How to Price Ad Slots on Your Stream: A Per-Minute Pricing Guide

To price an ad slot per minute, start from how many people actually see it. Multiply your average concurrent viewers by a target CPM (the price per 1,000 impressions) and divide by 1,000 to get a per-minute floor. Then adjust for your niche and demand, round to a clean number, and raise it in small steps once slots sell steadily.

Key takeaways

• Price on average concurrent viewers, not followers or peak viewers.
• Base formula: price per minute = average concurrent viewers × target CPM ÷ 1,000.
• Your CPM is an input you choose, not a market fact. Pick one you can defend, then test it.
• Adjust up for focused niches, engaged chat and a record of QR scans. Adjust down for broad or volatile audiences.
• Plan around your take-home: on AD on Live you keep 80% (90% for founding partners in their first year).

Why price stream ads per minute?

A per-minute price matches what you're actually selling: time on screen in front of a live audience. It's easy for small buyers to understand ("a dollar a minute"), it scales cleanly (ten minutes costs ten times one minute), and it lets an advertiser start with a tiny test before committing to more.

It also keeps pricing honest. If your audience doubles, each minute is worth more, and your price can follow. The hard part is choosing the first number. That's where a little CPM math helps.

What is CPM, and how does it apply to a live overlay?

CPM stands for cost per mille, or cost per thousand impressions. Google Ads describes CPM as a way to bid where you pay per one thousand views (impressions). Advertisers use it to compare very different placements on the same scale.

A live overlay isn't billed by impressions, but you can borrow the yardstick. You just need one consistent rule for what counts as an impression on a stream. The simplest: count each concurrent viewer once for each minute the banner is on screen. Under that rule, one minute of a banner in front of 50 viewers equals 50 impressions.

The word "concurrent" matters. Twitch's Affiliate requirements define average viewers as people watching at the same time, not total views. Its viewer count explainer also notes that viewer count is tracked separately from the list of users connected to chat. For pricing, use the average concurrent viewer figure from your analytics across your last few weeks of streams, not your best night.

The per-minute pricing formula

Price per minute = average concurrent viewers × target CPM ÷ 1,000

Then:

• Slot price = price per minute × minutes booked
• Your take-home = slot price × (1 − platform fee)

The formula gives you a floor tied to real audience size. Everything after that is judgment.

Worked examples with round numbers

The numbers below are made up for illustration. They are not market rates, so plug in your own.

Example 1: same CPM, different channel sizes. Assume a target CPM of $20.

Example 2: one channel, different CPM choices. Assume 40 average concurrent viewers and AD on Live's fee structure.

Two things stand out. First, small channels produce small per-minute numbers. That's fine, because buyers can book many minutes, and a low entry price makes the first test easy. Second, the CPM you pick moves the price as much as your audience does, so choose it on purpose.

How to choose your target CPM

There's no single right CPM. Rates vary by platform, country, niche, season and format, so a number quoted for one kind of placement won't necessarily fit a small live overlay. Treat CPM as a dial you set and then test:

1. Start with a number you'd be comfortable explaining to a buyer.
2. Run it for a few weeks of normal streams.
3. Move it up if slots sell easily. Move it down if nobody books even though your overlay looks good and appears on every stream.

Adjust for your niche and audience

Example: 40 viewers × $20 CPM ÷ 1,000 = $0.80 per minute. A focused niche might justify nudging the CPM to $25, which gives exactly $1.00 per minute. That's also a cleaner number to show on your overlay.

Sanity-check your price from the advertiser's side

Before you publish, look at your price the way a buyer will.

• Cost of a first test. Advertisers can book a single minute, so your per-minute price is the smallest possible purchase. Is it low enough that a curious brand would try it?
• Cost per scan. Example: if a 30-minute slot costs $30 and the QR code gets 10 scans, the advertiser paid $3 per scan. On AD on Live, advertisers get a completion summary with the click count, so expect them to do this math. Our guide to tracking live stream ad results explains how they measure it.
• What it means for you. If a full hour of slots would earn less than you'd want for having a banner on screen, your price is too low.

For the buyer's side of time-based pricing, see how pay-per-minute advertising works.

When and how to raise your price

Raise your price when demand outruns supply, not just because a month has passed. Good signals:

• Slots book back-to-back and the queue is rarely empty.
• Advertisers come back for a second or third slot without being asked.
• Your average concurrent viewers have risen and stayed up for several weeks.

How to do it:

1. Recalculate with the formula using your new average.
2. Move in small steps to a clean number, such as $1.00 to $1.25, not $1.00 to $2.37.
3. Change it at a natural break, like the start of a month, and mention it on stream.
4. Check bookings after a few weeks. If they stop, step back.

On AD on Live, your idle overlay shows your current price ("AD Here — $X/min") next to a QR code that opens your booking page. Viewers and brands see whatever price you set, which is one more reason to keep the number clean.

Common pricing mistakes

• Pricing on followers or a one-off peak instead of average concurrent viewers.
• Forgetting the platform fee when estimating income.
• Copying another streamer's price without checking that your audiences are comparable.
• Discounting so deeply that you resent the ads on your screen.
• Changing the price every week, which makes buyers hesitate.

Setting your price on AD on Live

On AD on Live, you set a single price per minute in USD. Advertisers choose 1–60 minutes and pay your per-minute price times the minutes they book. There's no bidding and no CPM billing, so the CPM math above is only your private yardstick.

1. Sign up free at /join and verify your email.
2. Pick a channel name. Your booking page lives at adonlive.com/s/your-channel.
3. Enter your price per minute and banner size in pixels (300×100 by default).
4. Copy the overlay URL from your dashboard and add it in OBS Studio as a Browser Source. Our OBS overlay guide covers sizing and placement.

Payment is authorized at checkout and captured when you approve the ad, so there are no invoices to send or payments to chase. You keep 80% after the 20% platform fee, founding partners pay 10% for their first year, and payouts go out weekly via PayPal to the email you add in your dashboard settings. If you're still mapping out income sources, our guide on monetizing a small stream shows where ad slots fit.

Start with a number, then let bookings guide you

You don't need perfect market data to price well. Use your average concurrent viewers, pick a CPM you can defend, round to a clean per-minute price and adjust as real bookings come in.

Ready to put a price on your overlay? Create your free AD on Live channel and set your per-minute rate in a few minutes, or check the pricing page for fee details.