Estimate what your site earns from display ads - or work backwards from an income goal to the traffic you'd need to reach it.
Ad Revenue Calculator
LiveThe formulas
A site with 50,000 monthly pageviews at an RPM of $15 earns 50,000 / 1,000 x 15 = $750/month ($9,000/year, about $25/day). To reach $2,000/month at that same RPM, it would need about 133,333 pageviews - roughly 4,444 a day.
RPM vs. CPM vs. CPC - what's the difference?
CPC (cost per click) is what an advertiser pays for a single click. It's the most granular figure, but on its own it tells you nothing about your earnings, because it doesn't say how many people clicked.
CPM / eCPM (cost per mille) is revenue per 1,000 ad impressions. It's useful when comparing ad units, but a single pageview can serve several impressions, so a good eCPM doesn't automatically mean a good page is earning well.
RPM (revenue per mille) is revenue per 1,000 pageviews or sessions - and it's the number most publishers actually plan with, because it rolls CTR, CPC, ad count, and fill rate into one figure you can multiply straight against traffic. If you only track one metric, track RPM.
Step-by-step guide
- Find your real RPM instead of guessing - divide last month's total ad revenue by last month's pageviews, then multiply by 1,000. Using your own historical number makes every projection far more useful than an industry average.
- Enter your traffic honestly - use pageviews from your analytics, not sessions or users, unless your RPM figure is also session-based. Mixing the two is the single most common way these estimates go wrong.
- Switch to "Traffic goal" to plan backwards - if you have an income target, this tells you the traffic required at your current RPM. It often reveals that raising RPM is easier than tripling traffic.
- Re-run it quarterly - RPM drifts with seasonality and audience mix, so a figure from six months ago will quietly mislead you.
Two ways to raise the number
The formula makes the two levers obvious: more traffic, or a higher RPM. Traffic usually takes months of compounding work; RPM can sometimes move faster, because it responds to which topics you cover (advertiser demand varies enormously by subject), where your readers are located, how many ad slots a page has, and page speed - slow pages serve fewer ads per visit. Doubling RPM and doubling traffic have exactly the same effect on revenue, but they rarely cost the same effort.
Common mistakes
Frequently asked questions
What counts as a good RPM?
There's no universal figure, and any single number quoted as "good" is misleading. RPM depends heavily on your subject area (finance, insurance and legal topics command far higher rates than general entertainment), where your readers are (traffic from higher-advertising-spend countries earns multiples of traffic from lower-spend ones), and your device mix. The only benchmark that actually tells you something is your own RPM last quarter.
Why is my actual payout lower than this estimate?
Common causes: invalid traffic being filtered out, a fill rate below 100% (not every impression gets a paying ad), ad blockers on part of your audience, and month-to-month advertiser demand. This calculator projects gross estimated earnings from the inputs you give it, not a guaranteed payout.
Can I use this for ad networks other than AdSense?
Yes - RPM, CPM and CPC are standard industry metrics, so the math applies to any display-ad network. Just make sure the RPM you enter came from the same network you're projecting.
Is it better to focus on traffic or on RPM?
Mathematically they're interchangeable - doubling either doubles revenue. Practically, sites with low RPM and decent traffic often gain more from improving monetization and topic mix first, since that work pays off immediately, while traffic growth compounds slowly. Try both directions in the calculator and compare what each would require.
Should I rely on ad revenue as my only income stream?
Ad revenue is volatile by nature - it moves with advertiser budgets, seasonality, and platform policy changes entirely outside your control, and any single network can change terms or suspend an account. Most established publishers deliberately run more than one income stream (ads plus affiliate, products, or sponsorships) for exactly that reason.
Does this account for tax?
No - the figures here are gross revenue before any tax, fees, or business expenses. Ad income is generally taxable as self-employment or business income depending on where you live, so treat this as a top-line number and set aside a portion for tax.
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