Marketing & agency
Cost Per Mille (CPM) Calculator
Works cost per thousand impressions, which prices reach rather than response.
Result
Impressions are not attention. For local service businesses, impression-based buying is usually worse value than intent-based search unless you are building brand recognition in a defined area.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Spend divided by impressions, multiplied by a thousand. It prices the opportunity for an audience to see something, which makes it the right measure for awareness buying and the wrong one for judging whether anything happened as a result.
What moves the number
- Audience quality and how narrowly it is defined.
- Placement and format.
- Competition for that audience.
- Seasonality, which moves inventory pricing.
Where this one goes wrong
A low cost per thousand on a poorly defined audience is expensive rather than cheap, because reaching the wrong people at any price produces nothing, which is why narrow targeting at a higher rate frequently outperforms broad targeting at a low one. Judge against the audience, not the rate. An impression also means the ad was served rather than seen, and viewability varies by placement enough to change what the figure actually bought.
Before you quote
- Judge the rate against the audience quality, not alone.
- Check viewability, since served is not seen.
- Use response measures to judge whether awareness buying worked.
Questions
About this calculator
Is a low cost per thousand good?
Only against a relevant audience. Reaching the wrong people cheaply produces nothing, and narrow targeting at a higher rate frequently outperforms broad targeting at a low one. The audience matters more than the rate.
Does an impression mean someone saw the ad?
It means the ad was served, which is not the same thing. Viewability varies considerably by placement and format, so two buys at the same rate can deliver very different amounts of actual attention.
When is cost per thousand the right measure?
For awareness buying, where reach is the objective. For anything measured on response it is the wrong measure, since it says nothing about whether the audience acted, and a campaign judged on it alone can be entirely ineffective.
The formula
CPM = spend ÷ impressions × 1,000
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How to use this calculator
- Campaign spend ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $3,000.
- Impressions delivered. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 400,000.
- Click-through rate (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 1.2%.
- Budget to plan ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $5,000.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to cost per 1,000 impressions, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Campaign spend | $3,000 |
| Impressions delivered | 400,000 |
| Click-through rate | 1.2% |
| Budget to plan | $5,000 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Cost per 1,000 impressions main result | $7.50 |
| Impressions your budget buys | 666,667 |
| Clicks at that CTR | 8,000 |
| Effective cost per click | $0.63 |
A CPM of $7.50 means 5,000 buys about 666,667 impressions and 8,000 clicks: an effective $0.63 per click.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only campaign spend, this is what happens to cost per 1,000 impressions. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Campaign spend ($) | Cost per 1,000 impressions |
|---|---|
| $1,500 | $3.75 |
| $2,250 | $5.63 |
| $3,000 example above | $7.50 |
| $4,500 | $11.25 |
| $6,000 | $15.00 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Campaign spend ($)
- A money amount, starting at $3,000.
- Impressions delivered
- A number, between 0 and 1000000000, starting at 400,000.
- Click-through rate (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 100, starting at 1.2%.
- Budget to plan ($)
- A money amount, starting at $5,000.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Cost per 1,000 impressions | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Impressions your budget buys | A number. |
| Clicks at that CTR | A number. |
| Effective cost per click | A money figure. |
Attribution is the weak link
Return and cost-per-lead figures depend on knowing which enquiries came from which source, and most home-services businesses do not track that reliably. If the source data is guesswork, so is the return.
Keep going
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