Cost Per View Calculator

Cost per view is the foundational economics metric for video advertising. Unlike CPM (impression-based) or CPC (click-based), CPV measures what video advertising is actually selling: someone watching your message. The math is simple — total spend divided by total views — but the platform-specific definitions of "view" make cross-platform comparison treacherous.

Each platform has its own view threshold. YouTube counts at 30 seconds or full completion (whichever is shorter). Meta has multiple — 3-second views, 10-second views, and ThruPlay (full or 15 seconds). TikTok counts at 6 seconds. Same campaign, same spend, same audience can produce wildly different reported "view rates" depending on which definition you reference. Always know which view metric the platform is reporting before comparing CPV.

The most overlooked metric in video is completion rate. A campaign with 80% view rate but 10% completion is delivering hooks but not messages. Completion-cost (spend divided by completed views) often shows a 5-10× gap from headline CPV. For brand campaigns where the full message matters — product reveals, longer storytelling, conversion-driven video — completion cost is the truer efficiency number.

Pair this with the Hook Rate Calculator (which measures how many people get past the first 3 seconds) and the Creative Fatigue Detector (which flags when a video stops working). Together those three metrics tell you whether your video is being seen, watched, and remembered — not just paid for.