CPM Calculator
What an advertising campaign costs per thousand impressions, and what a budget buys.
CPM is the standard way advertising is priced: cost per thousand impressions. It makes campaigns with different sizes and budgets comparable, and it is the number to check when a platform quotes a total reach at a fixed price.
Enter the budget and the impressions, or the CPM and the budget, and this calculator gives the cost per impression, the reach a budget buys and the cost per click if you enter a click-through rate.
At a glance
- What you enter
- Campaign cost, Impressions delivered, Budget to plan with, Click-through rate, Audience size, Conversion rate from clicks
- What you get
- CPM, Cost per impression, Impressions a budget buys, Cost per click, Cost per conversion
- Formula shown
- Yes - every step, right below your results.
- Cost and privacy
- Free, no account needed, and nothing you type is stored.
See worked examples ↓ Read the FAQ ↓ Share this calculator ↓
Results are estimates for general information only - always verify with a professional or official source before acting on them.
How to use the CPM Calculator
- 1 Enter Campaign cost
- 2 Enter Impressions delivered
- 3 Enter Budget to plan with
- 4 Enter Click-through rate
- 5 Enter Audience size - The number of distinct people the campaign can reach.
- 6 Enter Conversion rate from clicks
- 7 Press Calculate. You get CPM, Cost per impression, Impressions a budget buys, Cost per click, Cost per conversion, and every intermediate step stays visible under “How is this calculated?”
- 8 Change one number at a time to see what moves the result - that is usually the most useful thing a calculator can tell you.
Worked examples
Real numbers run through this calculator. Open any example to load it into the form above and change it.
$2,100 on 600,000 impressions with a 0.6% click rate
A targeted placement with a modest click rate and a $5,000 planning budget.
You enter
- Campaign cost
- $2,100.00
- Impressions delivered
- 600,000
- Budget to plan with
- $5,000.00
- Click-through rate
- 0.60%
- Audience size
- 400,000
- Conversion rate from clicks
- 2.50%
You get
- CPM
- $3.50
- Cost per impression
- 0.00
- Impressions a budget buys
- 1,428,571
- Cost per click
- $0.58
- Cost per conversion
- $23.33
The CPM is $3.50, or 0.0040 for each impression. A $5,000 budget at that rate buys 1,428,571 impressions, which reaches 400,000 people an average of 3.57 times. A 0.6% click rate produces 8,571 clicks at $0.58 each, and a 2.5% conversion rate turns those into 214.29 conversions at $23.33 each. The campaign that ran delivered 1.50 impressions per person.
$900 on 1.2 million impressions with a 1.2% click rate
Cheap high volume inventory that converts better and needs more repetition.
You enter
- Campaign cost
- $900.00
- Impressions delivered
- 1,200,000
- Budget to plan with
- $2,500.00
- Click-through rate
- 1.20%
- Audience size
- 300,000
- Conversion rate from clicks
- 4%
You get
- CPM
- $0.75
- Cost per impression
- 0.00
- Impressions a budget buys
- 3,333,333
- Cost per click
- $0.06
- Cost per conversion
- $1.56
The CPM is $0.75, or 0.0010 for each impression. A $2,500 budget buys 3,333,333 impressions, an average of 11.11 views for each of the 300,000 people in the audience. At a 1.2% click rate those impressions produce 40,000 clicks at $0.06 each, and a 4% conversion rate gives 1,600 conversions at $1.56 each. The frequency is three times the first example, so the same audience is being reached far more often.
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Frequently asked questions
Why is the cost per conversion more useful than the CPM?
Because a cheap impression is only good value if somebody acts on it. The CPM tells you what the placement costs; the cost per conversion tells you what a customer costs, and that is the number the business actually pays.
In the first example a $3.50 CPM at a 0.6% click-through and a 2.5% conversion rate gives $5,000 of spend and 214.29 conversions, which is $23.33 each. In the second a $0.75 CPM produces 1,600 conversions at $1.56 each, eight times cheaper per impression and fifteen times cheaper per customer. Nothing in the CPM alone would have told you that.
What is average frequency and when is it too high?
It is the impressions a budget buys divided by the number of distinct people in the audience, so it is how many times the average person sees the ad. A budget that buys 3,333,333 impressions against an audience of 300,000 reaches each of them 11.11 times.
There is no universal limit, but repetition stops adding anything at some point and starts to irritate. If the frequency is climbing while the click-through rate is falling, the money is being spent on the same people rather than on new ones, and a wider audience or a longer period is the better use of the budget.
Should I use the delivered impressions or the budget figures for planning?
Both, and the calculator uses both separately. The CPM and the cost per impression come from what the campaign actually delivered, and the impressions a budget buys, the clicks and the conversions apply that same rate to the budget you want to spend next.
That is an important assumption. A larger budget usually reaches more expensive inventory as the cheap placements run out, so the real cost per thousand tends to rise. Plan with the rate you have and check the next campaign against it rather than assuming it holds at three times the spend.
What conversion rate should I enter?
The rate at which clicks become whatever you are counting: a purchase, a signup, a booking or a qualified lead. It should come from your own data at this traffic source, because the same landing page can convert very differently from search and from a social placement.
If you do not know it, leave the field low rather than optimistic and treat the cost per conversion as a ceiling. A rate of 2% entered when the real figure is 0.5% understates the cost per customer by four times, which is exactly the kind of mistake that makes an unprofitable campaign look fine.