I earn about 90% of my online income from advertisements on my sites.
I recently shared on Twitter that I’ve hit $25k per month in ad revenue.
Many people were shocked to hear that it’s possible to earn this much with ads, but it all comes down to understanding some simple math.
The total revenue that you can earn from ads on your website can be calculated using this formula:
Ad revenue = Total articles * Average monthly page views per article * RPM
The acronym “RPM” represents revenue per thousand page views. This varies depending on which ad network you use, but I can personally share that all five of my websites use Mediavine ads and the RPMs in 2021 have been between $20 and $35 for each site.
Let’s run through a quick example. Suppose you have a website with the following metrics:
- 100 total articles
- 500 monthly page views per article
- $20 RPM
Using the formula above, the total ad revenue that this site could generate is $1,000.
Total ad revenue = 100 * 500 * ($20/1,000) = $1,000
Now consider if this site had twice as many articles but the same number of average monthly page views per article and the same RPM:
- 200 total articles
- 500 monthly page views per article
- $20 RPM
Using the formula, the total ad revenue that this site could generate is $2,000.
Total ad revenue = 200 * 500 * ($20/1,000) = $2,000
Here are the actual metrics across my own portfolio of sites:
- 1,500 total articles
- 550 monthly page views per article
- $30 RPM
Using the formula, it’s simple to see how I earn about $25k per month in ad revenue:
Total ad revenue = 1,500 * 550 * ($30/1,000) = $24,750
Visualizing Monthly Ad Revenue
To help visualize these numbers, consider the following ad revenue grid:
The x-axis shows the total number of articles on a site and the y-axis shows the average monthly page views per article. This grid assumes an RPM of $20.
For example, a site with 500 total articles and 500 average monthly views per article will earn $5,000 per month:
We can use the ad revenue formula to verify this:
Total ad revenue = 500 articles * 500 avg. monthly views * ($20/1,000) = $5,000
For fun, here’s the same grid but with the assumption of RPM = $15:
And the same grid but with the assumption of RPM = $25:
If you’d like to play around with different numbers beyond these grids, feel free to use this ad revenue calculator.
For anyone interested in learning how to start and monetize their own website, check out The Income Community – a private community where I teach my exact strategy for driving traffic to my sites with SEO and monetizing with ads, affiliate links, and digital products.
Zach is the author behind Four Pillar Freedom, a blog that teaches you how to build wealth and gain freedom in life.
He quit his day job as a data scientist in 2019 because he was able to earn enough income from profitable websites to replace his salary. He now teaches people how to start and grow their own profitable websites from scratch in the Income Community.
Zach's favorite free financial tool he's been using since 2015 to manage his net worth is Personal Capital. Each month he uses their free Investment Checkup tool and Retirement Planner to track his investments and ensure that he's on the fast track to financial freedom.
His favorite investment platform is M1 Finance, a site that allows him to build a custom portfolio of stocks for free, has no trading or maintenance fees, and even allows him to set up automated target-allocated investments.
- The Ad Revenue Grid - August 6, 2021
- Attract Money by Creating Value for a Specific Audience - July 13, 2021
- The 5-Hour Workday - March 26, 2021
Full Disclosure: Nothing on this site should ever be considered to be advice, research or an invitation to buy or sell any securities, please see my Terms & Conditions page for a full disclaimer.
