Educational only. RPM ranges aggregate publisher-reported display earnings across AdSense, Ezoic, Mediavine, and Raptive for 2025–2026, US-weighted traffic. Your mileage depends on geography, layout, and viewability.
Website RPM — total ad revenue per 1,000 pageviews, all units combined — is the single number that decides what your traffic is worth. A good 2026 benchmark: $10–15 RPM for general content with mostly-US traffic, $20+ is strong, and finance/B2B sites on premium networks clear $30–50. Run your own numbers in the Website Ad Revenue Calculator.
RPM by niche (2026, US-weighted display)
- Entertainment / memes — $3–6 typical, $8 top quartile. Advertisers pay little for distracted audiences.
- News / general lifestyle — $6–10 typical, $14 top quartile.
- Food / recipes — $10–16 typical, $22 top quartile. High ad density tolerance, strong US female demographic.
- Tech / software / education — $12–18 typical, $25 top quartile. B2B budgets bleed into consumer tech.
- Travel — $12–20 typical, $28 top quartile. High advertiser competition per booking-intent session.
- Finance / insurance / legal / B2B — $20–35 typical, $50+ top quartile. A single click can be worth $30+ to an advertiser.
The three levers that matter more than traffic
Geography: US/UK/CA/AU pageviews pay 3–10× what tier-3 geos pay. A site with 40% US traffic and a site with 90% US traffic at identical pageview counts are different businesses. Ad network: AdSense is the floor; Ezoic and Mediavine/Raptive routinely pay 30–60% more for the same pageviews because they bring header bidding and direct demand. Content intent: a reader researching "best business credit card" is worth ten times a reader skimming listicles — advertiser bids follow purchase intent, not pageviews.
The seasonality tax
Q4 RPMs run 30–60% above Q1 as advertiser budgets flood the auction and then reset in January. Never annualize a December number. Conversely, a weak January is not a trend — compare year-over-year, same month.
When ads stop being the ceiling
Past roughly 50K monthly pageviews in a monetizable niche, affiliate revenue typically matches or doubles display income, and a single sponsored placement outearns a month of AdSense. The strategic conclusion: pick the niche before the content calendar. Thirty thousand pageviews in personal finance outearns three hundred thousand in entertainment.