Key Takeaways:

  • Page RPM (Revenue Per 1,000 Pageviews) is the most important monetization metric for website publishers.
  • It's calculated as: `(Total Earnings / Total Pageviews) * 1000`.
  • Unlike CPM, Page RPM includes all revenue sources (CPM, CPC, etc.) and provides a holistic view of page value.
  • You can increase Page RPM by improving content, optimizing ad placements, and increasing ad density.

Why Publishers Should Obsess Over Page RPM

While advertisers focus on metrics like CPM and CPC, website owners (publishers) have one metric that unites them all: **Page RPM**. Page Revenue Per Mille (RPM) represents your total earnings for every 1,000 pageviews your site receives. It's the ultimate health score for your website's monetization because it normalizes your revenue against your traffic, giving you a clear, comparable number.

How is Page RPM Calculated?

The formula is simple but powerful. It takes your total revenue from all sources (CPM ads, CPC ads, affiliate links, etc.) and divides it by your total number of pageviews, then multiplies by 1,000.

Page RPM = (Total Estimated Earnings / Total Pageviews) * 1000

This is why it's so valuable. It doesn't matter if you earned money from a click or an impression; Page RPM blends it all together to tell you how much each block of 1,000 pageviews is worth to you.

What is a Good Page RPM?

This is the million-dollar question, and the answer is: **it depends**. Page RPM varies wildly based on several factors:

  • Niche: A finance or law blog will have a much higher RPM than a general entertainment or gossip site.
  • Geography: Traffic from countries like the USA, UK, and Canada commands a much higher RPM than traffic from other regions.
  • Seasonality: RPMs are typically highest in Q4 (before the holidays) and lowest in Q1.

As a very rough guide, RPMs can range from $2-$5 for low-value niches to $15-$40+ for high-value, premium niches.

5 Actionable Ways to Increase Your Page RPM

  1. Improve Content Quality: More engaging content leads to more pageviews per session, which increases your total revenue from the same number of visitors.
  2. Optimize Ad Placements: Test different ad locations. Ads placed "above the fold" (visible without scrolling) often have higher viewability and earn more.
  3. Increase Ad Density: Carefully add more ad units per page. More ad units mean more impressions and more chances for clicks, but be careful not to overwhelm the user experience.
  4. Target Higher-Value Geographies: Create content that is naturally interesting to audiences in high-RPM countries.
  5. Use Ad Optimization Partners: Services like Ezoic, Mediavine, and AdThrive use AI to automatically test thousands of ad combinations to maximize your revenue. They are a game-changer for increasing RPM.

Use our Ad Revenue Calculator to model how changes in your metrics can impact your Page RPM and total profit.