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CPM Calculator

Find the CPM of an advertising campaign.

Result

$3.00
$0.00

How it is calculated

CPM is the price paid per thousand ad impressions: CPM = cost / impressions × 1000. Cost is the total spend of the campaign (or the revenue earned, if you are a publisher looking at your own inventory) in a single currency, and impressions is the number of times the ad was served. The tool also shows the cost of one single impression, cost / impressions, which is usually a tiny amount that rounds to $0.00 at two decimals, so rely on the CPM figure. Impressions must be above zero and cost cannot be negative, otherwise no result appears. CPM measures the price of reach only; it does not tell you whether anyone clicked or bought. Use it to compare placements or networks with similar goals.

Worked example

An advertiser spends 1,200 on a banner campaign that is served 400,000 times. The cost of one impression is 1,200 / 400,000 = 0.003. Multiplying by 1,000 gives the price of a thousand impressions: 0.003 × 1,000 = $3.00. The CPM of the campaign is therefore $3.00. A publisher selling the same inventory at that price would earn $3.00 for every thousand views of the ad.

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Common mistakes

  • Entering impressions in thousands while the cost is the full amount. The formula already multiplies by 1,000, so this would inflate the CPM by 1,000 times.
  • Counting clicks or unique visitors as impressions. A single user can see the same ad many times.
  • Comparing CPMs across currencies or including agency fees in one case and not in another.
  • Judging a campaign by CPM alone: a low CPM on poorly targeted traffic can still cost more per sale than a higher CPM on the right audience.

About this calculator

CPM (cost per mille) — mille being Latin for thousand — measures how much an advertiser pays for every 1,000 ad impressions: CPM = (total campaign cost ÷ total impressions) × 1,000. It's one of the oldest and most widely used pricing metrics in advertising, dating back to print and broadcast media, and remains the standard unit for buying and comparing display, video and programmatic ad inventory online.

Media buyers, marketers and publishers use CPM to compare the cost-efficiency of different ad placements, platforms or campaigns regardless of their absolute size — a $500 campaign generating 100,000 impressions ($5 CPM) is more cost-efficient at reaching eyeballs than a $2,000 campaign generating 200,000 ($10 CPM). Publishers also use CPM (often called eCPM when derived from actual revenue) to price ad inventory and to benchmark how much revenue their traffic is generating per thousand views.

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