A method for comparing RPM across platforms without fooling yourself

A method for comparing RPM across platforms without fooling yourself

Context: "YouTube pays more than TikTok" is repeated as fact, but RPM comparisons routinely mix incompatible definitions and ignore production cost. Normalize before concluding.

The method:
— Convert everything to revenue per hour of your labor, not per thousand views. A high-RPM platform that demands 10x the production time may yield a lower hourly return.
— Separate platform-ad RPM from total RPM. A platform may pay little in ad share but convert affiliate and sponsorship far better.
— Hold the content constant where possible — the same video cross-posted — to remove the niche confound.
— Use median RPM over a quarter; single videos vary enormously with topic and season.

Caveat: cross-posting changes performance (audiences and formats differ), so even this isn't a clean experiment. Label it a rough estimate.

Implication: the right platform is the one with the best revenue-per-effort for your specific content, which no published benchmark can tell you.

What we still don't know: production-time-adjusted RPM by platform, because almost nobody logs their hours.