Buy side · what advertisers pay
LinkedIn CPM
By Oliver Wakefield-Smith · updated July 2026
Benchmarks reviewed July 2026 · next review October 2026
The short answer
TheB2BHouse's aggregation of advertiser data puts LinkedIn's average CPM at $33.80, retrieved July 2026, roughly 2.5x Meta's global average on Gupta Media's tracker. LinkedIn's own pricing page describes the auction and publishes no rate. The premium buys targeting no other auction sells cleanly: verified job titles, seniority, company.
The cost-per-qualified-reach reframe
Raw CPM comparisons flatter broad channels. Divide instead by the share of impressions that hit your actual buyer:
cost per 1,000 qualified = CPM ÷ audience-match rate
LinkedIn: $33.80 ÷ 0.80 assumed match = $42.25 per 1,000 qualified
Cheap broad channel: $13.48 ÷ 0.15 assumed match = $89.87 per 1,000 qualified
Match rates are stated assumptions to show the mechanism, not measurements. Substitute your own; the crossover is what matters.
With those stated assumptions, the expensive channel is the cheap one per decision-maker actually reached. If your product sells to everyone, the math flips just as decisively the other way. Full worked comparison: LinkedIn vs Facebook.
Why the premium exists at all
- Firmographic scarcity. There is exactly one large auction where seniority and company-level targeting is first-party data. Scarce supply, concentrated B2B demand, higher clearing price.
- High-value competition. Your auction rivals are bidding with B2B unit economics: five-figure contract values absorb $30+ CPMs without noticing.
- Format and objective spread.Aggregations blend formats and objectives; your campaign's number will sit around $33.80, not on it.
At $33.80, $1,000 buys about 29,586 impressions. Whether that is expensive is a question about the audience, not the arithmetic: is my CPM good? Full table: /rates.