Free marketing tool
Free CPM Calculator
Work out CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions), total ad cost or the number of impressions. Enter any two and the calculator finds the third. Add clicks to see CTR and CPC as well.
Live calculator
Calculate CPM, cost or impressions
CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions)
$5.00
$500.00 for 100,000 impressions at a $5.00 CPM
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- -
- Cost per click (CPC)
- -
Formula
CPM = cost / impressions x 1,000
CTR = clicks / impressions x 100 · CPC = cost / clicks
What is CPM?
CPM means cost per mille, or cost per 1,000 impressions. An impression is one time an ad is shown. If a campaign has a CPM of $5, you pay $5 each time the ad is shown 1,000 times, whether or not anyone clicks. Most display, video and social ads are priced or reported this way.
How to calculate CPM
The formula is: CPM = total cost / impressions × 1,000.
Example: you spent $500 and the ad was shown 100,000 times. $500 / 100,000 = $0.005 per impression, times 1,000 is a CPM of $5.00.
You can turn the formula around. Total cost = CPM × impressions / 1,000, and impressions = cost / CPM × 1,000. So a $1,000 budget at a $5 CPM buys 200,000 impressions.
CPM vs CPC vs CPA
CPM is the price of being seen: cost per 1,000 impressions. CPC (cost per click) is the price of a visit: cost / clicks. CPA (cost per action or acquisition) is the price of a result, such as a signup or a sale: cost / conversions.
They are linked. At the same CPM, a higher click-through rate gives a lower CPC, and a higher conversion rate on your landing page gives a lower CPA. Check your click-through rate with the CTR calculator, and see whether the spend pays for itself with the ROAS calculator.
Typical CPM ranges by channel
There is no single normal CPM. Prices change with the platform, the audience, the country, the ad format and the season. CPMs often rise in the weeks before big shopping holidays. As a rough guide only:
- Display and banner networks are usually among the cheapest, often a few dollars per 1,000 impressions.
- Social ads usually sit in the middle, and climb for narrow or high-value audiences.
- Video, connected TV and premium publisher placements tend to cost the most.
- B2B audiences, such as job titles or company sizes, usually cost more than broad consumer audiences.
The best benchmark is your own history. Track CPM per campaign over time and compare it with what those impressions led to.
CPM for publishers
If you sell ad space, CPM works the other way: it is the revenue you earn per 1,000 ad impressions. A site that shows 2 million ad impressions a month at a $3 CPM earns about $6,000. Many publishers also track RPM (revenue per 1,000 page views), which counts all the ads on a page and is usually the better number for comparing pages.
Track what the impressions bring
CPM tells you what attention costs, not what it is worth. Tag each campaign link with the UTM builder so your analytics can tie visits, signups and revenue back to the ads that paid for them.
FAQ
How do you calculate CPM?
Divide the total cost by the number of impressions and multiply by 1,000. $500 for 100,000 impressions is a CPM of $5.00.
What does CPM stand for?
Cost per mille. Mille is Latin for thousand, so CPM is the cost of 1,000 ad impressions.
What is a good CPM?
It depends on the channel, the audience, the country and the time of year. A low CPM is only good if the ads also bring clicks and sales, so judge CPM together with CTR, CPC and ROAS.
How many impressions will my budget buy?
Divide your budget by the CPM and multiply by 1,000. A $1,000 budget at a $10 CPM buys about 100,000 impressions. Pick Impressions under Solve for to work it out.
See which ads bring revenue
PageDuel tracks visitors, signups and revenue by source and campaign, then lets you A/B test the pages your ads land on.
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