CPM Calculator

Programmatic display often runs $1–5, Facebook and Instagram typically $5–15, and LinkedIn $25 or more for narrow B2B targeting. CPM prices reach, not results: a cheap thousand impressions on the wrong audience is money spent, not saved, so read it alongside conversion rate and ROAS before shifting budget.

Forward campaign reports into a Ferra table and you can line up CPM by channel and month just by asking.

Give it the campaign's total cost and the impressions delivered, and it returns the cost per 1,000. Both numbers should come from one campaign report and one date range.

Divide cost by impressions, then multiply by 1,000. Suppose a campaign cost $1,200 and delivered 400,000 impressions.

1,200 ÷ 400,000 = 0.003, and 0.003 × 1,000 = $3. You paid $3 for every thousand times the ad was shown. The formula reverses cleanly: at a $3 CPM, a $1,200 budget buys 400,000 impressions.

Skipping the final multiplication is the classic slip: reporting $0.003, the price of one impression, as the CPM. Dividing by reach instead of impressions is the other: reach counts unique people, so the figure inflates whenever anyone sees the ad more than once.

No single benchmark survives contact with platform, format, audience, and season. The broad pattern holds, though: standard display runs a few dollars, social feeds cost more, and video and premium placements more still. Narrow, high-value audiences, decision-makers, competitive retargeting pools, command far higher CPMs than broad consumer targeting.

Cheap isn't the goal. A low CPM on the wrong audience wastes money a thousand impressions at a time, while an expensive CPM is a bargain when those impressions convert. Use it to compare placements reaching similar audiences, or to catch costs creeping up inside a campaign, and always read it next to click-through and conversion rates.

Impressions are sold at auction. Your CPM falls when competition for your audience drops, or when the platform decides your ad has earned cheaper delivery.