YouTube's advertising revenue rose 9% to $11.21 billion in the third quarter of 2026, Alphabet reported on October 28, the slowest growth of the three quarters reported this year and down from 15% a year earlier. Against the second quarter, YouTube ads added $152 million, or 1.4%, compared with $465 million over the same months of 2025. The slowdown came as YouTube took a record 15.8% of US TV time in Nielsen's August Gauge and as Alphabet said YouTube Music and Premium had passed 150 million subscribers, including trials. Google subscriptions, platforms and devices revenue, which includes YouTube's paid services, grew 11% to $14.29 billion, faster than YouTube's ads.

In Short

YouTube earned $11.2 billion from ads in July, August and September, 9% more than a year earlier, but that is a slower rise than in the first half of 2026. At the same time, Americans spent more of their TV time watching YouTube than ever, and more people are paying for YouTube Music and Premium. For advertisers, the gap between record viewing and slower ad growth is the open question, because Alphabet did not explain it.

YouTube ads, quarter by quarter

Alphabet published its third-quarter 2026 results on October 28 for the quarter ended September 30, together with an earnings presentation and the prepared remarks of chief executive Sundar Pichai. YouTube ads revenue was $11,207 million, up 9.2% from $10,261 million. The table below sets that figure against the quarters PPC Land covered at the time.

Quarter YouTube ads revenue Year-over-year growth Share of Google advertising
Q2 2025 $9.8bn +13% -
Q3 2025 $10.26bn +15% 13.8%
Q1 2026 $9.88bn +11% -
Q2 2026 $11.06bn +13% 13.5%
Q3 2026 $11.21bn +9% 13.7%

The figures for earlier quarters come from PPC Land's reports on the second quarter of 2025, the third quarter of 2025, the first quarter of 2026 and the second quarter of 2026. The share of Google advertising is PPC Land's calculation from reported figures.

YouTube's growth of 9.2% compares with 12% for Google Search & other and 1.4% for Google Network in the same quarter. Total Google advertising grew 10.6% to $82,012 million. YouTube's share of that total, 13.7%, was almost unchanged from a year earlier.

A slower quarter after the World Cup

The sequential picture shows how much of the slowdown is about the comparison. In 2025, YouTube ads revenue rose from $9,796 million in the second quarter to $10,261 million in the third, an increase of 4.7%. In 2026, it rose from $11,055 million to $11,207 million, an increase of 1.4%, PPC Land's calculation.

The second quarter of 2026 had an event the third did not. When Alphabet reported in July, it said more than 1.7 billion unique viewers watched World Cup content on YouTube, more than 550 million of them on TV screens. That tournament lifted the base against which the third quarter is measured sequentially, though not the year-over-year comparison, which set this quarter against the third quarter of 2025, when growth was 15%.

Currency was a factor too. Alphabet's consolidated revenue carried a foreign exchange headwind of $702 million in the third quarter, offset in part by hedging gains, after a tailwind in the second quarter. Alphabet does not publish YouTube's revenue in constant currency.

The earnings documents do not attribute YouTube's slower growth to any cause. Pichai's remarks on YouTube cover viewing, subscriptions and product launches, not advertising.

Viewing at a record

"On to YouTube, which continues to lead in the living room as the number-one streaming platform in the U.S. in terms of watch time," Pichai said.

Nielsen's figures support the viewing claim. In its August Nielsen Gauge, released on October 22, YouTube reached a record 15.8% of US TV time, while total TV usage fell 4.4% and streaming as a whole reached 49.6%. The August period ran for five weeks, from July 27 to August 30, and YouTube's share rose 1.6 points from 14.2% in July. Nielsen notes that the Gauge is not its currency rating.

Short-form video is part of that television viewing. In June, YouTube said viewers were watching 2 billion hours of Shorts a month on TV screens.

Prices on connected TV may also be moving. Digiday reported on October 26 that premium connected TV CPMs had risen from $34-35 to $43 as US midterm election advertising took inventory, according to a media supervisor at Collective Measures, and an unnamed executive told the publication that average YouTube CPMs had risen about 20%. Neither figure came with a period or method, and Alphabet's documents do not mention political advertising.

Not every industry voice agrees on YouTube's value on television. On October 20, the VAB, which represents premium video companies, sent marketers an infographic putting premium video co-viewing 33% above YouTube on connected TV, based on its February report with TVision; the infographic itself cited no source, dates or sample.

Subscriptions: 150 million

Alphabet said it had "surpassed 150 million YouTube Music and Premium subscribers globally, including trials." Pichai added that YouTube is "also seeing good subscriber growth." The figure includes people on free trials, and the documents do not give the number of paying subscribers or the split between Music and Premium.

The revenue line that contains YouTube's paid services grew faster than YouTube's ads. Google subscriptions, platforms and devices revenue rose 11% to $14,290 million, from $12,870 million. The release says the line includes fees for YouTube TV, YouTube Music and Premium, NFL Sunday Ticket and Google One, as well as Google Play and consumer devices, so it cannot be read as a YouTube figure alone. In the second quarter, the line grew 15% to $12.9 billion. Its jump from the second to the third quarter coincides with the start of the NFL season in September.

Across all its consumer services, Alphabet said a year ago that paid subscriptions had passed 300 million, and in February that they had passed 325 million. The third-quarter documents do not update that total.

Made on YouTube and custom feeds

Pichai referred to the creator event held on September 23. "At Made on YouTube last month, we announced more than 30 products and features for creators and viewers," he said. "One great example is custom feeds, where you can simply pick a topic you love and get a tailored video home feed based on that topic."

Custom feeds began as an experiment in May, when YouTube said views from them would count toward creator watch time and monetization in the same way as Home feed views. As rolled out on October 22, feeds are built from a typed prompt and capped at three per account, or eight for Premium members, for signed-in US viewers using English.

Other announcements around the event bear more directly on commerce and advertising. YouTube said it would extend its Shopping affiliate programme to 35 markets by the end of 2026, up from 15 in August. Chief business officer Mary Ellen Coe said creator commission payouts had doubled year over year and more than 1.3 million channels were enrolled, without giving a base. Ask YouTube, the AI assistant in YouTube search, reached more than 140 million people in June, about six times its December level by YouTube's count. Neal Mohan, YouTube's chief executive, described brand deals and affiliate expansion as central to YouTube's plans in an interview after the event.

Earlier in the year, at Brandcast on May 13, YouTube introduced two-click checkout on connected TV through Buy with Google Pay, along with new sponsorship and creator ad formats.

Claims about creator ads

YouTube's sales materials have made shifting claims about creator ads this year. On October 15, a YouTube for Business guide said Creator Partnerships Boost produced a 30% increase in conversion lift for Demand Gen, after Google had cited 20% for the same product in May on the same January 2025 to January 2026 data. Advertisers running Demand Gen campaigns with creator boosts have no public explanation for the change.

How YouTube compares

Netflix, the other large streaming service selling ads, reported its third quarter on October 20 and cut its 2026 ad revenue expectation to about $2.7 billion from roughly $3 billion, citing a slower rollout of some ad product capabilities. YouTube's ad revenue for the third quarter alone was about four times Netflix's expected ad revenue for the whole of 2026, PPC Land's calculation.

Meta, whose Reels and video products compete with YouTube for creator and brand budgets, reported advertising revenue growth of 26% for the same quarter, driven by a 14% rise in average price per ad. Meta does not report video revenue separately.

Why this matters for the marketing community

For video advertisers, YouTube's third quarter presents two measures moving apart. Viewing on television screens reached a record share in August, and Pichai described YouTube as the leading US streaming platform by watch time. Ad revenue grew 9%, the slowest rate of 2026, and added little to the second quarter's World Cup-boosted total. Alphabet published no impression or pricing data for YouTube, so the documents do not show whether the slowdown came from volume or price.

The emphasis in Pichai's remarks fell on subscriptions and viewer features rather than advertising. YouTube Music and Premium passed 150 million subscribers including trials, and the subscription line grew faster than YouTube ads. Custom feeds and Ask YouTube change how people find videos, and YouTube has said custom feed views count toward monetization, but neither the documents nor YouTube's announcements say how ads will be placed within prompt-built feeds or AI answers.

For creators and brands, the expansion of the Shopping affiliate programme and Brandcast's CTV checkout point to a YouTube that earns from commerce as well as from ad slots, though none of that revenue is broken out in Alphabet's reporting.

What the documents do not say

  • YouTube's total revenue, including its share of subscription fees.
  • The split of YouTube ads between connected TV, mobile, Shorts and long-form video.
  • Paying subscribers, as opposed to subscribers including trials, and the number of YouTube TV subscribers.
  • Ad impressions or prices on YouTube.
  • Political advertising ahead of the November 2026 US midterm elections.
  • Any explanation for the slower growth in YouTube ads.

Timeline

Summary

Who: YouTube and its parent Alphabet, with chief executive Sundar Pichai quoted in the release and his published call remarks. The results matter to advertisers buying YouTube video and connected TV inventory, to creators earning from ads and Shopping, and to competing streaming services.

What: YouTube ads revenue rose 9.2% to $11,207 million in the third quarter of 2026, after 11% and 13% in the first two quarters and 15% a year earlier, and added $152 million on the second quarter. Alphabet said YouTube Music and Premium passed 150 million subscribers including trials, and the subscriptions, platforms and devices line grew 11% to $14,290 million. Pichai described YouTube as the leading US streaming platform by watch time and highlighted custom feeds among more than 30 Made on YouTube launches.

When: Results were published on October 28, 2026, for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. Nielsen's August Gauge, showing YouTube at a record 15.8% of US TV time, was released on October 22.

Where: YouTube's viewing figures cited here are for the United States; revenue figures are global. Custom feeds are available to signed-in US viewers using English.

Why: YouTube's ad growth slowed while its viewing share and subscriptions rose, and Alphabet gave no explanation. The second quarter's World Cup and currency movements account for part of the sequential slowdown, but the documents provide no impression, pricing or format data that would show how YouTube's record viewing is being monetized through advertising.