What Is CPVH? The Metric That Prices Live Sponsorships

Every pricing page on this site uses one number: CPVH. If you landed here wondering what that actually stands for — or why live-sponsorship pricing doesn't work like the follower-count math you see everywhere else — this is the definition.

CPVH: cost per viewer-hour

CPVH stands for cost per viewer-hour. The unit it prices is one person watching your stream for one hour — a "viewer-hour." CPVH is simply the price of one of those units.

The formula that uses it:

Average CCV × sponsored hours × CPVH rate = your quote range

Published benchmarks vary by source: Gamesight puts general Twitch-sponsorship CPVH at $0.60–$1.00,² while Launchpoint's data — skewed toward mid-tier and agency-represented deals — runs $1.00–$2.00.¹ This site uses $0.60–$1.50 as its working band for the formula below: not a figure either source states outright, but the range that brackets both. That band — not any single published number — is what "CPVH" refers to when you see it elsewhere on this site. (For the full worked-example walkthrough of turning your own CCV and stream length into a quote, see how much to charge for a sponsored stream; for the same band applied across channel sizes, see Twitch sponsorship rates.)

Why live needed its own metric

Every other form of creator sponsorship — a sponsored post, a YouTube integration, a TikTok video — has a fixed unit: one piece of content, delivered once, to a countable audience. That's why influencer pricing runs on CPM (cost per thousand impressions or followers): a stable denominator exists, so a stable rate can sit on top of it.

Live doesn't have that unit. A sponsored segment might run for 20 minutes or 4 hours. The audience is real-time and changes minute to minute — someone who tunes in at minute 5 and leaves at minute 40 saw a different sponsorship than someone who was there the whole stream. There's no single "impression" to count, so there's no clean way to apply CPM math to a live sponsorship without losing the thing that actually matters: how long people were actually watching.

CPVH solves that by pricing the dimension live streaming actually has — concurrent viewers, sustained over time — instead of forcing live into a metric built for static content. That's the whole reason the term exists, and it's why a follower count (or a CPM figure quoted from a brand's Instagram media plan) is the wrong number to negotiate from.

Why brands show up thinking in CPM anyway

Most brand-side marketers doing sponsorships buy the rest of their media in CPM. It's the ad-industry default, so it's the instinct they bring to a live-sponsorship conversation even when it's the wrong tool for the job. You'll sometimes see it surface as "what's your CPM for this stream?" or a budget framed around impressions.

You don't need to argue the marketing-theory point. You need one sentence that redirects the conversation to the number that actually applies: "Live doesn't have a fixed impression count the way a post does — I price it on concurrent-viewer-hours instead, which is the standard live-sponsorship metric. At my average CCV, that's a range of $X–$Y." That reframes the ask without requiring the brand to admit anything — you're just supplying the metric that fits the format, and most media buyers who've bought live before will recognize CPVH immediately once you say it.

How to calculate your effective CPVH from a deal you already closed

CPVH isn't only a quoting tool. Run the formula backward on a deal you've already been paid for, and it tells you whether you were priced fairly — in dollars, not a feeling.

Deal amount ÷ (average CCV × sponsored hours) = your effective CPVH

Example 1. You averaged 600 CCV, ran a 3-hour dedicated sponsored stream, and were paid a flat $700.

Effective CPVH = $700 ÷ (600 × 3) = $700 ÷ 1,800 = $0.39/viewer-hour.

That's below the $0.60 floor of the published band. Not a guess, not a hunch — a number you can hold up next to the benchmark and say "this deal underpriced me by roughly a third against the floor of the published range."

Example 2. You averaged 1,200 CCV, ran a 4-hour stream, and were paid $3,600.

Effective CPVH = $3,600 ÷ (1,200 × 4) = $3,600 ÷ 4,800 = $0.75/viewer-hour.

That lands comfortably mid-band — evidence the deal was priced reasonably, and a real number to anchor your renewal ask at ("last time we ran at roughly $0.75/viewer-hour, and I'd want to hold that floor for this campaign").

Do this with your last three deals. If your effective CPVH is consistently under $0.60, you have hard evidence you're leaving money on the table with every brand you work with — not just this one. If it's mid-band or higher, you have a number worth defending on your next renewal instead of re-negotiating from scratch.

What moves your CPVH — briefly

Where a specific deal lands inside $0.60–$1.50 isn't random: audience-brand fit, exclusivity, usage rights, multi-platform simulcast reach, and engagement quality (chat activity, returning-viewer share) all push a quote up or down. That's a full topic on its own — see the pricing method pillar for the complete list with negotiation language for each one.

Put your CPVH on your media kit

A media kit built around follower count is answering the wrong question for a live-sponsorship buyer. Once you've calculated your effective CPVH from past deals, it belongs on the kit alongside your average CCV — it tells a brand, before you've said a word in negotiation, that you already know your number. (See building a CCV-native media kit for the full layout.)

FAQ

What does CPVH stand for?
Cost per viewer-hour — the price of one person watching your stream for one hour. It's the pricing unit for live-stream sponsorships, the way CPM (cost per thousand impressions) is the pricing unit for feed content.

Is CPVH the same as CPM?
No. CPM prices a fixed count of impressions or followers reached once. CPVH prices sustained concurrent attention over time, which is what a live sponsorship actually delivers. Brands sometimes ask for a "CPM" on a live sponsorship out of habit; CPVH is the metric that actually fits the format.

What's a good CPVH?
Published sources vary: Gamesight puts general Twitch-sponsorship CPVH at $0.60–$1.00, while Launchpoint's mid-tier/agency-deal data runs $1.00–$2.00. This site's working band — the range those two sources bracket — is $0.60–$1.50. Where you land in that range depends on audience fit, exclusivity, usage rights, and engagement — see the pricing method pillar for the full breakdown.

How do I find my average CCV?
Twitch's Channel Analytics, YouTube Studio, and Kick's creator dashboard all report average concurrent viewers per stream. Use a trailing 30-day average across normal streams, not your best night, and combine platforms if you simulcast.

How do I calculate my effective CPVH from a past deal?
Divide what you were paid by (your average CCV × the sponsored hours). If the result is under $0.60, that deal priced below the published floor; mid-band or above means it was priced fairly against the benchmark.

Does CPVH apply on YouTube Live, Kick, and TikTok Live?
The published band is drawn primarily from Twitch-centric agency data, but the unit — a concurrent-viewer-hour of live attention — is platform-agnostic. Treat it as your starting benchmark anywhere you stream, and use your combined CCV when you simulcast.