The short version: most ad networks that pay well want 50,000 to 100,000 monthly pageviews before they will take you on, but you can earn real money from a blog with a few thousand views a month if you sell something directly instead of waiting for ad pennies. Views matter far less than what your reader does after they land. I have watched a post with 3,000 monthly views earn more than one with 300,000.
The ad network thresholds, in real numbers
If you want to earn purely from display ads, here are the doors you are knocking on:
- Google AdSense has no minimum traffic requirement, which is why most new bloggers start here. The problem is the pay. RPM (revenue per 1,000 pageviews) usually sits between £1.50 and £6 for a general blog, so 10,000 monthly views might earn you £15 to £60.
- Ezoic also has no hard traffic floor and will accept small sites, using AI to test ad layouts. RPM is a bit better than raw AdSense, often £5 to £12, but you need real volume before that adds up to anything worth quitting a job for.
- Mediavine requires 50,000 sessions a month, verified through Google Analytics, and this has held for years. Once accepted, RPMs commonly land between £10 and £30 depending on niche, which is where things start feeling like a proper income stream.
- Raptive (formerly AdThrive) sets the bar at 100,000 monthly pageviews and reviews your traffic quality, not just quantity. Bloggers who get in report RPMs from £15 to £40, sometimes higher in finance or home niches.
So if the plan is display ads only, the working answer is: roughly 50,000 monthly sessions to get taken seriously, and 100,000 plus before it looks like a wage rather than pocket money. That is the blunt number most posts on this topic will not give you straight.
What happened on my own blog
I ran a blog for years before consulting became the main business, and I tracked every number because I am that person. It took me past 40,000 monthly visits before AdSense was covering my coffee and software subscriptions, roughly £70 to £90 a month. Not life changing. What changed things was one post, a guide to LinkedIn lead generation, that never went above 3,000 monthly views but converted readers into consultation bookings at a rate the ad-heavy posts never touched. That one page, low traffic by any blogger's standard, brought in more in consulting enquiries in a quarter than the whole ad account did in a year.
That is the uncomfortable bit nobody selling you a "traffic first" course wants to say out loud: chasing views for their own sake is often the slower, less profitable route. A post that ranks for a buying-intent phrase and sends five people a month into your inbox will usually beat a viral post that sends fifty thousand people who never come back.
Views are not the same as money, and the gap is where most bloggers get stuck
There are four broad ways a blog earns, and each has a completely different relationship with view count:
- Display ads need volume. No way around it. This is a pageview business, and low RPMs mean you need tens of thousands of readers before it is meaningful.
- Affiliate links care less about volume and more about intent. A post reviewing "best accounting software for freelancers" with 2,000 monthly views can outearn a lifestyle post with 200,000, because the reader is already close to buying.
- Digital products and courses care about your email list size more than pageviews. A list of 1,000 engaged subscribers built from a blog with modest traffic can sell a £200 course better than a huge audience with no list at all.
- Consulting and services, which is where my own numbers moved, do not need scale at all. One well positioned post that ranks for the right phrase can bring in a handful of enquiries a month, and if even one becomes a client worth a few thousand pounds, the view count stops mattering.
This is why the question "how many views does it take to earn from a blog" does not have one answer. It has four, and the honest one depends on what you are selling behind the content.
How to work out your own number
Rather than guess, do this quick maths on your own niche:
- Decide which model you are chasing: ads, affiliate, product, or service. Pick one to start.
- Find your realistic RPM or conversion rate. For ads, use the figures above. For affiliate, check your program's average commission and estimate a 1 to 3 percent click-through on relevant posts. For services, work out what one client is worth to you.
- Set a target monthly income, say £500.
- Divide backwards. At a £4 RPM, £500 needs 125,000 monthly views. At a 2 percent affiliate conversion on a £30 commission product with 5,000 relevant monthly views, that is roughly £3,000, far fewer views needed. At one £1,500 consulting client from 50 targeted enquiries a month, you might only need 2,000 to 4,000 highly specific views to a handful of buying-intent posts.
Do that maths before you write another word. It will tell you whether you are playing a volume game or a precision game, and most bloggers are quietly playing the wrong one for their goals.
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What moves the needle faster than raw traffic growth
Traffic to a blog rarely comes from the blog itself these days, it comes from where you send people. I have seen small business owners get more qualified readers from posting consistently on LinkedIn than from months of SEO work, which is one reason I still get asked how many times you should post on LinkedIn per week to keep that traffic flowing without burning out. Facebook groups still send real traffic too, even though the platform has changed a lot, and it is worth understanding how many Facebook groups exist before you assume yours is competing in a small pond. YouTube is a slower but sturdier traffic source for a blog, and looking at how few channels ever reach a million subscribers is a useful reality check on how much patience real audience building takes. Even something as basic as knowing how many Facebook pages you can create in a single day matters if you are testing which platform sends your blog the most useful readers rather than just the most readers.
The blogs that earn well are rarely the ones with the biggest traffic charts. They are the ones where every thousand visitors are the right thousand.
I keep all the pay rate guides and the calculators in the creator pay rates guide.
Frequently asked questions
How many views does a blog need to make money on AdSense?
There is no official minimum, but realistically you need around 10,000 to 30,000 monthly views before AdSense earnings feel like more than pocket change, since RPMs typically sit between £1.50 and £6 per 1,000 views.
What is the minimum traffic for Mediavine or Raptive?
Mediavine requires 50,000 sessions a month and Raptive requires 100,000 monthly pageviews, both verified through analytics before you can apply.
Can a small blog with low traffic still make money?
Yes, and often better than large blogs, if it sells affiliate products, digital products, or services instead of relying on ads. A blog with 3,000 targeted monthly views can outearn one with 300,000 general views if the smaller one converts into sales or client enquiries.
Is it better to focus on traffic or conversion first?
Work out your monetisation model first, then calculate how many views you need using its real conversion rate. Chasing traffic before deciding how you will earn from it usually wastes months on the wrong kind of readers.
