Free calculator
CPM Calculator for Display, YouTube and Demand Gen
Enter what a campaign spent and the impressions it bought. You get the CPM, the cost of a thousand impressions, and with a click-through rate the clicks and cost per click those impressions equal. A second form turns a budget and a CPM into the impressions it buys. Nothing you type leaves your browser.
Calculator
Calculate Your CPM From Spend and Impressions
The form holds a worked example: $1,500 of spend, 250,000 impressions and a 0.50% click-through rate. Replace it with your numbers; the results update as you type.
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The math
What CPM Is and How It Converts to CPC
The CPM formula is spend divided by impressions, times 1,000: the cost of a thousand impressions. $1,500 for 250,000 impressions is a $6.00 CPM. The M is the Roman numeral for a thousand, so CPM and cost per mille are the same figure.
Google Ads Help counts an impression each time your ad is shown, on a search result page or on another site in the Google Network, and notes that in some placements only part of the ad is shown. Cost and impressions are reported on every campaign type, so the division works for Display, YouTube and Demand Gen campaigns alike, whatever they bid on.
CPM turns into CPC through the click-through rate. Clicks are impressions times CTR, so at 0.50% the 250,000 impressions give 1,250 clicks and the $1,500 works out to $1.20 a click. The shortcut is CPC = CPM ÷ (CTR × 10): $6.00 ÷ 5 = $1.20. One more division, CPC by conversion rate, gives the cost per conversion.
The second form runs the math backwards: a budget divided by the CPM, times 1,000, is the impressions it buys. For the campaign types that pay per thousand, our guides on Demand Gen campaigns and remarketing cover the setup around the number.
spend ÷ impressions × 1,000$1,500 ÷ 250,000 × 1,000 = $6.00impressions × CTR250,000 × 0.50% = 1,250CPM ÷ (CTR × 10)$6.00 ÷ (0.50 × 10) = $1.20budget ÷ CPM × 1,000$5,000 ÷ $6.00 × 1,000 = 833,333CPC ÷ conversion rate$1.20 ÷ 2% = $60.00Reach
How Many Impressions a Budget Buys
This impressions calculator takes a budget and the CPM you pay or expect. The worked example is $5,000 at a $6.00 CPM. Impressions are rounded down to a whole impression.
By CPM
Impressions a $5,000 Budget Buys by CPM
Same $5,000 budget and a 0.50% click-through rate. Only the CPM moves.
| CPM | Impressions | Clicks at 0.50% CTR | CPC equivalent |
|---|---|---|---|
| $2.00 | 2,500,000 | 12,500 | $0.40 |
| $4.00 | 1,250,000 | 6,250 | $0.80 |
| $6.00 | 833,333 | 4,167 | $1.20 |
| $8.00 | 625,000 | 3,125 | $1.60 |
| $12.00 | 416,666 | 2,083 | $2.40 |
What moves CPM. Four things set the price of a thousand impressions. The audience: a remarketing list or an in-market segment costs more per thousand than open targeting, because more advertisers bid for the same people. The placement: a YouTube in-stream slot, a Display site and a Gmail or Discover feed each clear at their own price. The format: video and large or interactive formats cost more than a small image or text ad. The season: CPM is an auction price, so it rises whenever more advertisers compete for the same people, which in retail means the fourth quarter. Compare a CPM against the same audience, placement and month, never against another campaign's number. Our Google Ads management page describes how we set those four before a campaign runs.
Definitions
CPM, vCPM and CPC Side by Side
Three definitions from Google Ads Help, and the arithmetic between them.
CPM and target CPM
Google Ads Help defines CPM as a way to bid where you pay per thousand impressions on the Google Display Network. Max. CPM is no longer offered as a bid strategy: Display campaigns that pay per impression bid viewable CPM, and video campaigns use Target CPM, where Google sets bids to keep the campaign's average CPM at or below the target you give it. Whatever a campaign bids, spend divided by impressions is still the price you paid.
Viewable CPM (vCPM)
A viewable CPM bid pays only for impressions that Active View measures as viewable. Google counts an ad as viewable when 50 percent of it shows on screen for one second or longer for display ads, and for two seconds or longer for video ads. Fewer impressions qualify, so Google's page says a vCPM bid usually needs to be higher than a plain CPM bid to win the same traffic. The Viewability columns add Viewable impr., Avg. viewable CPM and Viewable rate to the report.
CPM vs CPC vs CPA
The three prices describe one campaign at three points. CPM is what a thousand views cost, CPC is what a visit costs, CPA is what a sale or lead costs. CTR links the first two (CPC = CPM ÷ (CTR × 10)) and conversion rate links the last two (CPA = CPC ÷ conversion rate). A $6.00 CPM at a 0.50% CTR is a $1.20 CPC; at a 2% conversion rate that is $60.00 per conversion. Our CPC calculator and CTR calculator run the two links on their own.
Common mistakes
Where CPM Math Goes Wrong
Six habits that make a CPM look cheaper or dearer than it is.
- CPM compared across channels. A $6.00 CPM on YouTube and a $6.00 CPM on a Display placement buy different attention. Compare the CPC and cost per conversion they produce, with the CTR and conversion rate beside them.
- Served impressions read as viewable. A vCPM campaign reports viewable impressions and pays on those; a plain impression count includes ads that never came on screen. Match the column to the bid.
- A low CPM taken as a win. Cheap impressions on the wrong audience cost more per sale than dear impressions on the right one. Divide by conversions before deciding.
- Spend and impressions from different windows. Both columns must cover the same campaign and the same dates, or the CPM is a blend of two periods.
- Reach planned from a Search campaign. Search campaigns pay per click, and their impressions follow the queries people type, not the budget. Plan reach from the Display, YouTube or Demand Gen campaign that will deliver it.
- Impressions read as people. 833,333 impressions is not 833,333 people. At a frequency of three per person it reaches about 277,778. Check the reach reporting before promising an audience size.
How do I calculate CPM?
Divide ad spend by impressions and multiply by 1,000. $1,500 of spend for 250,000 impressions is $1,500 ÷ 250,000 × 1,000 = $6.00. The formula works for any campaign that reports cost and impressions, so you can read an effective CPM off a Display, YouTube, Demand Gen or Search campaign whatever it bids on.
How do I convert CPM to CPC?
Divide the CPM by the CTR times 10. A $6.00 CPM at a 0.50% CTR is $6.00 ÷ 5 = $1.20 a click. The long way gives the same answer: 250,000 impressions × 0.50% = 1,250 clicks, and $1,500 ÷ 1,250 = $1.20.
What is the difference between CPM and vCPM?
CPM counts every served impression. Viewable CPM counts only impressions that Active View measures as viewable: Google Ads Help counts an ad as viewable when 50 percent of it shows on screen for one second or longer for display ads, and two seconds or longer for video ads. The same page states that a vCPM bid usually needs to be higher than a CPM bid to win the same traffic, because fewer impressions qualify.
How many impressions does $5,000 buy?
Divide the budget by the CPM and multiply by 1,000. At a $6.00 CPM, $5,000 buys 833,333 impressions; at $4.00 it buys 1,250,000 and at $12.00 it buys 416,666. The second calculator on this page runs it for any budget and CPM.
Why is my CPM different on Display, YouTube and Demand Gen?
Each is a separate auction with its own inventory, formats and competing bidders, and the audience you target changes the price inside each one. Compare a CPM only with the same channel, audience and month, and compare channels on the cost per click and cost per conversion they end up producing.
Does the calculator store my numbers?
No. The math runs in your browser, and nothing you type is sent to us or saved anywhere.
Can you check whether our campaigns pay too much per thousand?
Yes. A free Google Ads audit looks at the campaigns behind the numbers. We tell you whether we found what is driving the CPM or the cost per conversion up and name one or two issues; the full list and the fixes are part of management.
Free audit
Want Us to Check the Campaigns Behind These Numbers?
Send us the account and the CPM you entered. We tell you whether we found what is driving the price of a thousand impressions up and name one or two issues before any work starts.
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Sources
Sources and Related Pages
- Google Ads Help, Impressions: Definition: support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6320. An impression is counted each time your ad is shown on a search result page or other site on the Google Network; in some placements only a section of the ad is shown. Read October 25, 2026.
- Google Ads Help, Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM): Definition: support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6310. A way to bid where you pay per one thousand impressions on the Google Display Network; existing CPM bids are converted to viewable CPM. Read October 25, 2026.
- Google Ads Help, Cost-per-thousand viewable impressions (viewable CPM): support.google.com/google-ads/answer/6026409. An ad counts as viewable when 50 percent shows on screen for one second or longer (display) or two seconds or longer (video), measured by Active View; a vCPM bid usually needs to be higher than a CPM bid. Read October 25, 2026.
- Google Ads Help, Bid on viewable impressions using viewable CPM: support.google.com/google-ads/answer/3499086. Max. CPM is no longer available as a bid strategy; the Viewability columns include Viewable impr., Avg. viewable CPM (the average cost for 1,000 viewable impressions) and Viewable rate. Read October 25, 2026.
- Google Ads Help, Target cost-per-thousand impressions (tCPM): Definition: support.google.com/google-ads/answer/9158634. Available for video campaigns; Google Ads tries to keep the campaign's average CPM equal to or lower than the tCPM you set. Read October 25, 2026.
- Logical Gecko, Demand Gen Campaigns: The 2026 Google Ads Guide.
- Logical Gecko, Google Ads Remarketing: Setup, Segments and Rules (2026).