{
  "country_tiers": [
    {"cpm": "$15-$50", "countries": "US, UK, Canada, Australia, Germany", "rpm": "$8-$25", "tier": "Tier 1"},
    {"cpm": "$5-$15", "countries": "Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, UAE", "rpm": "$2-$8", "tier": "Tier 2"},
    {"cpm": "$0.50-$3", "countries": "Most of Asia, Africa, Latin America", "rpm": "$0.20-$1.50", "tier": "Tier 3"}
  ],
  "niches": [
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Affiliate + ads", "Production cost": "6/10", "Shelf life": "9/10"}, "competition": "high", "examples": "budgeting, investing basics, credit card reviews, debt payoff", "leans": "affiliate", "name": "Personal Finance & Investing", "notes": "Top RPM niche. Financial advertisers compete aggressively. A single credit card or brokerage referral pays $50-$200 on top of ad revenue. Long-form (8+ min) unlocks mid-roll ads, which lifts RPM here.", "rpm_range": "$10-25", "sponsor_angle": "Credit cards, brokerages, insurance, banks"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Affiliate + ads", "Production cost": "5/10", "Shelf life": "8/10"}, "competition": "high", "examples": "side hustle reviews, AI tool reviews, affiliate breakdowns, \"how I make money online\"", "leans": "affiliate", "name": "Make Money Online / Affiliate Content", "notes": "The niche about niches. The viewer is already primed to click an affiliate link, so affiliate income from the tools you mention often beats the ad RPM outright. 20-40% recurring on the tools reviewed.", "rpm_range": "$9-17", "sponsor_angle": "AI tools, hosting, courses, affiliate networks"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "4/10", "Monetisation route": "Affiliate + ads", "Production cost": "6/10", "Shelf life": "8/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "CRM reviews, project management comparisons, email marketing software, \"best tools for [business type]\"", "leans": "affiliate", "name": "B2B Software & SaaS Reviews", "notes": "SaaS companies treat YouTube as customer acquisition and pay some of the highest CPMs on the platform. 20-40% recurring commission means one review can earn for years. Sub-niches for a specific industry have almost no faceless competition.", "rpm_range": "$10-22", "sponsor_angle": "SaaS tools, CRM, devops, hosting"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "4/10", "Monetisation route": "Ads", "Production cost": "5/10", "Shelf life": "8/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "tenant rights, contract basics, small-business legal requirements, \"what to do if...\"", "leans": "ads", "name": "Legal Education", "notes": "Underrated. Law firms and legal-tech spend aggressively to reach people with legal problems, so CPMs are among the highest on YouTube. But consumer affiliate programs barely exist here. Works well faceless with text-on-screen or stock footage.", "rpm_range": "$9-22", "sponsor_angle": "Legal tech, document services, legalzoom-style tools"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Balanced", "Production cost": "5/10", "Shelf life": "7/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "tool comparison videos, tutorial walkthroughs, \"best AI tools for [job]\" roundups", "leans": "balanced", "name": "AI & Technology Tutorials", "notes": "Every new tool release is a new video idea, most weeks. Tech advertisers pay premium CPMs because their customers buy tools. AI workflows for a specific profession is a low-competition sub-niche with high buyer intent and fast growth.", "rpm_range": "$8-20", "sponsor_angle": "AI tools, cloud, electronics, gear"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Balanced", "Production cost": "6/10", "Shelf life": "8/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "SEO tutorials, email marketing, paid ads guides, content strategy", "leans": "balanced", "name": "Digital Marketing", "notes": "Marketing professionals and business owners are a high-value audience, so marketing tool companies pay well. Overlaps well with course or consulting upsells on top of the channel itself.", "rpm_range": "$8-18", "sponsor_angle": "Marketing suites, SEO tools, course platforms"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Balanced", "Production cost": "6/10", "Shelf life": "8/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "buying guides, neighbourhood reviews, rental breakdowns, mortgage basics", "leans": "balanced", "name": "Real Estate", "notes": "Agent and lender ad budgets keep CPM steady. Works well with a data-driven angle (price trackers, cost-per-region breakdowns) rather than generic tours.", "rpm_range": "$7-16", "sponsor_angle": "Lead-gen platforms, mortgage tools, furniture"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Ads", "Production cost": "3/10", "Shelf life": "7/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "scripted narrative, AI-assisted voiceover and scenes", "leans": "ads", "name": "Animated Storytelling", "notes": "Fully scriptable, so script, voiceover and scenes are all AI-assisted. Low production cost, but mass-AI-content channels get rejected from YPP, so the writing has to be genuinely good.", "rpm_range": "$9-13", "sponsor_angle": "App subscriptions, streaming, audiobooks"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "6/10", "Monetisation route": "Ads", "Production cost": "7/10", "Shelf life": "9/10"}, "competition": "high", "examples": "case walkthroughs, archival research, scripted narration", "leans": "ads", "name": "True Crime Documentary", "notes": "High watch time and strong evergreen search traffic, but the creator pool is large and it needs real research to avoid the shallow AI-narration style now saturated in the niche.", "rpm_range": "$8-12", "sponsor_angle": "Streaming services, books, true crime podcasts"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Balanced", "Production cost": "5/10", "Shelf life": "8/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "micro-niches like \"sleep for shift workers\", supplements, habit explainers", "leans": "balanced", "name": "Health & Wellness", "notes": "Works best micro-niched. A narrow, specific audience outperforms a generic one on both CPM and retention, because the ad buyer can target the condition.", "rpm_range": "$5-14", "sponsor_angle": "Supplements, wearables, sleep tech"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "4/10", "Monetisation route": "Balanced", "Production cost": "7/10", "Shelf life": "10/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "language lessons, Excel tutorials, software walkthroughs, screen-recorded how-tos", "leans": "balanced", "name": "Education & Online Learning", "notes": "Evergreen: 3-year-old videos still rank and earn. Needs to actually teach - screen recordings, real files, real problems - which is why competition is medium, not low. Software and course affiliate programs pay 20-30% recurring.", "rpm_range": "$6-12", "sponsor_angle": "Course platforms, software, productivity tools"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Ads", "Production cost": "4/10", "Shelf life": "8/10"}, "competition": "medium", "examples": "psychology explainers, behaviour breakdowns, cognitive bias stories", "leans": "ads", "name": "Psychology & Behaviour", "notes": "Strong short-form performance alongside long-form. A repeatable format - always open with a question - is what makes it work, and the format is what the algorithm learns to recommend.", "rpm_range": "$6-11", "sponsor_angle": "Books, meditation apps, course platforms"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "4/10", "Monetisation route": "Affiliate", "Production cost": "6/10", "Shelf life": "9/10"}, "competition": "low", "examples": "book analysis, literary history, author deep-dives", "leans": "affiliate", "name": "History Explainers", "notes": "Book and course affiliate links convert well here. A literary-analysis sub-niche is very low competition with an educated, high-value audience.", "rpm_range": "$6-10", "sponsor_angle": "Books, audiobook services, courses"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "4/10", "Monetisation route": "Ads", "Production cost": "3/10", "Shelf life": "7/10"}, "competition": "low", "examples": "sleep soundscapes, rain, brown noise, cafe ambience", "leans": "ads", "name": "ASMR & Ambient Soundscapes", "notes": "Long watch time plus strong YouTube Premium revenue. Almost no creator competition in the well-defined sub-niches (sleep, focus, rain for study). Minimal affiliate income - it is an ads and Premium play.", "rpm_range": "$5-11", "sponsor_angle": "Music licences, headphones, audio gear, ambient apps"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "3/10", "Monetisation route": "Ads", "Production cost": "4/10", "Shelf life": "8/10"}, "competition": "very low", "examples": "wildlife docs, habitat explainers, migration stories", "leans": "ads", "name": "Animal & Nature Documentary", "notes": "Less competition than true crime for a similar format, and a smaller creator pool overall. Low RPM but the easiest to produce consistently.", "rpm_range": "$5-9", "sponsor_angle": "Nature documentaries, camera gear, conservation NGOs"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "6/10", "Monetisation route": "Balanced", "Production cost": "4/10", "Shelf life": "6/10"}, "competition": "high", "examples": "specific-angle self-improvement, habit systems, routines for a defined audience", "leans": "balanced", "name": "Motivation & Self-Improvement", "notes": "Generic quote channels are saturated. Standing out needs a specific angle tied to a defined person or situation, otherwise the thumbnail and title carry nothing.", "rpm_range": "$5-10", "sponsor_angle": "Books, journals, coaching apps"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "2/10", "Monetisation route": "Ads", "Production cost": "5/10", "Shelf life": "9/10"}, "competition": "very low", "examples": "mobility for 50+, sleep for 60+, strength after 65", "leans": "ads", "name": "Senior Health & Longevity", "notes": "Reported fast growth from a very small creator pool - the emptiest lane on this list right now. Work is real and unglamorous: interviews, medical-source material, careful claims.", "rpm_range": "$5-9", "sponsor_angle": "Health devices, supplements, insurance, mobility aids"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "5/10", "Monetisation route": "Ads", "Production cost": "2/10", "Shelf life": "4/10"}, "competition": "high", "examples": "list videos, quick facts, rapid Shorts", "leans": "ads", "name": "Interesting Facts / Trivia", "notes": "Best run as a high-volume Shorts play, not a long-form channel. Very low RPM, so it only makes sense at scale.", "rpm_range": "$3-6", "sponsor_angle": "Mobile games, snack apps, books"},
    {"axes": {"Competition": "7/10", "Monetisation route": "Affiliate", "Production cost": "6/10", "Shelf life": "5/10"}, "competition": "high", "examples": "gameplay compilations, patch notes, guide videos", "leans": "affiliate", "name": "Gaming Highlights", "notes": "Income leans on peripheral and service affiliate links. A finance creator at $15 RPM makes roughly 5-8x more per 1,000 views than a gaming creator at $3 RPM, with identical view counts.", "rpm_range": "$2-5", "sponsor_angle": "Game peripherals, energy drinks, hardware"}
  ],
  "note": "YouTube pays creators 55% of long-form ad revenue, so a $20 CPM niche typically lands $8-12 RPM once the cut, ad-blockers and non-monetised views are subtracted. Plan against RPM, never CPM. High RPM + low competition + viral is a unicorn - pick medium RPM with a repeatable format and a consistent upload plan."
}