Video Ad Revenue Calculator
Estimate video ad revenue from total views, completion rate, and CPV or CPM rate.
Calculate monthly earnings for YouTube and social media campaigns.
This calculator prices video advertising the way a CPV (cost per view) campaign is actually billed: you are paid for views that complete, not for every view that starts.
The formula:
Completed views = Total views × Completion rate
Revenue = Completed views × CPV
That second step is where the money is decided, and it is why completion rate matters as much as reach.
What each variable means:
- Monthly views: total views your videos start, across all content
- Completion rate: the share that watch far enough to count as a billable view. On a skippable YouTube advert that threshold is 30 seconds, or the whole thing if it is shorter. Short-form video runs high, long-form runs low
- CPV: what you earn per completed view. Typically $0.01 to $0.05, moving with niche and audience country
Worked example:
A channel gets 500,000 monthly views, 70% of them complete, at a CPV of $0.02.
- Completed views: 500,000 × 70% = 350,000
- Revenue: 350,000 × $0.02 = $7,000 a month, or $84,000 a year
Drop the completion rate to 40% and the same reach earns $4,000. Reach is what people brag about; completion is what pays.
If you are working from RPM instead
Most YouTubers know their RPM (Revenue Per Mille), the figure the platform reports as earnings per 1,000 views, rather than a CPV. The two convert easily:
CPV = RPM ÷ 1,000 ÷ Completion rate
So an $8 RPM at 70% completion is $8 ÷ 1,000 ÷ 0.7 = $0.0114 per completed view. Enter that and the calculator reproduces your reported earnings.
Worth keeping the related terms straight, because they are routinely muddled:
- CPM is what the advertiser pays per 1,000 impressions
- RPM is what you keep per 1,000 views, after the platform’s cut. YouTube retains about 45% of advertising revenue, so RPM lands near 55% of CPM
- CPV is what you keep per completed view
Typical RPM ranges by niche
| Niche | RPM |
|---|---|
| Entertainment and gaming | $1 to $3 |
| Lifestyle and vlogging | $2 to $5 |
| Education and how-to | $3 to $7 |
| Finance and investing | $8 to $20 |
| Legal and medical | $10 to $25 |
These swing hard with the calendar. Advertiser budgets peak through the fourth quarter and collapse in January, so a December figure can be double the yearly average and a January one well below it. Take an average across several months before planning against any of it.
How we build and check this calculator
This calculator runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay on your device. The math behind it is written by hand and tested against worked examples and standard references before the page goes live.
SuperGlobalCalculator is independently built and maintained. See how we build and verify our calculators.