What 1 Million Views Costs: Clipping vs Paid Ads

Nov 6, 20264 min readIndustry

What 1 Million Views Costs

One million views on TikTok, Reels and Shorts costs $3,000 to $8,000 as paid ads. Through clipping, seven of our case studies paid about $50 to $160.

Paid ads
$3,000
per 1M impressions at a $3 CPM
VS
Clipping
$100
per 1M views at a $0.10 CPM on a $2,000 esports campaign

This is one line item from a bigger picture. For minimums, fees and budget levels, see how much a clipping campaign costs.

Ad platforms sell attention by the thousand. Multiply your CPM by 1,000 and you have the price of a million impressions. Our campaign reports use $3 as the benchmark for betting and finance and $8 for gaming.

Paid social CPMCost of 1M impressionsWhat $5,000 buys
$3$3,0001.67M impressions
$5$5,0001M impressions
$8$8,000625K impressions

Your real CPM depends on platform, market and season, so swap in your own number from your ad account.

A Million Views With Clipping

Here is the same sum for seven of our case studies, shown without client names.

CampaignBudgetEstimated viewsCost of 1M viewsCost efficiency
Casino and slots$5,000134.3M$50163x
Fintech$4,00085.2M$5064x
Crypto casino$3,99047.9M$8036x
Sportsbook$6,69176.3M$9034x
Sportsbook, Instagram$2,17125.4M$9035x
CS2 esports$2,00020.7M$10083x
Casino$3,66722.8M$16019x
What this means at $100,000
At $100 of total cost per million verified views, a $100,000 campaign projects to 1B+ verified views. The same money on paid ads buys 12.5M to 33M impressions at a $3 to $8 CPM. Projections are not promises: results depend on creative, market and platform mix.

Why the Gap Is So Big

You are buying a different thing in a different way. An ad platform charges for every impression, in an auction against every other advertiser. Clipping pays independent creators per verified view, and each clip has a cap on what it can earn.

Views past the cap are free. When one clip takes off, you stop paying and the views keep coming. On a fintech campaign in our reports, 47% of 85.2M views landed that way. Our clipping vs paid ads guide goes deeper on why, and the CPM vs CPMM post explains why we talk in millions.

What You Are Not Buying

A cheaper view is not the same view, and it would be wrong to pretend otherwise.

A paid impression
Targeted by age, interest and location. Delivered on the day you choose. Marked as an ad, and often skipped.
A clipping view
Earned on a creator's feed and watched as content. Delivered over days or weeks. Harder to aim at one exact audience.

So use clipping for reach and paid ads for precision. If you need to hit one city by Friday, buy ads. If you need to get a lot of people talking about your brand, a million views at this price is hard to beat.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much do 1 million views cost with paid ads?
At the $3 to $8 CPM our reports use as a paid social benchmark, 1 million impressions costs $3,000 to $8,000.
How much do 1 million views cost with clipping?
Across seven ClipFlip case studies, 1 million views cost about $50 to $160, which is 19x to 163x cheaper than paid ads. For planning we use $100 per million.
Why is clipping so much cheaper per view?
You pay clippers per verified view up to a cap on each clip. Views past the cap are free, and the clips run on organic feeds rather than in an ad auction.
Is a clipping view the same as an ad impression?
No. An ad impression is targeted and served on demand. A clipping view is an organic view of a creator post, which reads as content but cannot be targeted as tightly.

Put your next million views through clipping

Minimum budget $1,000 self-managed. Pay per verified view.

Create a CampaignSee full pricing

Sources: Campaign figures come from ClipFlip case studies, shown without client names. The $3 and $8 paid ad CPMs are the benchmarks used in our reports.