CPM calculator: the cost of being seen a thousand times.

What CPM measures

CPM stands for cost per mille, the cost of one thousand ad impressions. Ad platforms sell attention by auction, and CPM is the clearing price: it goes up when many advertisers want the same audience and down when the platform has more inventory than demand. It is the right metric for comparing the price of reach across platforms, placements and seasons.

What a good CPM looks like

CPMs move with the market, the country, the audience and the time of year: the same campaign costs more in the last quarter than in the first, and more for a narrow retargeting audience than for a broad one. As rough orientation, many social campaigns land between $5 and $20 per thousand, search ads are priced per click rather than per impression, and premium video placements cost more. A low CPM is only good if the impressions reach people who buy.

That is why we never optimise for CPM alone: our event campaign for iGC Africa was judged on registrations, and the ads that delivered leads at $0.57 each were not the ones with the lowest CPM.

Typical CPM by platform

Every platform prices a thousand impressions differently, because each one sells a different audience with a different level of intent. The ranges below are rough orientation for broad targeting in the United States and Western Europe; a narrow B2B audience, a retargeting list or the November peak can double them. Use them to sanity-check a number, not as a target.

Industry changes the picture as much as the platform. Retail and e-commerce campaigns usually sit at the low end of each range, real estate and local services in the middle, and finance, insurance, legal and B2B software at the top, because those advertisers can pay more for each customer and bid the auction up.

CPM to CPC, and back

CPM and CPC describe the same money from two ends, and the click-through rate is the bridge between them. A $10 CPM buys 1,000 impressions; at a 1% click-through rate those become 10 clicks, so each click cost $1. Enter your CTR in the calculator and it shows the implied CPC alongside the CPM, which is the fastest way to compare a platform that bills per impression with one that bills per click.

How to lower it without losing quality

• Refresh creatives before frequency climbs: a tired ad gets fewer clicks, and platforms charge more to keep showing it.
• Widen the audience and let the algorithm find buyers, then exclude the segments that click without converting.
• Test placements: feeds, stories, reels and the audience network are priced differently.
• Measure downstream with the CPC and cost per lead calculators, because a cheap CPM with no leads is the most expensive kind.