tragedy coverage often gets limited ads |
| Horror / folklore | $2–8 | Brand-safety drag; shock-driven content may not be monetized at all |
| Sleep stories / sleep history | $2–8 | Long runtime, many ad slots, but sleeping viewers and unclear ad behaviour |
Within any niche, three things move RPM more than the label:
- Where viewers are. AIR's 2025 country data put US CPM around $14.70 and India around $0.74. A 70% US channel and a 20% US channel in the same niche are different businesses.
- How you tell dark stories. YouTube's advertiser guidelines give "documentaries about crime" full ads, but "a documentary on a recent homicide featuring descriptive language of the circumstances of death" gets limited ads, as does graphic violence in the thumbnail or first seven seconds. The same case can earn half as much depending on the script. (More on the rules.)
- Video length. Mid-roll ads are only available on videos of 8 minutes or more. More ad slots plausibly mean more revenue per view, but we found no measured data on how much, so ignore any precise "+30%" claims.
4. Shorts RPM is a different business
Shorts revenue is pooled and shared by engaged views, and creators keep 45%. AIR's study of 274 channels found Shorts RPM clustered around $0.07–0.20, roughly 3–14% of the same channels' long-form RPM: it took 11,000–26,000 Shorts views to match 1,000 long-form views. From February 2027, Shorts ad revenue also requires 10 million Shorts views in 90 days. For a faceless documentary channel, long-form is where the money is.
5. Our data: 288 active faceless long-form channels
In October 2026 we looked at 288 English-language channels in documentary niches that had uploaded in the last 45 days and whose recent videos ran 8 minutes or longer (median). We don't know their RPM, but views and runtime tell you how much each video has to earn from.
| Niche | Channels | Median subscribers | Median views per recent video | Median video length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dark history | 33 | 305,000 | 79,500 | 29 min |
| Disasters | 9 | 46,800 | 36,000 | 46 min |
| Mystery / unsolved | 30 | 180,000 | 24,250 | 36 min |
| True crime | 53 | 145,000 | 17,000 | 31 min |
| Ancient history | 30 | 222,000 | 16,250 | 33 min |
| Sleep mythology | 17 | 145,000 | 12,500 | 42 min |
| Biographies | 30 | 169,500 | 10,200 | 24 min |
| Horror / folklore | 45 | 80,400 | 8,800 | 40 min |
| Sleep history | 41 | 47,300 | 7,400 | 129 min |
Method: public channel pages, each channel's 12 most recent videos, collected October 12, 2026. Channels found through YouTube search for about 80 niche keywords, filtered to 8,000–1.5 million subscribers. Views are lifetime views at collection time, so the newest videos are undercounted.
What it shows. Long is normal: the median video in every niche runs 24 minutes or more, and sleep history over two hours, well past the 8-minute mid-roll line. The typical video in these niches gets tens of thousands of views, not millions; at a $5 RPM, a 17,000-view true-crime episode earns about $85, and a 7,400-view sleep video about $37. That's the budget each episode has to be made within, which is why production cost per minute matters so much in this business.
6. How to find your real number
- In YouTube Studio, open Analytics → Revenue and read RPM over the last 365 days, not the last 28, to average out the January dip and the November peak.
- Check Audience → Top geographies. If your US share moves, your RPM will follow.
- Compare RPM on your calm, explanatory episodes against your most graphic ones. If the graphic ones earn less per view, that's limited ads, and it's fixable in the script.
- If you're estimating a niche you don't run yet, use a range, not a number, and assume the low end for the first six months.
Numbers we'd avoid quoting
- Niche RPM tables with no sample size or method, especially ones that repeat "$5–12 history" word for word across sites.
- "Finance $15–45 RPM": usually CPM.
- Earnings claims from channel sale listings: seller-reported and unaudited, useful as a sanity check at most.
Where we fit. Wick & Reel makes long-form documentaries and sleep films for faceless channels. If a typical episode in your niche earns $40–100, the film has to cost well under that and still be good enough to hold viewers. Watch our full sample films and see what a minute costs.
Sources
- YouTube Help, Revenue metrics: RPM vs CPM
- YouTube Help, Manage mid-roll ad breaks
- YouTube Help, Shorts monetization policies
- YouTube Help, Advertiser-friendly content guidelines
- AIR Media-Tech, How much does YouTube really pay in 2026 (July 2026)
- AIR Media-Tech, Shorts RPM vs long-form (September 2026)
- AIR Media-Tech, YouTube monetization statistics
- OutlierKit, YouTube RPM benchmarks (on the absence of measured niche data)