Ad Revenue Calculator
Estimate what a site or channel earns from ads: enter pageviews and an RPM straight from your Google or Meta dashboard — or model it from CPM and fill rate, or CTR and CPC.
Educational estimates only. This calculator is for planning and education. It is not financial, tax, or investment advice, and results may differ from what a lender, broker, or the IRS calculates for your situation. Confirm important decisions with a qualified professional.
How this calculator works
Three ways to model the same paycheck, matching how the platforms report. If you already run ads, use Page RPM mode: both AdSense and Meta's monetization dashboards report an effective RPM, and revenue is simply traffic divided by a thousand times that number. If you're planning a site that isn't monetized yet, CPM + fill rate mode builds the estimate from ad units per page, how often they actually fill, and a net CPM — while CTR + CPC mode models click-priced inventory.
Whatever mode you use, the result panel reports the implied page RPM, so all three roads lead to the same comparable metric. That's deliberate: RPM is the exchange rate between content and revenue, and knowing yours is the first step of every monetization decision from ad placement to premium network applications.
The formula
RPM mode: revenue = pageviews ÷ 1000 × page RPM CPM mode: revenue = pageviews × ads/page × fill% ÷ 1000 × CPM CPC mode: revenue = pageviews × CTR% × CPC Page RPM = revenue ÷ pageviews × 1000 (the cross-check)
Metric definitions follow the platforms' own documentation: Google AdSense Help defines page RPM as estimated earnings per thousand pageviews, and Meta's Business Help Center reports in-stream and Audience Network performance in equivalent per-mille terms. Revenue shares and payment thresholds are set by each platform's current terms — check them directly, as they change.
Worked example
Say a hobby site gets 250,000 pageviews a month at a $4.50 page RPM:
- Thousands of views: 250,000 ÷ 1,000 = 250
- Revenue: 250 × $4.50 = $1,125 per month
- Annualized: $13,500 per year
Cross-check with CPC mode: the same traffic with a 1.2% click rate at $0.35 per click yields $1,050 — a $4.20 RPM. When two modes agree within pennies of RPM, the estimate is as honest as its inputs.
Assumptions & tips
- Use trailing, not aspirational, numbers. Your last 90 days of dashboard RPM predicts next month far better than any niche benchmark table on the internet.
- Seasonality is huge. Advertiser budgets surge in Q4 and reset in January — RPMs commonly swing 30–50% around the yearly mean. Model annual revenue on a full-year average, not on December.
- Geography moves RPM more than content. The same page earns several times more from US/UK/CA/AU traffic than from regions advertisers bid less on. Check your traffic mix before comparing your RPM to anyone else's.
- More ads isn't linearly more money. Added units dilute CPMs and degrade the experience metrics that search traffic depends on. Test placements one change at a time and watch RPM, not just impressions.
- Graduate when traffic allows. Premium networks (typically gated around tens of thousands of monthly sessions) pay materially higher RPMs than entry-level programs — at 100k+ views, re-run this calculator with their typical rates before renewing the status quo.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between RPM and CPM?
CPM is what an advertiser pays per thousand ad impressions; RPM is what a publisher earns per thousand pageviews after the platform's share and unfilled slots. Google's AdSense reports use page RPM — total earnings divided by pageviews times one thousand — which is why RPM is the number that predicts your revenue, and the one this calculator's default mode uses.
What RPM should I expect?
There is no universal number — RPM depends on niche, visitor country, season, and ad placement more than on traffic size. Finance and insurance content can run tens of dollars per thousand views while general entertainment runs closer to one or two. The honest approach: run any monetized month's real earnings and pageviews through the RPM formula and use your own figure. For a site that hasn't launched ads yet, model a low single-digit RPM and treat anything better as upside.
How do Google and Meta differ for publishers?
AdSense pays website publishers a revenue share of auction proceeds (Google states publishers receive 80% under its updated per-platform fee structure for AdSense for content). Meta's publisher products — in-stream video ads and Audience Network — pay per monetized view or impression and report performance in similar per-mille terms. Both dashboards surface an effective RPM, which is why one calculator covers both: find the RPM in your dashboard, enter it here.
Why is my actual revenue lower than impressions × CPM?
Because not every pageview shows a paid ad. Fill rate (unsold inventory), viewability requirements, ad blockers, and invalid-traffic filtering all remove impressions between a pageview and a payout. Page RPM bakes all of that in, which is why it is the more reliable planning number — a CPM-based estimate needs a fill-rate haircut this calculator's CPM mode applies explicitly.
Is ad revenue enough to live on?
Usually only at substantial scale. At a 5 dollar RPM, one hundred thousand monthly pageviews earn about 500 dollars a month — real money, not a salary. Established publishers diversify: premium networks at higher traffic tiers pay materially better RPMs than entry-level AdSense, and affiliate or product revenue often out-earns display ads on the same traffic. Treat these numbers as planning estimates, not income promises.
Sources
- Revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) — Google AdSense Help. support.google.comGoogle's own definition — RPM = (estimated earnings ÷ number of page views) × 1000 — which is this page's RPM mode and the cross-check reported in all three modes.
- AdSense revenue share — Google AdSense Help. support.google.comThe 80% publisher share after the advertiser platform fee that the FAQ attributes to Google when comparing Google and Meta.
- Invalid traffic — Google AdSense Help. support.google.comBacks the FAQ on why revenue falls short of impressions times CPM: invalid-traffic filtering removes clicks and impressions between pageview and payout.
- Metrics definitions in Monetization Manager — Meta Business Help Center. Meta's own definitions of the Monetization Manager reporting metrics — estimated revenue, eCPM and fill rate — behind the FAQ's claim that Meta publisher dashboards report earnings in the same per-mille terms this calculator uses.
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