Free measurement tool
CPM, CPC, CTR and RPM calculator
For founders checking an ad report, creators working out what a sponsorship is worth, and anyone who has two of the three numbers and needs the third. Fill in any two fields and the third is solved, with the working written out in a sentence you can paste into a report.
Fill in any two fields. The third is worked out for you and marked as computed.
CPM
$2.00
CPM = $250 ÷ 125,000 impressions × 1,000 = $2.00
What each one measures
| Metric | Formula | What it tells you |
|---|---|---|
| CPM | Cost ÷ impressions × 1,000 | What you pay for every thousand times the ad is shown, whether or not anyone acts on it. The price of reach, used to compare placements. |
| CPC | Cost ÷ clicks | What each visit costs you. Rises when an ad is shown a lot but rarely clicked, so it reflects creative and targeting as much as price. |
| CTR | Clicks ÷ impressions × 100 | The share of people who saw the ad and clicked it. Says nothing about cost; it is a measure of how well the creative and audience match. |
| RPM | Revenue ÷ views × 1,000 | What you earn for every thousand views or pageviews. The publisher's mirror image of CPM, after the platform's share is taken out. |
Calculated in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere. Money and percentages are rounded to two decimals for display only. RPM on YouTube is revenue per 1,000 monetised views, and platforms define a "view" differently, so compare RPMs only within one platform.
The four formulas, worked through one campaign
Take a small campaign: $250 spent, 125,000 impressions, 500 clicks. Each metric is one number divided by another, multiplied by a constant, and the calculator solves whichever field you touched least recently.
| Metric | Formula | With the campaign's numbers | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| CPM | Cost ÷ impressions × 1,000 | $250 ÷ 125,000 × 1,000 | $2.00 |
| CPC | Cost ÷ clicks | $250 ÷ 500 | $0.50 |
| CTR | Clicks ÷ impressions × 100 | 500 ÷ 125,000 × 100 | 0.40% |
| RPM | Revenue ÷ views × 1,000 | $84 earned on a video with 42,000 views: $84 ÷ 42,000 × 1,000 | $2.00 |
Four ratios that are really one habit of mind
CPM is what you pay for attention: the cost of a thousand times an ad was shown. CPC is what you pay for action: the cost of one click. CTR is the exchange rate between the two, the share of showings that became clicks. RPM is the same idea seen from the creator's side: what a thousand views earned rather than cost.
Because they are one system, any two fix the third. CPC is always CPM divided by ten times the CTR in percent: a $2 CPM at a 0.4% CTR gives $2 ÷ 4 = $0.50. A metric you can recompute in your head is a metric you can argue with, which is the point of showing the working.
What each ad platform calls these numbers
Meta Ads ManagerReports both CTR (all), which counts any click on the ad including likes and profile taps, and CTR (link click-through rate), which counts link clicks only. Use the link version with this calculator if you care about visits.
LinkedIn Campaign ManagerLets you bid by impressions or by clicks. On a CPM bid, divide your spend by clicks here to see what each visit actually cost; on a CPC bid, do the reverse to compare the placement with a CPM buy.
YouTube StudioShows CPM, what advertisers paid per thousand ad impressions, and RPM, what you received per thousand views after YouTube's share and across all revenue sources. RPM is lower by design and is the number to use for your own earnings.
Sponsorship quotesA creator charging $600 for a post that averages 40,000 views is pricing at a $15 CPM. Turning a flat fee into a CPM is the quickest way to compare it with paid placements.
Your last campaign is the benchmark
Published average CPMs range from under a dollar to over fifty depending on the platform, the country, the industry, the month and how narrowly the audience was targeted. Putting one figure next to your own number would hand you a verdict the underlying data cannot support.
Your last campaign can. Run the same calculation on it, use that as the line, and judge the next one against an audience and a platform that are actually yours.
- Impressions are not people. One person shown an ad four times is four impressions, so CPM is a price for showings, not for reach.
- Every platform defines a view differently, from the first frame to a fixed number of seconds. Compare RPMs within one platform, never across two.
- Currency, tax and rounding all sit inside the cost figure. Enter what you were actually charged, not the bid you set.
Questions about CPM, CPC, CTR and RPM
How do I calculate CPM?
Divide the total cost by the number of impressions and multiply by 1,000. $250 for 125,000 impressions is $250 ÷ 125,000 × 1,000 = $2.00. Type the cost and the impressions into the CPM tab and the result appears with that working underneath.
How do I get CPC from CPM and CTR?
Divide the CPM by ten times the CTR expressed as a percentage. At a $2 CPM and a 0.4% CTR, a thousand impressions cost $2 and produce 4 clicks, so each click costs $0.50.
What is the difference between CPM and RPM on YouTube?
CPM is what advertisers paid YouTube per thousand ad impressions. RPM is what you, the creator, earned per thousand video views after YouTube's share, including views that showed no ad. That is why RPM is always the smaller number.
How do I turn a sponsorship fee into a CPM?
Divide the fee by the expected views and multiply by 1,000. $600 for a post averaging 40,000 views works out to a $15 CPM, which you can then compare with what a paid placement would cost for the same audience.
Why is my CTR different in Meta Ads Manager and in my analytics?
Meta's CTR (all) counts every click on the ad, while your analytics counts only people who arrived on your site. Use Meta's link click-through rate for a fairer comparison, and expect it still to run higher than arrivals, because some people click and leave before the page loads.
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