vincentcouey/youtube-cpm-by-niche-2026

LensPOV 2026 YouTube CPM Reality by Niche

Aggregated YouTube advertiser CPM and creator RPM ranges across 30 content niches, compiled from named-creator income disclosures, transparency reports, and industry-published rate cards. Confidence intervals are 10th and 90th percentile across the underlying disclosure set.

• —License: CC-BY 4.0
• —DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20632745
• —Source study: https://lenspov.com/research/youtube-cpm-by-niche-2026/
• —Author: Vincent Wesley Couey (ORCID 0009-0005-6869-308X) · published via LensPOV (lenspov.com), part of the Lattice research network.

What's in it

Files: data.json. Main table niches (30 rows): niche, label, cpm_low, cpm_median, cpm_high, rpm_equivalent, sample_size, q4_multiplier, top_sources, last_verified_date.

Method

Each niche range aggregates N>=3 named creator disclosures or industry-published CPM rate cards. CPM is the gross advertiser-paid cost per 1,000 ad impressions in USD before YouTube's 45 percent revenue share. RPM equivalent applies the standard 55 percent creator share to the median CPM. cpmlow is the 10th percentile of disclosed CPMs in the niche; cpmhigh is the 90th. Q4 multiplier is the observed seasonal lift in the same niche when comparing Q4 (Oct-Dec) to Q2 (Apr-Jun) disclosures. Foreign currency disclosures normalized to USD at quarterly average ECB rates. Ranges describe the typical English-language US/Canada/UK/AU audience composition; creators with majority Tier 3 audience geography (India, Brazil, Indonesia) are excluded from the niche aggregation.

Citation

Couey, V. W. (2026). LensPOV 2026 YouTube CPM Reality by Niche [Data set]. LensPOV. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20632745

CC-BY 4.0 — free to use with attribution. Dated snapshot; verify current values before relying on them.