How Do Short Films Make Money? (Tips & Tricks)

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Published: February 28, 2020 | Last Updated: December 11, 2025

When you ask how short films make money, most people will say they don’t! And while that’s true to some extent, you need to think about short films more broadly than ticket revenue and consider options like monetization and branding yourself as a filmmaker.

Do Short Films Ever Make Money?

The short answer: yes… well… kind of.

The long answer: If you’re asking if you can make a short film and sell it to a big distributor like Netflix or Disney, there is no chance in hell!

But if you’re asking if your investment into a short film can pay off in any financial return, then the answer is a resounding yes. But then the question becomes: how? 

How Short Films Make Money

The most obvious answer to this question is, first and foremost, online monetization. 

Online Monetization on YouTube and Vimeo

You won’t necessarily be selling short films to Netflix anytime soon, but you could post your short film on YouTube or Vimeo and attempt to monetize it.

Online monetization through an online platform is when the platform pays you a percentage of money for a certain number of views.

For example, according to recent data as of August 2024, content creators on YouTube can make, on average, $18 per 1,000 ad views, equating to $3 – $5 per 1000 video views:

Google pays out 68% of their AdSense revenue, so for every $100 an advertiser pays, Google pays $68 to the publisher. The actual rates an advertiser pays varies, usually between $0.10 to $0.30 per view, but averages out at $0.18 per view. Around 15% of viewers on average watch the requisite 30 seconds of a video ad to count for payment. This means that for 1,000 views, 150 people are likely to watch an ad. At $0.018 per view, Google will charge the advertiser $27, keeping 32% ($9) themselves. The YouTube channel will receive $18 per 1,000 views.

Source: Influencer Marketing Hub

If you think that sounds pretty good, hold on. 

What Counts as an Ad View? 

The goal is $18 per 1,000 video views. But what counts as an ad view? For an ad view to count on a CPM ad, which is the cost per thousand views, someone must watch an ad for more than 30 seconds. 

I don’t know about you, but I hit the skip ad as fast as possible when it comes to ads.

Another ad income is cost-per-click (CPC), which pays more. A CPC requires someone to click on the ad for it to count toward your ad revenue.

Again, it’s hard to click something you’re skipping after five seconds – unless you accidentally misclick the ad. Maybe that’s how all those YouTubers make so much money…

How likely is it for your short film to make ad revenue?

You must attract tens of thousands of viewers per video to review and earn a reliable income from monetizing your short films with ads. To keep them returning, that would require hundreds of thousands of subscribers and at least two to three short films a week.

For that model to succeed financially, you must make dirt-cheap, no-budget short films weekly. This is why, among successful YouTubers, the vlog and video game streaming formats are so popular, not making high-budget short films.

If you are creative, hungry, and relatively self-sufficient, you could consistently create enough no-to-low-budget short films to start seeing revenue. Admittedly, that’s how every multi-million dollar YouTuber today got their start – so by all means, it’s not impossible.

However, consistency and quality need to merge to some degree, and while “virality” can be engineered to some degree, it takes a lot of good luck and good timing for your short films to start reaching a wide enough audience to bring in the number of subscribers you need to take off.

Online Monetization Through Branded Content

There’s another method entirely for creating money from your short films online through YouTube or Vimeo. Influencer marketing is when businesses and brands reach out to prominent YouTubers with big subscriber followings and pay them to create branded content.

If you don’t know, branded content is paid for by a “brand” to promote its brand or product. Branded content can include product placement, product review videos, educational video content, how-to videos, or any video at all.

For example, if Tide paid a popular YouTuber to create a slow-motion drone video of the influencer folding laundry while stunt actors do parkour, that would be branded content.

The holy grail for indie filmmakers is branded narrative content, where you can get paid to make a short film.

What is branded narrative content? 

A branded narrative short is a short film with a unique story, a.k.a. narrative. Still, because it’s bought and paid for by a big brand, it is either loosely tied to the company sponsoring it or includes its content or product in some way.

The most famous example of this short is the popular branded series “The Hire,” starring Clive Owen as a getaway driver in all sorts of action or dramatic scenarios united only by his driving a BMW. The series was created for, you guessed it, BMW:

What’s cool about this series is that it invited all kinds of amazingly talented directors on board to do whatever they wanted as long as it showed off how cool it is to drive a BMW.

By giving these directors total creative freedom (as far as I can tell) to write and tell their own original stories without needing to promote BMW directly, they let the narrative take the front seat and left the hard selling to the car salesman back on the lot.

Another great example is creating content for camera producers when they launch a new camera. Of course, you still need to be a big enough name, e.g., on YouTube, but it is possible even if you’re not a Hollywood producer.

Take, for instance, the short film “Radio 88” by Johnny Derango about when Panasonic launched the EVA1 camera:

Or the short film “Kepler 138,” directed by Jacob Schwarz, shot on the Panasonic Lumix S1H as part of their launch campaign:

There are several different approaches to getting these opportunities, some of which we’ll explore later. For now, let’s explore the other options for making money with your short films.

Online Monetization Through Video-On-Demand

One of the last ways to monetize your short film online is through a video-on-demand, or VOD, service. VOD services are sometimes referred to as streaming services. The only caveat is that VOD usually refers to video titles you buy or rent from a distributor like Amazon or iTunes.

These VOD services usually offer opportunities for feature films, either more mainstream titles after they’ve finished their theatrical runs or even for indie features with a limited theatrical or direct-to-VOD release.

However, one of these services provides online monetization for filmmakers with short films through their VOD service, a service known as Amazon Video Direct.

Amazon Video Direct allows you to upload your short films directly to Amazon and monetize them by earning royalties based on hours streamed, sharing revenue for direct rentals and purchases, or sharing revenue based on ad impressions, like the model above.

What about licensing to other streaming services?

Currently, Amazon Video Direct (Amazon Prime) is the only streaming service that licenses short films, but a few companies will still license your shorts.

ShortsTV is probably the most well-known company that buys and licenses short films from filmmakers worldwide, plays them on their cable network channel (in addition to streaming them online), and is willing to pay a couple of hundred dollars ($300-$500) per short.

However, these deals typically come with exclusivity licenses – meaning if you sell them the rights to your short, you sign it away to them for a set period, so you can’t publish or promote it anywhere else online or enter it into any other festivals, for the set duration.

These deals can be quite nice, especially because they give new life to short films that have run their course in the festival circuit, which we’ll get into in a minute. However, it’s usually better to hold off on deals like these if you want to create and manage your film online.

How else can short films make money?

While online monetization and multi-millionaire YouTubers are common concepts by now, you’re probably wondering what other options you have to make money from your short films.

You might even have raised a large sum online via crowdfunding or put your savings into a passion project, and want to see that project succeed.

If you are this type of filmmaker with this short film, you’re probably wondering about film festivals. 

Film Festivals

For many aspiring filmmakers, the festival circuit, not YouTube, is seen as the holy grail at the end of the production schedule. Film festivals still offer the main source of exposure, networking, and even the occasional financial return for indie filmmakers.

But unlike screenplay festivals, which almost all offer some cash incentives as prizes at the end of the submission tunnel, film festivals rarely offer any real financial incentives in the form of a cash prize award.

While most film festivals don’t offer cash prizes for any awards, some do—but only for the top awards. Here are a few rare exceptions I found that do offer cash prizes to festival winners:

• Berlin Film Festival Audi Short Film Award: € 20,000 for the top prize.
• Melbourne International Film Festival: $56,000 split among all competing filmmakers.
• Toronto International Film Festival: $10,000 award for the top prize.
• 48 Film Project: $10,000 award for the top prize.
• Seattle International Film Festival: $2,500 award per jury winner.
• San Francisco International Film Festival: $1000- $2,000 award per jury winner.

Read pro tips from a festival director on how to get your short film selected at film festivals.

There is no guarantee that you will be accepted into these festivals just by making a short film, and even less guarantee that you will win the top award. Even if you win, it’s not like you can make a stable living off festival prize money. Just because you win once doesn’t guarantee you’ll win again.

However, as one filmmaker friend pointed out, if you were to be accepted into one of the above, that is equivalent or even superior to winning a cash prize due to all the opportunities that come your way from being accepted.

Instead of any rare prizes, the film festivals are the real money-makers in the form of future opportunities for you to continue working in the industry. This leads us to the last and most important way short films make money…

What’s the main way short films make money?

You won’t like this, but it’s true: they are an investment in your future. Ugh, so cheesy! I know, I know, but it’s TRUE!

Whether shared online or through film festivals, short films are most profitable as a calling card that will get you more work. Look at it as a resume, but for your film career.

Every short film you write, direct, produce, and -most importantly – share will lead to more work.

Here are some examples:

1. Use your short film to convince a company to hire you to create videos.
2. Use your short film to get hired on another filmmaker’s production in a role you can do.
3. Use your short film as a proof of concept to sell a feature idea. David Sandberg’s short horror films are a good example.
4. Use your short film in a festival to network with indie producers, agents, or managers.
5. Use your short films to gain an online following and create a Patreon account.

The goal of any short film you create should not be to make money. You will never reach that goal if you aim to make money off the short film itself. Instead, the goal of every short film you create should be to explore and grow your creative talents while telling a great story.

That said, here’s a little more about how a great story (well told) with the short film format can lead to future opportunities: 

1. Use your short film to convince a company to hire you to create videos for them.

One of the most direct ways to profit from creating a great short film is by using it to convince small to medium-sized businesses to hire you to create great videos for them. The term “corporate video” has a bad connotation – which is why, as you market yourself in the age of content marketing, you should highlight your ability to tell a great narrative story.

After all, that’s all marketing is… storytelling. The story you’re telling happens to be about a company or product instead of a character with an arc – but that doesn’t mean you should overlook characters or arcs in your branded video content.

Because the companies hiring filmmakers sometimes lack the same images we filmmakers have, they will want to see specific references, so genre and tone are important.

Short films technically only prove you can do films specific to that short, at least to the execs doing the hiring. As one friend of mine put it, “You could have the most epic action thriller short set in the Swiss Alps, and they’ll still ask, ‘How can this help my banking firm?’”

2. Use your short film to get hired on another production.

As an indie filmmaker creating your short films, you’ve probably worn multiple hats. You, at minimum, directed your film, probably had to do the lion’s share of producing it (if not produced the whole thing yourself), and might have even shot, edited, written, or acted in it, too.

All of these skills are marketable jobs that you can do on someone else’s movie, and you can use your short film to showcase them to other directors and producers who are looking to hire someone in those positions for their own short films – as long as you did a good job!

To get work off of your work, you will need to show it to people. It is easiest to do by putting your short film online and sharing it on filmmaker forums or entering it into festivals where other filmmakers will attend to network and find future collaborators.

3. Use your short film as a proof of concept to sell a feature idea.

The idea of a proof of concept is to showcase the validity of an idea by creating a smaller sample version.

Instead of getting the money to produce an entire 90-minute feature, try to condense the core idea or essence of the film into a two to seven-minute short film. A great two-minute scene can easily be enough to prove a concept, and seven minutes is about that sweet spot that festival programmers look for in short films.

Damien Chazelle created a scene from the movie Whiplash (2014) as a short film starring J.K. Simmons, which led to the production of the feature film, which also starred J.K. Simmons. If you want to get inspired, check out this video essay comparison between the two below:

4. Use your short film in a festival to network with indie producers, agents, or managers.

As I mentioned above, putting your work out there is one of the keys to getting more work in the future. Why would they ever hire you if no one knows what you’ve done or what you’re capable of?

Another way to get new work from your short film is by meeting indie producers, agents, and managers through networking events at festivals. Some festivals now introduce filmmakers to managers and producers directly in speed-dating style networking sessions.

Even just attending the festival mixers and chatting with others after the screenings can be a great way to connect with these types in attendance.

5. Use your short films to gain a following online.

Being an indie filmmaker is a lot like being the founder of a startup. It’s a very entrepreneurial endeavor and needs to be treated like it in many ways. That means the same rules about finding your first 1,000 “loyal customers” apply to finding your first 1,000 true fans.

As you create and share your short films online and through film festivals, you should constantly build a following of fans of your work. When you do this online through something like YouTube, you can track them as subscribers.

Still, you need to build a separate marketing list you can contact, usually through email or social media, to reach out and contact anytime you release new content.

By sharing updates with an email list (the only platform-independent source of traffic in your control) or social following, you train your fans and followers to look forward to your communications and keep track of your work. You can eventually use this list you are nurturing to become your first “customer,” just like a startup would.

Read more on optimizing your chances when crowdfunding a short film.

Patreon

One of the best online tools created for this exact purpose is Patreon.

Instead of Kickstarter, GoFundMe, or Indiegogo, which are intended to raise money for a specific project or cause, Patreon is a monthly membership platform for fans and “patrons” to support creators they believe in financially with monthly donations.

You can start reaching out to your list of fans and provide exclusive rewards and incentives for them to back your future short film projects with recurring monthly donations.

Summing Up

Make good short films! How do you do that? Make more short films! The best thing you can do for your film career is always to improve and work on your craft by creating and learning. Don’t be afraid to take risks and try and fail a few times – but don’t go into debt making a single short film, either.

If your finances are a burden, keep it simple. Think about what resources you have at your disposal and make the most use of them you can. Low-budget shorts with a great story are more powerful than high-budget shorts with a lackluster story.

Here’s an example of putting it into perspective: One year, a friend made a short film that cost him 13,000 dollars. Another friend spent 1,000 dollars and made 13 short films. Who do you think learned more about filmmaking that year?

Regardless of budget, the most important thing for a good short film is to tell a good story. For more on that, check out our recent article about how to write a script for a short film.

That’s it! Feel free to leave any questions, comments, or success stories in the comments with your thoughts!