Free measurement tool
CPM, CPC, CTR and RPM calculator
Fill in any two fields and the third is calculated. The formula is written out under the result, so you can see which way round it was divided and by what.
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.
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. A $2 CPM at a 0.4% click-through rate means a thousand impressions cost $2 and produced four clicks, so the CPC is $0.50. Fill in your own numbers and the calculator shows this arithmetic rather than hiding it, which is the point: a metric you cannot recompute is a metric you cannot argue with.
Why there is no benchmark column
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 real 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.
The traps
- 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.
- On YouTube, CPM is what advertisers paid and RPM is what you received after the platform's share, across all revenue sources. They are not the same number and should not be compared to each other.
- Currency, tax and rounding all sit inside the cost figure. Enter what you were actually charged, not the bid you set.