YouTube Shorts
YouTube Shorts are vertical-aspect-ratio (9:16) videos up to 60 seconds long, presented in a dedicated swipe-up feed inside the YouTube app and on the web. Shorts launched in 2020 and now drive over 70 billion daily views globally. They sit alongside long-form on the same channel — a creator can upload both formats from one account.
YouTube Shorts are vertical videos up to 60 seconds long, played in a swipeable full-screen feed — YouTube's answer to TikTok and Instagram Reels.
Why YouTube Shorts matters for YouTube creators
Shorts are the fastest discovery surface on YouTube. A single hit Short can take a brand-new channel from 0 to 100,000 subscribers in a week, something almost impossible on long-form alone. The trade-off is monetization: Shorts pay through a separate ad pool with structurally lower RPMs ($0.05-0.30) than long-form ($3-8). Most creators use Shorts as a top-of-funnel tool — high-volume distribution to expose new audiences, who then convert to long-form viewers and ultimately to higher-RPM consumption. Shorts also have their own qualification path into YPP (10M Shorts views in 90 days), making them the fastest path to monetization for new channels.
YouTube Shorts in practice
A finance creator publishes 3 long-form videos per month plus 5 Shorts per week. Shorts drive 80% of new subscribers; long-form drives 70% of revenue.
An entirely Shorts-first channel hits 100M monthly views, qualifies for YPP via the 10M-Shorts path, and earns roughly $4,500/month from the Shorts ad pool.
See YouTube Shorts on real channels
FameLifter pulls public youtube shorts data for 500K+ YouTube channels — refreshed hourly via the official YouTube Data API v3.