YouTube sponsorship CPM and CPV calculator
Fill in any two of price, views and CPM, and the third appears as you type, next to what brands paid on channels the same size.
Calculator
$5,000 for 100,000 views
Market median for 1M to 5M subscribers: $19. This rate is 2.6 times the median.
Far above typical
- Views needed to hit the market median at this price
- 263,158
- Price at the market median for these views
- $1,900
Benchmark: median of 1,369 sold integrations on channels this size (long-form and Shorts pooled).
Medians use YouTube's view count from before August 24, 2026. Divided by today's public long-form views, a quote looks cheaper per view than it is.
Get the channel-specific fair value
The median is a market benchmark: the middle of many channels of a similar size. Your channel can be worth more or less. ThoughtLeaders' fair-value estimate starts from the channel's own projected views and moves for what the median can't see: brands that renewed, how often it carries sponsors, its view trend, evergreen views and engagement. The Chrome extension shows it under any YouTube video, and your AI agent can check a quote and draft a counter-offer.
Worked example: a $5,000 quote
Say a creator with 1M to 5M subscribers quotes $5,000 for one integration, and a new long-form video on the channel should reach about 100,000 views by day 30. These are made-up round numbers to show the math.
- Cost per 1,000 views: $5,000 ÷ 100,000 × 1,000 = $50.00.
- Market median for 1M to 5M subscribers: $19. The quote is about 2.6 times that: far above typical.
- Views needed to hit the median at $5,000: about 263,158, 2.6 times what the channel should reach.
- Price at the median for these views: about $1,900.
The median is where a counter-offer starts, not where it ends. A channel that brands keep renewing, with views trending up, can be worth well above the median for its size, and one with slipping views can be worth less. The benchmark tells you a quote is high; a channel-specific estimate tells you how high is reasonable. One more check on basis: if you read the views from today's public counts, they can include views counted under YouTube's new rule, while the medians are on the old count. That flatters the quote, so the real gap to the median is, if anything, wider. Your agent pulls a channel's own numbers with:
What CPM means for a sponsorship
CPM is the cost per 1,000 views: price ÷ views × 1,000. For a YouTube sponsorship it turns quotes on very different channels into one comparable number. A $1,200 quote on a channel that reaches 40,000 views and a $3,500 quote on one that reaches 180,000 views look nothing alike until you divide.
CPM or CPV: same number, different scale
Some brands and agencies quote cost per view (CPV) instead, especially for performance-style deals. CPV is the price divided by views, so it is CPM divided by 1,000: a $26 CPM is $0.026 per view. Use the toggle above to see every number either way, including the market medians.
Sponsorship CPM is not ad CPM or RPM
Most "YouTube CPM calculators" estimate AdSense money: what Google charges advertisers, or what a creator earns per 1,000 views (RPM). A sponsorship is a different market, paid by the brand straight to the creator, and the medians here come from sold sponsorships, not ad auctions. CPM vs RPM for sponsorships explains the difference.
Why day-30 projected views
The benchmark here divides each deal's price by the channel's projected views when the deal was sold: what a new video was expected to reach at day 30, based on its recent uploads. To compare a quote fairly, use the same kind of number. Subscribers overstate reach, a simple average is dragged up by one viral upload, and lifetime views include months you aren't paying for. Views after day 30 are upside you don't pay for.
Where the medians come from
The medians are from What a YouTube sponsorship costs in 2026: 9,002 YouTube integrations booked through ThoughtLeaders and scheduled between August 24, 2024 and August 23, 2026, verified 2026-10-15. The CPM column uses only deals with a recorded projection of at least 1,000 views.
| Channel size (subscribers) | Median cost per 1,000 projected views | Deals |
|---|---|---|
| Under 100K | $36 | 1,060 |
| 100K to 500K | $26 | 3,047 |
| 500K to 1M | $21 | 1,575 |
| 1M to 5M | $19 | 1,369 |
| 5M and up | $17 | 164 |
Caveats
- Integrations only, formats pooled. Dedicated videos were too few to report, and the data can't separate Shorts from long-form integrations. The calculator gives a verdict only for long-form integrations, and that verdict rests on a pooled benchmark, not a long-form-only one.
- The view-count change. On August 24, 2026, YouTube started counting public views from the first frame. Every deal in the benchmark was bought before that, so the medians are on the old count. Long-form public counts now run about 1.2 to 1.5 times the old basis in a video's first week, so a quote divided by today's public views looks cheaper per view than it is. We haven't measured the gap at day 30 yet, so don't adjust by a fixed factor; use engaged views from YouTube Studio where you can.
- Channel size is today's size. Bands use each channel's current subscriber count.
- The verdict bands are a rule of thumb. Under 0.75 times the median reads as well under typical, 0.75 to 1.25 times as near, 1.25 to 2 times as above, and 2 times or more as far above. The range inside each size band is wide, so treat the verdict as a prompt to look closer, not a ruling.
- Price is half the question. A channel brands keep renewing can be worth more than its cost per view suggests. See which creators your competitor sponsors.
FAQ
What is a typical CPM for a YouTube sponsorship?
Across 9,002 YouTube integrations booked through ThoughtLeaders, the median cost per 1,000 projected views runs from $36 on channels under 100K subscribers to $17 on channels with 5M or more. Smaller channels cost more per view. These are medians of real sold deals, measured against each channel's projected views at day 30 on YouTube's old view count.
How much should I pay a YouTuber for a sponsorship?
Start from views, not subscribers. Multiply the views a new video is likely to reach at day 30 by the median cost per 1,000 views for the channel's size, and you have a market benchmark. Then adjust for the channel itself: brands that came back to it, how often it carries sponsors, its view trend and its audience. ThoughtLeaders' fair-value estimate does that per channel.
How do I use the calculator?
Type in any two of the three boxes: price, views and CPM. The calculator fills in the third as you type, with no button to press. To work something else out, just type in the box that was filled in for you. The box you touched longest ago becomes the answer.
How do you calculate CPM and CPV for a YouTube sponsorship?
CPM is the price divided by views, times 1,000. CPV (cost per view) is the price divided by views. They are the same number at different scales: a $19 CPM is a CPV of $0.019. To go the other way, the fair price is views times the CPM divided by 1,000, and the views a budget should buy are the budget divided by the CPM, times 1,000.
How much should I charge for a YouTube sponsorship as a creator?
Price on the views a new video reaches in its first 30 days, not on subscribers. Multiply those views by the median CPM for your channel size, then move up if brands renew with you and your views are growing, or down if your recent videos are slipping. Enter your views and the median CPM, and the calculator gives you a starting price for your rate card.
Is sponsorship CPM the same as YouTube ad CPM or RPM?
No. YouTube ad CPM is what advertisers pay Google for pre-roll and mid-roll ads, and RPM is what a creator earns per 1,000 views after YouTube's cut. Sponsorship CPM is what a brand pays the creator directly for an integration, divided by the video's views. They are different markets with different prices, so an AdSense RPM calculator won't tell you what a sponsorship is worth.
Why use projected day-30 views instead of subscribers or the average?
Subscriber counts overstate how many people see a new video, and a simple average of recent videos is dragged up by one viral upload. Projected views at day 30 describe what a new video on the channel is likely to reach in its first month, which is the window brands pay for. Views after day 30 are upside.
Does the calculator work for Shorts or dedicated videos?
It works out the cost per 1,000 views for any format, but it only gives a verdict for integrations in long-form videos. The published benchmark covers integrations only, because dedicated videos were too few to report. It also pools long-form and Shorts integrations, which the data can't separate, so even the long-form verdict is a rough guide, and we don't stretch it to Shorts.
How does YouTube's August 2026 view-count change affect CPM?
On August 24, 2026, YouTube started counting a public view from the first frame. Our measurement shows long-form public counts running about 1.2 to 1.5 times the old basis in a video's first week. The benchmark here is on the old basis, so a quote divided by today's public views can look cheaper per view than it really is. Engaged views from YouTube Studio are the closest match to the old count.
Is the market median a fair price for a specific channel?
Not on its own. The median is a benchmark across many channels of a similar size, and the range inside each size band is wide. A channel that brands keep renewing can be worth well above the median per view. For a channel-specific number, use the ThoughtLeaders fair-value estimate in the Chrome extension or through your AI agent.