CPM stands for cost per mille, mille being Latin for thousand. It's the price of reaching people, before anyone clicks.
How to calculate CPM
CPM = (spend ÷ impressions) × 1,000
$5,000 for 300,000 impressions is a $16.67 CPM.
What's a normal CPM on Meta?
Across $27.1M in US Meta spend (mid-July to mid-October 2026), the median large account paid $17.46. Consumer brands paid $17.27. Apps and service businesses paid $30.81. For US brands spending real money, $15 to $30 is an honest planning range.
CPMs also move with the calendar. On Black Friday 2025, CPMs in the accounts we tracked ran 57% above their October levels.
How creative affects CPM
Meta charges more to show some ads than others. The quarter of ads with the highest CTR paid 1.78x the CPM of the lowest quarter, in all 23 brands we looked at, and 4:5 ads paid about 1.39x the CPM of 1:1 in the median brand. CPM is a cost, not a score.
Full data: Facebook ads cost and Black Friday CPMs.
