A smaller number than you expected almost always has an ordinary explanation, so here are the reasons, in the order to check them.
Compare against Total earned on the clip's Payout details panel, never against views times rate, because the rate is the number before our fee and the panel shows the number after it. Then check the four things below in order; the fee is only the first. The one case that is not on this page is a payout that never appears at all, which is covered in Payouts.
Start from the right number
The rate on a campaign describes what a clip earns before anything comes off, and the panel shows the same clip after the creator fee. If you multiply views by the rate and compare that to what reached your balance, you are comparing a before number with an after number, and the gap will look exactly like a missing 10%. A clip on a campaign paying $1.75 per 1,000 views, finishing on 8,000 views, works out like this:
A worked example
Views counted | 8,000 |
Rate | $1.75 per 1,000 views |
Total earned | $14.00 |
Creator fee, 10% | − $1.40 |
Received | $12.60 |
What the fee took off a real payout, on the clip itself.
Four reasons the numbers differ
Reason | What is happening , and the tell on your clip |
The fee | A flat 10% comes off Total earned when the payout pays, or the original 7% on a campaign that started on the previous version of Content Rewards.
Received is exactly 90% of Total earned, and the panel spells it out as earned minus creator fee once it has paid. |
The campaign's maximum per clip | Every CPM campaign sets the most a single clip can earn, per platform, next to the rate on the campaign page. Views keep arriving; earnings stop at the cap.
Total earned equals the campaign's maximum, whatever the view count. |
The rate is per 1,000, rounded down | 8,400 views at $1.75 per 1,000 is $14.70, not $14.75.
A gap of a few cents. |
Views after the earning window closed | On CPM the clip earns until 7 days after approval, then stops. Views after that are real views, not earning views.
The platform's count keeps rising and Total earned does not. |
A clip that hits three of the four at once
A clip on a $1 per 1,000 campaign with a $400 maximum per clip, finishing on 500,000 views, is worth $500.00 by views times rate, but Total earned stops at the $400.00 maximum, the 10% fee takes $40.00, and $360.00 is received. Three different rules produce one number, and each of them is visible on the campaign page or the clip's panel.
If the rate changed after you submitted
The rate, minimum and maximum that apply to a clip are the ones in place when you submitted it, and a later change applies to later submissions only. So a clip submitted at $2 per 1,000 keeps that rate even if the campaign drops to $1.50 the next day, and the reverse is also true.
The campaign's minimum payout
Each campaign sets a minimum a clip must earn before it is paid, per platform, shown next to the rate and the maximum on the campaign page. Under that line the clip is counting views but nothing has been set aside yet, and the Earnings page has no row for it; the row appears the moment the clip crosses the line.
Pending and Received on the same clip
On the clip's Payout details panel, Total earned is Received plus Pending. If Received looks short, look at Pending before assuming anything is missing: it is money the clip has earned that has not paid yet, and it pays on its own schedule, which Payouts walks through step by step.
When to write in
If you have worked through the four and the numbers still do not reconcile, open Help & Support (the chat bubble in the corner of this page and of the app) and send us the clip link and the number you expected. That is all we need to break the payout down line by line.
Work through the four and the gap will show itself. If it doesn't, we're here.
Related
How your payout fees work
Payouts
Why your view count does not match ours