The CTV reach estimator turns a monthly budget and a CPM into the numbers that matter for streaming TV: gross impressions, completed views, and the count of unique households you can reach. The math is simple and we are not hiding it. Impressions equal your budget divided by CPM, times 1,000. Households equal those impressions divided by your frequency cap. Real numbers, no signup, no sales call.
Most agencies will not give you a reach number until you have signed something. That is backwards. You should know roughly what your budget reaches before anyone pitches you a strategy. So we built the estimator that does it in about ten seconds, using the same CPM ranges we publish on our OTT/CTV pricing page. Set your budget, pick your inventory, and watch the reach math fall out.
What this CTV reach estimator does
You give it three things: a monthly budget, a CPM (pre-filled from current market ranges, fully editable), and a frequency cap. It hands back four numbers that mean something when you are planning a streaming TV campaign.
- Gross impressions. How many times your ad gets served across the month. This is
(budget / CPM) x 1,000. CPM is cost per thousand impressions, so the math is just "how many thousands of impressions does my budget buy." - Estimated completed views. Impressions multiplied by a video completion rate (VCR). CTV inventory is non-skippable, so completion runs high. We default to a conservative ~95%, sourced and dated below.
- Estimated unique households. Impressions divided by your frequency cap. Cap each household at, say, 4 views a month and the same budget reaches more homes. Cap it lower for broad reach, higher to hammer a smaller audience.
- Effective cost per completed view (eCPCV). Your budget divided by completed views. The number that tells you what each finished view costs you, which is a fairer apples-to-apples measure than raw CPM when you are comparing inventory.
There is also a frequency slider, because reach and frequency are a tradeoff and you should see it move. Drag the cap up and households drop while repetition climbs. Drag it down and you reach more homes, each one fewer times. The tool shows you the curve instead of asking you to trust a spreadsheet you cannot see.
The formulas, in plain sight
No black box. Here is exactly what the estimator runs:
| Output | Formula |
|---|---|
| Gross impressions | (Budget ÷ CPM) × 1,000 |
| Completed views | Impressions × VCR |
| Unique households | Impressions ÷ frequency cap |
| Effective cost per completed view | Budget ÷ completed views |
If you want to sanity-check it by hand on a napkin, you can. That is the point.
A fair caveat: "unique households" here is a planning estimate, not a deduplicated post-campaign count. Real-world reach gets shaved by inventory availability, audience overlap across apps, and how aggressively the platform enforces the cap. Treat the household number as the ceiling for a clean buy, then expect the delivered figure to land a little under it. We would rather hand you a number that slightly undersells than one that flatters the budget.
Why CPM and frequency are the two dials that matter
CPM is the price of your inventory. The frequency cap is how many times you are willing to hit the same household. Together they decide whether a budget goes wide or goes deep, and almost nothing else moves the reach number as much as these two do.
A run-of-network programmatic buy across ad-supported streaming apps sits lower on CPM. Whitelisted premium inventory (named, vetted apps and higher-demand placements like live sports and news) costs more per thousand but buys you quality and brand safety. The estimator lets you toggle between the two so you can see what trading CPM for premium does to your household count. Spoiler: premium reaches fewer homes per dollar. Sometimes that tradeoff is worth it (a regulated category, a premium brand, an audience that lives on specific apps), and sometimes it is not. The tool shows you the size of the bet so you can make the call instead of guessing.
One thing the reach number alone will not tell you: whether wide-and-thin or narrow-and-deep is right for your goal. Broad reach at a low cap is built for awareness, when the job is getting a new name in front of as many qualified homes as possible. A higher cap concentrates spend so a smaller audience sees the ad enough times to remember it, which tends to matter more for consideration and direct response. Pick the cap to fit the objective, then let the estimator price it.
A worked example
Say you put in a $5,000 monthly budget at a $35 CPM with a frequency cap of 4.
- Impressions: ($5,000 ÷ $35) × 1,000 = ~142,857 impressions
- Completed views at 95% VCR: ~135,714 completed views
- Unique households: 142,857 ÷ 4 = ~35,714 households
- eCPCV: $5,000 ÷ 135,714 = ~$0.037 per completed view
Roughly 36,000 households, each seeing your ad up to four times, for $5,000. That is not a Fortune 500 budget, and it still puts you on actual living-room TVs. Which is the entire point of streaming: the floor came down. (Numbers above are illustrative. Run yours in the tool.)
CTV is no longer an enterprise-only channel
The old story was that streaming TV was for brands with six-figure quarterly budgets and a media-buying department. That story is dead. Ad-supported streaming scaled, programmatic CTV opened the pipes, and the minimums dropped. Small and mid-sized advertisers can now reach real households on real TVs without an enterprise contract, which is exactly the case we lay out in our breakdown of CTV advertising for small business.
That is the wedge MoonSauce works. We run OTT and CTV campaigns for budgets the big shops will not return a call for, on whitelisted premium inventory, with reporting you can read. The reach estimator exists to prove the point before you ever talk to us: put in a modest budget and watch how many homes it touches. If you want the data behind the cord-cutting shift, we did the homework in our small-business CTV statistics study, and if you are weighing streaming against the old way, the OTT vs linear TV comparison lays out the math side by side.
Where the default numbers come from
We will not pre-fill a tool with made-up benchmarks. Here is the sourcing, as of June 2026:
- CPM ranges. Run-of-network programmatic CTV commonly runs roughly $25 to $45 CPM in 2026; whitelisted premium and high-demand placements run higher, roughly $45 to $65. The tool pre-fills from these ranges and lets you override with your own rate. (NA Media Experts, 2026 CTV benchmarks)
- Video completion rate. Non-skippable CTV inventory completes at roughly 94% to 98%. We default the estimator to a conservative ~95% so the completed-view number leans honest rather than rosy. (NA Media Experts, Adwave CTV benchmarks)
These are market ranges, not quotes. Your real CPM depends on inventory, targeting, and the deal. The numbers we would run for you live on the OTT/CTV pricing page, published like everything else we charge for. For a deeper look at where those ranges land and why, read how much CTV advertising costs, and for the full how-it-works walkthrough, the OTT/CTV advertising guide covers it end to end.
Once you have a reach number you like, the next question is usually how CTV fits next to everything else you are running. That is what our marketing channel mix calculator is for: it helps you split a total budget across channels so streaming is one line in a plan, not a bet on its own.
Like the math? Let's run the real campaign.
The estimator gives you the back-of-the-napkin version. A real plan accounts for your audience, your inventory mix, your creative, and what converts. That is the part we do, on premium whitelisted inventory, with senior people on the account and reporting you can read.
Run your budget through the tool, then book 30 minutes and we will pressure-test the plan with you. No hard sell, just straight answers, and you will leave knowing exactly what streaming TV can do for your budget. Prefer email? Reach us at admin@moonsauceagency.com.
