Cost Per View (CPV) Calculator

The CPV Formula

$1,500 spent for 54,000 YouTube views is a CPV of $0.028, or about $27.78 per 1,000 views. If those views came from 180,000 impressions, the view rate is 30.0%: almost a third of the people who saw the ad watched long enough to count.

CPV and CPM are linked through view rate. CPV = CPM ÷ 1,000 ÷ view rate. At an $8.33 CPM and a 30% view rate you land on the same $0.028. So when CPV rises, check which one moved: the auction got pricier (CPM) or fewer people stuck around (view rate).

What Counts as a View on Each Platform

This is where most CPV comparisons go wrong. Every platform calls something a view, and they mean very different things.

Sources: Google Ads Help, About YouTube ads and view metrics; TikTok Ads Help, Video views objective.

One more YouTube wrinkle. The public view count on the video now picks up ad views from formats that never bill as views, like bumpers. Google is clear that it doesn't bill on public views, so use the TrueView views column in Google Ads for CPV, not the number under the video.

What Is a Good CPV?

Honest answer first: there's no audited public panel for cost per view. Google, TikTok and Meta don't publish averages, so every figure you'll find comes from an agency or tool vendor's own sample. Treat these as rough ranges:

A low CPV isn't automatically good. The cheapest views often come from placements and audiences that never buy. A CPV is good when it sits under the ceiling your target CPA allows, which is what mode 4 calculates.

Comparing CPV Across Platforms

Put a $0.028 YouTube CPV next to a $0.040 TikTok CPV and YouTube looks cheaper. It is, but not by the margin you think, because the YouTube view guaranteed 30 seconds and the TikTok view guaranteed 6.

Using the defaults in mode 2: YouTube works out at $0.93 per 1,000 guaranteed seconds, TikTok at $6.67 and a $0.08 Meta ThruPlay at $5.33. On raw CPV Meta looked like the expensive one. Per second of guaranteed attention, TikTok is.

The threshold is a minimum, so this understates long watch times, and it says nothing about who's watching. Use it to compare like with like, then decide on cost per purchase.

Video Completion Rate (VCR)

100,000 impressions and 16,400 plays to 100% is a 16.4% VCR. Some platforms and teams divide by video plays (starts) instead of impressions. On the same ad that's 16,400 ÷ 82,000 = 20.0%. Neither is wrong, but compare like with like.

The quartiles tell you more than the headline. In that example, half the people who started had gone by the 25% mark, while 76% of those who reached 75% stayed to the end. That's an opening problem, not a length problem. Cutting the video shorter wouldn't fix it; a better first few seconds would. Our hook rate calculator measures that part.

How Much Should You Pay Per View?

Say a campaign got 54,000 views and 30 purchases, and your target cost per purchase is $40. That's 0.556 purchases per 1,000 views, so a view is worth up to $0.022. You're paying $0.028, about 25% over, which is why cost per purchase came in at $50 instead of $40.

That leaves two ways out. Bring CPV down by about 20%, or lift the view-to-sale rate to 0.694 purchases per 1,000 views at the current price. In our experience running DTC video, the second is usually the cheaper fix. Better offers and landing pages move it faster than bids do.

Video often gets credit for sales through view-through attribution, so check which attribution setting your purchases number uses. Our CPA calculator helps you set the target in the first place.

What This Calculator Can't Tell You

• Who watched. A cheap view from the wrong audience is still waste.
• Incremental sales. Purchases are what the platform attributes, including people who'd have bought anyway.
• Brand lift. Awareness campaigns can pay off in ways a cost-per-purchase ceiling won't show.
• Exact benchmarks. The ranges come from vendor samples, not platform data.
• Actual watch time. Mode 2 uses each platform's minimum threshold. Average watch time is usually longer.