# What it takes to earn $1k, $2.5k, $5k and $10k from one video

Cohort study of **1,138 videos** across three channels, on **real YouTube Studio revenue** from Tim's own exports. 958 transcripts pulled and filed by earnings level.

| Channel | Videos | Lifetime views | Lifetime revenue | Channel RPM | Best single video |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [The Art Of War](https://youtube.com/@theartofwarrr) | 499 | 4,096,832,896 | $288,792 | **$0.0705** | $8,617 |
| [Wholesome Wendy](https://youtube.com/@Wholesomewendy) | 341 | 2,776,121,933 | $276,591 | **$0.0996** | **$11,194** |
| [Zeck Felms](https://youtube.com/@ZeckFelms) | 298 | 982,455,599 | $96,052 | **$0.0978** | $8,858 |

Channel lifetime totals: **7,855,410,428 views → $661,435.** The 1,138 individually analysed videos account for 7,813,196,679 views and **$657,891** of that; the gap is uploads under 1,000 views, excluded as noise.

The brief said $0.80 RPM. The real number is **$0.07 to $0.10** - roughly one tenth of that. The "12M views for $1,000" figure in the brief was the correct one.

---

## 1. Tim's four levels, counted for real

At the measured shorts RPM of **$0.0848**:

| Level | Views needed as a short | Videos that ever did it | of 1,121 shorts |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | 11.8M | **154** | 13.7% |
| $2,500 | 29.5M | **52** | 4.6% |
| $5,000 | 59.0M | **15** | 1.3% |
| **$10,000** | **117.9M** | **1** | **0.09%** |

One video in the entire combined history of three channels with 7.86 billion views has ever earned $10,000 from a single upload.

### The only $10,000 short ever made

**[Best Brother Ever ❤️](https://youtube.com/shorts/LZE99OP7yD0)** - Wholesome Wendy, 18 Oct 2025
`$11,194.03` · 119,194,242 views · 24 seconds · 55.9% retention · 7.34% CTR · **175,791 subscribers gained** (1,475 per million views, 4x the channel norm)

> "The dog charged at the girl in her backyard, ready to attack. But just before it did, her brother came running. He jumped in front of her, fighting it off as his sister ran to safety. By the time help arrived, the dog was biting the boy's face. Now, they managed to get it off him, and he was rushed to the hospital. But when his dad asked why he jumped in front of her, he said, *'If somebody had to die, I'd rather it be me.'*"

Note what it is not: no question, no "you", no explainer, no twist ending. A child in mortal danger by second two, a rescuer who pays with his face, and a closing line of dialogue. 92 words in 24 seconds - the fastest script on the channel by a wide margin (channel median is 86 words in 26 seconds).

---

## 2. The finding that actually answers Tim's question

**RPM is not a constant. It is a function of video length, and the jump is enormous.**

| Format | Videos | Median RPM | Views needed for $10,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shorts (≤60s) | 1,121 | **$0.0848** | **117.9M** |
| Long-form (>60s) | 17 | **$1.6501** | **6.06M** |

**19.5x.** Same three channels, same audiences, same creators, same month.

Every long-form video on these channels, ranked by RPM:

| RPM | Revenue | Views | Length | Channel | Title |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $7.23 | $89 | 12,319 | 12m18s | Wendy | The Most Wholesome Videos Of May COMPILATION |
| $5.15 | $710 | 138,021 | 30m16s | Zeck | Ranking Top 100 Zeck Felms Videos |
| $2.22 | $49 | 21,937 | 8m17s | Zeck | "How To Win" Best Videos Compilation |
| $2.21 | $332 | 150,207 | 1m54s | Zeck | Spiderman: The Wrong Day (Trailer) |
| $2.16 | $869 | 402,173 | 1m12s | Zeck | How to Make a 9mm Sandwich |
| $1.75 | $985 | 564,285 | 1m22s | Zeck | How CaseOh Works |
| $1.72 | $256 | 148,402 | 2m21s | Zeck | TOP 20 Fastest Animals on Earth |
| $1.70 | $300 | 177,010 | 5m22s | Zeck | How Zeck Felms Was Born |
| $1.65 | $281 | 170,415 | 2m20s | Zeck | Every Way to (NOT) Use a German Sticky Grenade |
| $1.58 | $394 | 249,327 | 1m14s | Zeck | EXPOSING that Mr. Beast is NOT Human |
| $1.42 | $141 | 99,355 | 1m05s | Zeck | Who is The Fastest Celebrity? |
| $1.38 | $156 | 112,474 | 1m34s | Zeck | Iran Vs United States |
| $1.37 | **$2,598** | 1,903,320 | 1m15s | Zeck | **How iShowSpeed Works** |
| $1.34 | $373 | 277,434 | 6m35s | Zeck | Guess Who's Back |
| $1.32 | $897 | 681,759 | 1m29s | Zeck | How KSI Works |

The cleanest comparison in the whole dataset, both on Zeck's channel:

- **How iShowSpeed Works** - 1m15s, 1.9M views → **$2,598**
- To earn $2,598 from shorts, Zeck needs **28M views**. He has published 283 shorts and only **four** of them ever reached 28M.

One 75-second video at 1.9 million views out-earned 279 of his 283 shorts.

### What the four levels cost in each format

| Target | As a short | As long-form |
|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | 11.8M views | **0.61M views** |
| $2,500 | 29.5M | **1.52M** |
| $5,000 | 59.0M | **3.03M** |
| $10,000 | 117.9M | **6.06M** |
| $25,000 | 294.7M | **15.2M** |

**Honest caveat.** 16 of the 17 long-form videos belong to Zeck, so the long-form RPM rests on one channel's ad inventory. But it is unanimous - all 16 land between $1.32 and $5.15 while his 283 shorts sit at $0.09. And it reproduces on Wendy: her one long compilation returns $7.23. Long-form also gets far less reach: Zeck's best long-form is 1.9M views against his best short at 97M. The trade is **19x the money per view for roughly 20-50x less reach** - which nets out roughly even on average, and wins decisively whenever a long-form video breaks out.

---

## 3. What separates the levels inside shorts

Everything you would expect to matter is flat. All three channels, real revenue:

| | <$250 | $250-1k | $1k-2.5k | $2.5k-5k | $5k-10k | $10k+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| videos | 597 | 386 | 102 | 38 | 14 | 1 |
| median revenue | $105 | $448 | $1,444 | $3,437 | $6,738 | $11,194 |
| median views | 1.24M | 5.24M | 17.6M | 39.6M | 77.2M | 119M |
| **RPM** | $0.08 | $0.09 | $0.09 | $0.09 | $0.08 | $0.09 |
| duration | 21s | 21s | 21s | 22s | 21s | 24s |
| words per minute | 200 | 203 | 205 | 210 | 208 | 230 |
| hook length (words) | 14 | 14 | 15 | 14 | 15 | 14 |
| title length (chars) | 32 | 35 | 32.5 | 32 | 31.5 | 20 |
| CTR | 4.93% | 5.11% | 5.13% | 5.33% | 3.91% | 7.34% |
| **seconds watched** | **11.40** | **11.60** | **11.99** | **12.72** | 11.71 | **13.43** |
| **retention** | **53.9%** | **55.1%** | **56.1%** | **56.7%** | **56.8%** | 56.0% |
| **subs per 1M views** | **381** | **429** | **497** | **533** | **623** | **1,475** |

RPM does not move. Duration does not move. Pace does not move. Hook length does not move. Title length does not move. CTR does not move.

**Two things move: seconds watched, and subscriber conversion.** About **1.3 extra seconds** of average watch time is the entire distance between a $105 video and a $3,437 video.

Verified against the duration confound - holding length fixed on The Art Of War, retention still climbs monotonically inside every band:

| duration band | <$250 | $250-1k | $1k-2.5k | $2.5k-5k |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17-19s (n=185) | 56.8% | 57.5% | 59.6% | 59.3% |
| 20-21s (n=99) | 55.4% | 56.2% | 57.0% | 58.2% |
| 22-26s (n=121) | 54.0% | 55.3% | 57.1% | - |

### The script mechanics that ramp with money

Rate of use per level. These are the ones with a clean monotonic climb, not just a lift:

| Mechanic | <$250 | $250-1k | $1k-2.5k | $2.5k-5k | $5k-10k | $10k | lift |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **Hook opens on a person** | 55% | 51% | 68% | 70% | **93%** | 100% | x1.24 |
| **Hook has a physical action verb** | 23% | 24% | 36% | 41% | **50%** | 100% | x1.28 |
| **Superlative in the title** | 8% | 9% | 16% | 24% | **29%** | 100% | **x1.52** |
| **Mundane object in the hook** | 10% | 13% | 10% | 24% | **43%** | - | **x1.40** |
| **Physical object in the title** | 19% | 24% | 25% | 32% | **43%** | - | x1.28 |
| Named real person in title | 4% | 8% | 9% | 18% | 7% | - | **x1.83** |
| Body part / gore in title | 5% | 9% | 10% | 11% | 7% | - | **x1.59** |
| Vulnerable person + peril in first 5s | 2% | 1% | 5% | 14% | 14% | 100% | **x1.97** |
| **Hook opens as a question** | 7% | 4% | 2% | 3% | **0%** | 0% | **x0.61** |
| **Hook says "you" / "your"** | 21% | 25% | 15% | 14% | **7%** | 0% | x0.93 |

The two negatives are as clean as the positives and they are the more useful finding:

> **Never open the spoken script with a question, and never address the viewer as "you".** Zero of the 15 highest-earning shorts do either. The question belongs in the title; the script opens on a person doing something.

---

## 4. The Art Of War - and the decay curve

499 videos, real revenue, the deepest dataset of the three.

| Mechanic | <$100 | $100-500 | $500-1k | $1k-2.5k | $2.5k-5k | $5k-10k | lift |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Named historical person in title | 6% | 5% | 9% | 10% | 27% | **40%** | **x2.69** |
| Mundane object as the weapon | 6% | 6% | 12% | 6% | 20% | **60%** | **x1.77** |
| "most people think..." setup | 1% | 3% | 10% | 8% | 20% | 0% | **x2.33** |
| Hook opens "A/The [person]" | 23% | 14% | 32% | 29% | 40% | 40% | x1.79 |
| Hook is 16+ words | 23% | 24% | 30% | 24% | 33% | **60%** | x1.34 |
| Hook is 10 words or fewer | 1% | 7% | 0% | 2% | 0% | 0% | **x0.61** |
| 4+ digits in the script | 17% | 16% | 5% | 22% | 7% | 20% | x0.71 |

### Where you put the backstory is worth 3.8x

| When the script pivots to explanation | n | median revenue |
|---|---|---|
| after 45% of the script | 25 | **$502** |
| never uses a pivot phrase | 258 | $262 |
| at 20-45% | 187 | $206 |
| **in the first 20%** | 51 | **$132** |

### The hook formula, from the top earners

- $8,617 - "He built a gun with 25 barrels, each firing at once, in an attempt to kill the king of France in 1835"
- $7,264 - "He was forced to say the pin code of his safe at gunpoint. But as the..."
- $6,799 - "The sniper started eating snow during the Battle of Cola. He did this so the..."
- $6,303 - "He shaped a bar of soap into a pistol and covered it with shoe polish"
- $5,782 - "A samurai would intentionally bite his tongue so hard that he would..."
- $4,563 - "He removed 15 bloodied coins from his body during the Battle of Gettysburg"

One person. One deliberate physical act. One mundane object. One named place. Present in the scene, past tense, no question, no address to the viewer.

The ladder, taking the median video at each level:

| | |
|---|---|
| $106 | *"If you get stabbed don't panic cuz this can save your life. First take a deep..."* |
| $484 | *"He pointed a cold gun at his colleague's head and pulled the trigger, thinking it was loaded"* |
| $1,396 | *"A credit card would be placed in your mouth, and an attacker would punch you"* |
| $3,404 | *"The Soviet spy bit into a poison pill hidden inside his tooth in an attempt to..."* |
| $8,617 | *"He built a gun with 25 barrels, each firing at once, in an attempt to kill..."* |

The $106 one is the channel's own anti-pattern in a single line: opens with "if", addresses the viewer as "you", and gives instructions instead of showing a person.

### The format is decaying

| month | videos | median $ | median duration | median retention | best |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-02 | 10 | $526 | 20s | **85.9%** | $3,054 |
| 2025-03 | 17 | $399 | 22s | 70.9% | $3,250 |
| 2025-06 | 60 | $502 | 20s | 56.4% | $7,264 |
| 2025-08 | 52 | $285 | 20s | 57.4% | **$8,617** |
| 2025-10 | 60 | $203 | 18s | 57.4% | $3,471 |
| 2026-01 | 21 | $67 | 22s | 53.7% | $650 |
| 2026-04 | 13 | $103 | 24s | 53.3% | $895 |
| 2026-07 | 5 | $86 | **45s** | **46.0%** | $141 |

Like for like: **February 2025 at 20 seconds held 85.9%. October 2025 at 18 seconds held 57.4%.** Same channel, same length, same template - 28 points of retention gone in eight months. Then in 2026 they doubled video length and lost seven more.

Recent months hold young videos that have not finished accruing views, so read the revenue column at the bottom with caution. Retention is not age-dependent and it is the column that carries the story.

### Reskinning a winner does not work

A loose similarity scan across all 455 transcripts found exactly one genuine script reuse: *Why British Painted Their Tanks Pink* ($873) and *Why British Painted Their Planes* ($71). The reskin kept **8%** of the original's revenue. There is no copy-paste strategy here.

---

## 5. Wholesome Wendy - the highest RPM and the pivot

**RPM $0.0996** - 41% above The Art Of War. Highest earner per view of the three.

### She was a military aviation channel until October 2025

| Period | Content | Typical views | Typical revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul-Sep 2025 | fighter jets, warships, military trivia (30-61s) | 40k-250k | $1-$14 |
| **Oct 2025 onward** | **wholesome human stories (18-31s)** | **3M-119M** | **$300-$11,194** |

*American VS Russian Fighter Jets* (Sep 2025, 61s): 82,931 views, **$3.39**.
*Best Brother Ever* (Oct 2025, 24s): 119,194,242 views, **$11,194**.

Same channel, five weeks apart. The niche change is worth roughly **1,400x** in views per upload. This is the single largest effect in the entire dataset and it has nothing to do with scriptwriting.

### Inside the wholesome format: shorter is richer

| | <$250 | $250-1k | $1k-2.5k | $2.5k-5k | $5k+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| duration | 26s | 25s | 25s | 22.5s | **22s** |
| script words | 86 | 86 | 82.5 | 74.5 | **70.5** |
| superlative in title | 7% | 11% | 12% | 14% | **50%** |
| "The ..." opener | 37% | 39% | 59% | 50% | 50% |
| "you see" filler | 52% | 55% | 41% | 29% | **25%** |
| spoken questions in hook | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% | 0% |

Four seconds and sixteen words separate the bottom from the top. Not a rewrite - a cut.

### Her engine: a vulnerable person in physical peril inside 5 seconds

| First 5 seconds contain | n | median revenue |
|---|---|---|
| **a child/sibling/animal AND physical peril** | 23 | **$1,005** |
| a vulnerable subject only | 53 | $313 |
| peril only | 38 | $279 |
| neither | 153 | $279 |

**3.6x, and neither ingredient works alone.** A cute animal is worth nothing. A car crash is worth nothing. A child in a car crash is worth $1,005.

The ladder, taking the median video at each level:

| | |
|---|---|
| $111 | *"The man charged toward him and pushed him hard, thinking he wanted to..."* |
| $456 | *"As fans chanted IShowSpeed, Speed got so angry that he jumped straight into the..."* |
| $1,476 | *"She was walking her blind dog on the beach when he suddenly took off running"* |
| $3,771 | *"He shoved the mascot aside before the photographer took his man of the match..."* |
| $7,976 | *"The woman reached out to pet a beluga, but as she leaned forward, her [phone slipped]"* |
| **$11,194** | ***"The dog charged at the girl in her backyard, ready to attack."*** |

Adult conflict → celebrity moment → an animal in motion → a social slight → an accidental loss → **a child about to be killed.** The subject gets younger and more helpless and the danger gets more lethal, all the way up.

Her worst-performing videos are all one shape - cute tableau, then "You see", then backstory:

- $34 - *"A chimpanzee held a tiger cub in her arms and started feeding it with a bottle. **You see,** the cub's mother had passed away..."*
- $30 - *"He found the injured otter in the forest and instead of letting it die, he took..."*

---

## 6. Zeck Felms - lowest reach, best long-form instincts

**RPM $0.0918.** Shortest videos (18s median), fewest words (54), and he talks **30 wpm slower** than the other two. Where they compress, he leaves air.

| | <$250 | $250-1k | $1k-2.5k |
|---|---|---|---|
| duration | 17s | 18s | **20.5s** |
| words per minute | 180 | 177 | **174** |
| "If ..." hook opener | 29% | 34% | **38%** |
| "you / your" in hook | 51% | 53% | 50% |
| physical object in title | 12% | 21% | **38%** |

Second person in half of all hooks is his identity - and it is also the mechanic that correlates *negatively* with money across the combined dataset. He is the only one of the three who leans on it.

### His proven shorts format

"How to Win [game] Every Time" - 20 videos, **$16,736**, 17% of his lifetime revenue from 7% of his uploads.

| | |
|---|---|
| [Tic Tac Toe](https://youtube.com/shorts/AbrLGL8u3zs) | **$8,858** |
| Connect 4 | $1,996 |
| Jenga | $1,442 |
| Battleships | $1,159 |
| Bowling | $618 |
| Table Tennis | $505 |
| Chess | $452 |
| Rock, Paper, Scissors | $332 |
| Checkers | $69 |

Tic Tac Toe alone is 53% of the format's revenue. Note the counterexample: Rock Paper Scissors is the most universally known game on the list and earned near the bottom. The format pays when there is a **genuine, learnable, surprising trick** - not when the game is merely famous.

### And his long-form is where his real money-per-view is

His "How [creator] Works" series - iShowSpeed ($2,598), CaseOh ($985), KSI ($897) - are 75-89 seconds and return **$1.32-$1.75 RPM**. That series alone earned $4,480 on 3.1M combined views. The same $4,480 from shorts would need **53M views**.

---

## 7. Hypotheses that died under checking

Stated because these are the things people assume:

- **Emoji in the title.** Looked like a x2.74 lift on the raw numbers. Split by time period it vanishes: 2025-H1 $524 vs $399, 2025-H2 $324 vs **$584** (emoji-less won), 2026-H1 $143 vs $150. The lift was old videos happening not to have emoji. **No effect.**
- **"Intentionally" / "deliberately" in the hook.** Appears in nearly every top earner, so it looks like a magic word. It appears just as often in the flops: x0.84. **No effect.**
- **Ending on a twist or swerve.** Negative on all three channels. Staying on topic beats swerving: Art Of War $257 vs $233, Wendy $331 vs $280, Zeck $183 vs $163.
- **CTR and thumbnail work.** Flat across every level, and the $5-10k band has the *worst* CTR of all (3.91%). In the shorts feed the thumbnail barely exists.
- **Threat in sentence one, on its own.** No lift on Wendy. Only works combined with a vulnerable subject.
- **Numbers and statistics in the script.** 4+ digits: x0.71. Facts do not hold attention; a scene does.
- **Script reuse.** One instance found across 958 transcripts. It lost 92% of the original's revenue.
- **A fixed RPM.** The single most costly assumption. It is fixed *within* shorts and it is 19.5x higher outside them.

---

## 8. The rules that survived

**Universal:**
1. Inside shorts, revenue is views times a fixed ~$0.085. The only lever is retention.
2. About 1.3 extra seconds of average watch time is the whole distance between $105 and $3,437.
3. Never open the spoken script with a question. Never say "you". The title asks; the script opens on a person.
4. Do not front-load explanation - it costs 3.8x on the channel where we can measure it.
5. Cut length before adding content. Same story, four seconds shorter, is the cheapest retention gain available.
6. Format beats craft: long-form RPM is 19.5x shorts RPM. Niche beats both - Wendy's pivot was worth 1,400x.

**Per channel:**
7. *The Art Of War*: one named historical person, one mundane object used as a weapon, one named battle. Explain after the halfway mark.
8. *Wholesome Wendy*: a child in physical peril inside 5 seconds, and the rescuer pays a price. Cut to 22 seconds and 70 words.
9. *Zeck Felms*: "How to win [game] every time" for games with a real trick, and push the "How [creator] Works" long-form series - it is his highest RPM inventory by 15x.

---

## 9. For Tim's video

All four levels exist. Keep the structure exactly as planned.

| Level | Views needed | Videos that did it | The one thing that gets you there |
|---|---|---|---|
| $1,000 | 11.8M | 154 of 1,121 | Open on a person, not a question |
| $2,500 | 29.5M | 52 | Put a physical object in the title |
| $5,000 | 59.0M | 15 | A mundane object as the surprise (43% of this tier) |
| $10,000 | 117.9M | **1, ever** | A child about to die, and someone pays for saving them |

The ending writes itself: **$10,000 from one short has happened exactly once in 7.86 billion views. But $10,000 from one long-form video needs 6 million views instead of 118 million - and Zeck already has videos doing 1.9M.**

Best single stat for the video: **one 75-second video at 1.9M views out-earned 279 of that channel's 283 shorts.**

---

## Data provenance and gaps

- **Revenue, duration, retention, CTR, impressions, subscribers, publish dates:** real, from Tim's three YouTube Studio lifetime exports.
- **Full shorts catalogues** (1,209 videos incl. ones outside the exports): InnerTube `/browse` shorts tab, paginated, plus InnerTube `/player` per video.
- **Transcripts:** youtube-transcript-api with youtube-transcript.io fallback. **958 of 1,138** recovered; the remaining 180 have no captions published.
- **Retention is lifetime average view duration divided by video length** - it is a ratio, so unlike revenue it is not distorted by a video's age.
- **Known limits:** 16 of 17 long-form videos are Zeck's, so that RPM band rests mainly on one channel. The single $10k+ video is n=1 and is presented as a case study, not a statistic. Levels $5-10k (n=14) and $2.5-5k (n=38) are thin enough that per-mechanic percentages there should be read as directional.