Buy side · what advertisers pay
X (Twitter) CPM
By Oliver Wakefield-Smith · updated July 2026
Benchmarks reviewed July 2026 · next review October 2026
The short answer
Treat every Twitter CPM figure you meet as historical until proven otherwise: most circulating numbers predate the 2023 ownership change and advertiser exodus, and X publishes no rates of its own. An auction that loses a large share of its bidders reprices structurally; old benchmarks describe a market that no longer exists.
Why the old numbers broke
CPM is a clearing price. When a large fraction of demand left X's auction in 2023, the remaining bidders faced thinner competition, which pushes prices down; simultaneously the platform's brand-safety turbulence changed which advertisers were bidding at all, which changes the mix any average would describe. Both effects invalidate pre-2023 benchmarks in a way normal market drift does not. A 2022 Twitter CPM cited in 2026 is not stale; it is about a different product.
The pre-buy verification list
- Run the current buying flow on business.x.com and read what the auction actually offers your objective; product names and formats have churned repeatedly since 2023.
- Demand a date from any CPM figure in any deck. No date, no number. (This is our standing rule; X is where it earns its keep.)
- Bound the test. Small budget, compute your own CPM in the calculator, benchmark against the published channels in the rate table.
- Check brand adjacency the way you would check price; placement context is part of what a CPM buys, worked further at Reddit CPM.
For a large-platform contrast with an actual dated tracker, see Facebook CPM.