TikTok CPM Benchmarks

TikTok CPM is what an advertiser pays for 1,000 ad impressions on TikTok. The three benchmarks we could verify for 2025 and 2026 range from $4.67 to $4.82. TikTok's own help pages give bidding rules and minimum budgets but no average CPM, so every figure here is third-party, dated and linked.

The benchmarks only make sense once you know which of TikTok's four bidding methods produced them, so the sheet starts there. It then sets the figures side by side, prices TikTok's minimum budgets in impressions and separates the advertiser's CPM from the creator's RPM.

What CPM means on TikTok

On TikTok, CPM is both a metric and a way to buy. As a reporting metric it is cost ÷ impressions × 1,000, whatever you bid on, the same CPM formula every platform uses. As a bidding method it is one of four options, and TikTok's bidding methods help page (last updated August 2025) defines each one:

The distinction matters when you read a benchmark. A figure built from conversion campaigns reflects impressions chosen for likely buyers, not the cheapest reach available. Compare it with your conversion campaigns, not your reach campaigns.

The same page describes the auction in one line: it "ranks ads based on bid price and the relevance an ad might have to people." Relevance is where creative enters the price, which comes up again below.

TikTok CPM benchmarks, source by source

On September 30, 2026 we could open and read the source behind three TikTok CPM figures. They agree closely, which is unusual for ad benchmarks, but they come from only two publishers, so treat the agreement with some caution.

Other TikTok CPM figures circulate, some far higher. We left out any whose source page we could not fetch and read, or whose basis was not stated, rather than average numbers nobody can check.

Why the numbers differ

Gupta Media tracks a multi-industry sample, mostly US, and reports both a full-year average and monthly figures. Lebesgue measures ecommerce conversion campaigns optimised for its Complete Payment event and does not disclose a sample size. A single month and a year's average also differ because auction prices move with competition.

Whether a figure in this range is good for you depends on the CPA it produces. Your CPM ceiling is target CPA × 1,000 × CTR × conversion rate; any CPM under it works, whatever the benchmark. Run your own numbers in the free CPM, CPC, CTR and ROAS calculator.

TikTok click and conversion benchmarks

Cost per impression tells you nothing about cost per customer until you add click-through and conversion. Gupta Media and Lebesgue publish both for TikTok:

The two click-through rates answer different questions. Gupta Media reports link click-through rate across its multi-industry sample; Lebesgue reports CTR for ecommerce conversion campaigns only. Neither is wrong, and neither is a target for your account.

TikTok CPM compared with other platforms

Comparing platforms is only fair within one source, measured the same way. Gupta Media's 2025 averages give that comparison:

On that basis TikTok impressions cost about 41% less than Meta's and sit close to YouTube and Pinterest. Cheaper impressions do not guarantee cheaper customers, because click-through and conversion rates differ by platform and by product. That is why what counts as a good CPM depends on the cost per acquisition it implies, not on the platform average.

What TikTok's minimum budget buys

TikTok's budget help page (last updated July 2026) sets the floors: a campaign daily budget must exceed $50 per day, and an ad group's must exceed $20 per day.

Impressions = budget ÷ CPM × 1,000. At Gupta Media's 2025 average of $4.82, an ad group at the $20 floor buys about 4,150 impressions a day, and a campaign at the $50 floor about 10,370. That is planning arithmetic, not a forecast.

Why is my TikTok CPM so high?

If your TikTok CPM runs well above the sourced range, check these causes first.

• Your objective. An oCPM bid for Shop purchases, conversions or leads pays for the viewers TikTok rates most likely to act, so it will not match a Reach campaign's CPM.
• A narrow audience. Tight interest stacks, small custom audiences and a single small market leave the auction fewer people to compete for.
• Low relevance. With bid and relevance ranked together, an ad people skip in the first seconds has to bid more to win the same impression.
• Creative fatigue. TikTok recommends refreshing ad group creatives "when delivery results exhibit a consistently declining trend, or when daily new users are low."
• Too few creatives. TikTok suggests 3 to 5 per ad group and calls that especially helpful during an ad group's exploration stage.
• Competition. Retail peaks and launches in your category bring more bidders into the same auction.
• Hidden captions or product. Text or packshots under TikTok's buttons and caption bar make an ad harder to watch; check placement with the free TikTok safe zone checker.

Objective, audience and competition are campaign-setup questions. Every other cause on the list lives in the videos themselves, and TikTok is unusually specific about how many it wants in each ad group.

How many creatives TikTok asks you to test

TikTok's creative best practices page (last updated June 2025) is specific: "We suggest between 3-5 different creatives per ad group and 3-5 diversified ad groups per campaign." It adds that "it is always better to use creatives with big differences, especially when testing."

Creatives per campaign = ad groups × creatives per ad group. That is 3 × 3 = 9 at the low end and 5 × 5 = 25 at the high end, before any refresh. Every refresh after a decline needs a new batch.

The page sets no fixed refresh interval such as every seven days; it ties refreshes to declining delivery or low daily new users. "Big differences" means different hooks, people, settings and offers, not five colour swaps of one ad. The free TikTok hook generator gives you distinct opening lines to start from.

Filling TikTok's creative slots: creator fees vs credits

The auction sets your CPM, but production sets how many creatives you can afford to test. 9 to 25 videos per campaign is a lot to commission from people. Here is what brands pay creators per video, from sources we could check:

At Billo's compiled average of $200 per video, 9 to 25 videos come to $1,800 to $5,000, and that excludes the licence to run them as ads, the line Billo says can double or triple a bill. Influee and Insense list lower per-video prices, but both pricing pages add a monthly plan and a marketplace fee on top.

The same batch in Playcut credits

On Playcut the batch is counted in credits against a flat plan. Act, the step where a saved AI actor speaks your script, defaults to 9:16 at 720p, so its clips are already in TikTok's vertical format.

Each clip is the tier's per-second rate × 10 plus a 15-credit scene step. Plus holds an actor's identity best. Monthly credits are 500 on Hobby ($9/mo), 2,000 on Pro ($29/mo), 6,000 on Studio ($79/mo) and 10,000 per seat on Agency ($149 per seat).

Credit packs of 600, 2,500 and 5,000 credits cost $9, $35 and $65 and never expire, so a launch that runs over a plan's monthly credits can top up instead of upgrading. For example, a 9-clip launch at the default tier (765 credits) fits in Pro, while 25 plus-tier clips (7,875) need an Agency seat or Studio plus a pack.

Leave headroom for rejected takes: a failed generation is refunded, but a finished clip you discard is not. The Playcut pricing page lists every plan.

What this does and does not change

None of this changes your CPM directly, and we make no claim that it does. It changes how many distinct creatives you can put into TikTok's 3–5 × 3–5 structure and how fast you can replace them when delivery declines. Whether that lowers your CPA is something your own account will show.

On TikTok an AI actor can host, demo or read your offer; it cannot be the happy customer. The FTC's final rule on fake reviews and testimonials bans testimonials that falsely claim to come from someone who does not exist or has no real experience of the product.

The disclosure details are in the AI UGC disclosure rules, and the AI UGC ads from one saved actor page covers the workflow. For TikTok-specific creative, see TikTok ads made with a saved AI actor and the social video spec sheet for upload specs.

CPM for advertisers, RPM for creators

People asking what CPM means on TikTok are often creators asking about earnings, and that is a different number. TikTok pays eligible creators through its Creator Rewards Program. Its March 18, 2024 announcement says each video gets dashboard pages for "RPM and qualified video views".

In the program's terms, RPM is rewards per 1,000 qualified views: what the creator earns, not what advertisers pay. At launch, the same announcement set eligibility at 18 or older with at least 10K followers and 100K views in the last 30 days, and rewarded original videos over a minute long; check the current terms in the app.

Brands paying a creator to post on the creator's own account is a third number again. Collabstr's 2025 data, as summarized by Billo, put a creator-posted TikTok collaboration at $350 per sponsored post (Billo, UGC Rates, 2026-06-16). What AI UGC platforms charge is tracked in the AI UGC pricing index.