CPM Calculator
CPM — the cost of a thousand impressions — is advertising's oldest unit of sale, and the easiest to misread, because the impressions platforms bill you for are not the impressions anyone saw. This calculator reads a campaign both ways: the served CPM your invoice shows, and the viewable CPM behind it once you enter what share of impressions actually met the viewable standard (at least 50% of the ad on screen for a continuous second — longer for video). It also derives frequency when you supply unique reach, which is the early-warning light for audience fatigue, and runs in reverse: a budget and an expected CPM become projected impressions and unique users. Measure a campaign or plan a budget — the same inputs, finally on one screen.
Unlocks frequency — how often each person saw the ad.
CPM — cost per 1,000 impressions
$1.39
Each individual impression costs $0.00.
The viewable standard counts an impression when at least 50% of its pixels stay on screen — 1 continuous second for display, 2 for video. Measured against that bar, your real CPM is almost always higher than the served CPM platforms report.
How to use CPM Calculator
- 1
Measure: enter spend and impressions
Total cost and impressions delivered. Add unique reach for frequency, and your viewable share for the honest vCPM.
- 2
Or plan: enter budget and expected CPM
Use your account's own recent CPM rather than a benchmark. Add an assumed frequency to see unique users reached.
- 3
Read the numbers against each other
Served CPM is the billing figure; vCPM is the cost of attention; frequency tells you whether new impressions are reaching new people or repeating old ones.
Why use this tool
- Served CPM and cost per impression from spend and impressions
- Viewable CPM — what the attention actually cost
- Frequency from reach: the fatigue early-warning light
- Plan mode: budget + CPM → impressions and unique reach
- Works for Meta, Display, YouTube and any CPM-billed media
- Runs in your browser — campaign figures never leave the device
Frequently asked questions
- How do I calculate CPM?
- Divide total cost by impressions and multiply by 1,000: $250 spent on 180,000 impressions is a $1.39 CPM. The unit is 'cost per mille' — per thousand impressions — because buying one impression at a time would produce unusably small numbers.
- What is viewable CPM (vCPM)?
- Cost per 1,000 impressions that met the viewability standard — at least 50% of pixels on screen for one continuous second for display, two for video. If only 60% of your impressions were viewable, a $2.50 served CPM is really $4.17 per seen thousand. Platforms bill served; vCPM is what the attention cost.
- What is frequency and why does it matter?
- Impressions divided by unique people reached: 320,000 impressions over 80,000 people is 4×. Past roughly 3-4 exposures, extra impressions mostly re-hit the same people at full price — the classic fatigue signal. Reach and frequency together tell you whether spend is widening the audience or deepening the repetition.
- What is a good CPM?
- There is no platform-wide answer: CPM varies with audience, placement, objective and season — Q4 reliably carries the year's highs. The only benchmark that predicts anything is your own account's trend at constant targeting. Use ranges as orientation, your own history as the standard.
- How many impressions will my budget buy?
- Budget ÷ CPM × 1,000: $500 at a $4.50 CPM buys about 111,000 impressions. Add a frequency assumption and the same math returns unique reach — 111,000 impressions at 3× frequency is about 37,000 people. The calculator's plan mode runs exactly this.
- Why compare CPM across platforms at all then?
- Cross-platform CPM comparison is only fair at the viewable level, measured against the same objective, over the same period. A cheap CPM on low-attention inventory and a premium CPM on guaranteed placement answer different questions — and the viewable row is what makes the two comparable.
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