Earned media value calculator
Put a defensible number on what a creator campaign was worth, and see the three figures that are not estimates.
Earned media value is an estimate, not revenue. It answers one question only: what would buying this much attention have cost you? Treat the effective CPM and cost per click as the real numbers, because you paid those.
What earned media value actually is
Earned media value puts a dollar figure on attention you did not buy directly. The usual method multiplies the reach a campaign earned by what that reach would have cost as paid media, using a CPM (cost per thousand impressions) benchmark. Some tools instead value each engagement at a fixed rate and add them up. This calculator shows both, because they frequently disagree by a wide margin and the gap tells you something.
Why the number is soft
There is no standard EMV formula. Two agencies can report wildly different values for the same campaign by choosing different CPMs, counting impressions rather than reach, valuing a comment the same as a like, or quietly including follower counts rather than actual views. Any EMV figure you are shown should come with the CPM used and the definition of an engagement. If it does not, it is a marketing number rather than a measurement.
The numbers worth trusting instead
Three outputs here are not estimates: your effective CPM, your cost per engagement and your cost per click. They divide what you genuinely spent by what genuinely happened. If your effective CPM is below what you pay for the same audience on paid social, the campaign bought attention more cheaply than advertising would have. That is a defensible claim. "We generated $40,000 in earned media value" usually is not.
How to use it honestly
Set the CPM slider to your own paid media cost rather than an industry average. Compare like with like: if you are valuing Reels views, use your Reels CPM, not your search CPC. And run it after the campaign with real platform data, not before with projections, because projected EMV is just a wish with a dollar sign on it.
What is a good earned media value?
There is no benchmark, because the figure scales with how much you spent and how big the audiences were. The useful test is comparative: does the effective CPM beat what you pay for the same audience through paid media, and is the cost per click competitive with your other channels?
What CPM should I use?
Your own. Pull the CPM from your ad account for the same platform, format and audience, and use that. Falling back on a published industry average makes the output a rough order of magnitude rather than a measurement.
Should I use reach or impressions?
Reach counts unique people, impressions count times the content was shown. Impressions are always the larger and more flattering number. Pick one, use it consistently, and say which one you used whenever you report the result.
Is earned media value the same as ROI?
No. Earned media value estimates what the attention would have cost to buy. Return on investment compares revenue to spend. A campaign can post a large earned media value and sell nothing. If you need revenue attribution, use unique discount codes, tracked links or a post-purchase survey.
Why does the engagement-based number differ so much from the CPM-based one?
Because they measure different things. The CPM method values being seen; the engagement method values being acted on. A campaign with wide reach and weak engagement scores high on the first and low on the second. When the two diverge sharply, the gap is the finding.
Numbers are a start. A brief is better.
Send us the job and we will come back with a fixed quote and a plan, not a range.