YouTube CPM: what reach on YouTube actually costs
CPM is not the only billing unit on YouTube, which makes the number harder to compare than on Meta or TikTok. Bumper and non-skippable ads bill per thousand impressions; skippable and in-feed ads bill per view. Below is what each format costs, and why the month you buy in moves the price almost as much as the format does. For the calculation with no YouTube attached, use the CPM calculator.
Pre-filled with figures typical of YouTube
CPM
—
Budget ÷ impressions × 1,000
Impressions per $1,000
—
What a thousand buys in reach
Effective cost per view
—
CPM ÷ (10 × view rate)
That third card is why CPM and CPV are not alternatives on YouTube: pay per impression and you can still work out what a view cost you.
YouTube CPM by ad format: from bumper to Shorts
The spread comes from the format, not the audience. A six-second bumper and a non-skippable spot compete for the same viewers and sit a factor of two apart. The billing column tells you whether impressions are what you pay for at all:
| Ad format | CPM | Billing |
|---|---|---|
| Bumper (6 seconds) | $3.24–4.37 | CPM |
| YouTube Shorts | approx. $4 | CPM or CPV |
| In-feed (Discovery) | $3–8 | CPV |
| Skippable in-stream | $5–10 | CPM or CPV |
| Non-skippable in-stream | $6–10 | CPM |
| Connected TV | $8.72–10.01 | CPM |
Shorts sit at the bottom around $4, and that is not a discount, it is a different product: a view counts after ten seconds there and after thirty on in-stream. Put the two numbers side by side and you are comparing different lengths of attention. Connected TV costs the most and completes the best. The priciest choice for reach, the wrong one for direct response. How a CPM turns into a click price is what the CPC calculator works out. And one confusion that makes this whole table useless if you miss it: these are buying prices, seen from the advertiser side. What arrives on the other end, at the channel owner, is RPM, and it sits structurally lower — YouTube keeps its share, and RPM spreads across every view, including those that carried no ad at all. This page prices the buying side; the payout side is the RPM calculator.
The month beats the format: CPM across the year
Something format tables tend to bury. When you buy moves the price harder than almost any format decision does, and by a margin wide enough to undo a carefully optimised campaign that ran in the wrong month. Between the cheapest and the dearest window sits a factor of three.
- January to February, $1.98–2.50: the post-holiday lull. The cheapest window there is for building audiences.
- April to May, $6.00–6.33: Q2 budgets land and more brands re-enter the auction.
- July to August, $1.76–3.00: the summer slowdown, cheap again.
- October to November, $5–7 and above: the run-up to the holidays.
- Cyber Week, $5.70 average and $6.93 at peak: the most expensive stretch of the year.
Which forces an awkward planning rule. Buy reach in November and you pay roughly three times what the same audience would have cost in January. Audience building and retargeting lists belong in the lulls, not in peak season.
And the border question. US campaigns run well above the global average, and the German-speaking market is on the expensive side too. Reliable per-country figures do not exist, at least none with a disclosed sample. The format gaps are wider than anything sitting between the markets anyway.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a good CPM on YouTube?
- Mostly a question of format: bumper ads run $3.24–4.37, Shorts around $4, skippable in-stream $5–10 and connected TV $8.72–10.01. Only the comparison within one format means anything. Timing then moves the price by a factor of three between January and Cyber Week.
- Why are YouTube Shorts cheaper than in-stream?
- Because a different thing is being sold. On Shorts a view counts after ten seconds; on in-stream it takes thirty. The lower price reflects the shorter span of attention rather than a discount on the same product.
- Does YouTube bill by CPM or by CPV?
- Both, depending on format. Bumper and non-skippable in-stream ads run on target CPM, so you pay per impression. Skippable in-stream and in-feed ads run on CPV, so you pay per view. Shorts can do either. That is why a single metric cannot steer a YouTube account.
- What is the difference between YouTube CPM and YouTube RPM?
- The direction you are looking from. CPM is what an advertiser pays for a thousand impressions. RPM is what a creator receives per thousand video views, after YouTube's share and spread across all views, including those that carried no ad. RPM therefore sits well below CPM, and the two are not simply two views of the same money.
Background & sources
- CPM by ad format, the Shorts figures including the differing view definition, the seasonal curve and the connected-TV numbers: Store Growers – «YouTube Ads Benchmarks».
- Which formats exist and which of them bill per impression rather than per view: Google Ads Help – «About video ad formats».
- When a view counts, and how the definition differs between in-stream, in-feed and Shorts: Google Ads Help – «About cost-per-view bidding».