Every clipping campaign carries two rates. The buyer sets the first one in the brief, and clippers read it before they cut anything. The second one only appears after the campaign has run, when somebody divides what the campaign paid by the views its clips drew. Buyers and clippers who treat the two as the same number end up disappointed, and the gap between them comes from arithmetic anyone can check.
The two numbers
| Rate | What it counts | Who sees it first |
|---|---|---|
| Advertised rate | Dollars per 1,000 eligible views, the figure in the brief | Clippers, before they cut |
| Effective rate | Dollars the budget paid out, divided by every view the campaign's clips received, per 1,000 | The buyer, in the report after the campaign |
No eligible view pays more than the advertised rate, and many views pay nothing at all. That makes the advertised rate a ceiling.
Where the rest of the money goes
| Mechanic | What it does to the rate |
|---|---|
| The per-clip cap | A clip that travels past its cap keeps collecting views and stops collecting money. The RUCKUS Campaign Standard sets the cap at $500 per clip |
| The minimum | The platform pays nothing on a clip under the minimum views. RUCKUS's default minimum is 2,000 views |
| Denials | A reviewer who denies a clip for a missing disclosure, a foreign watermark or footage outside the pack pays nothing on its views, however many it drew |
| The earning window | Views that arrive after the platform's earning window closes do not pay. The payout timeline has the dates |
| Fraud voids | The platform voids views it suspects, and its terms let it do so on suspicion |
One worked example
For illustration only, with invented round numbers that are not a forecast and not a promise of what any clip will earn: a CPM campaign advertises $2.00 per 1,000 eligible views, with a $500 per-clip cap and a 2,000-view minimum. Six clips come in.
| Clip | Views | What happened | Paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 700,000 | Approved. Uncapped, it would have earned $1,400, so the cap holds it at $500 | $500 |
| B | 150,000 | Approved | $300 |
| C | 120,000 | Approved | $240 |
| D | 90,000 | Approved. 30,000 of its views arrived after the window closed, so it pays on 60,000 | $120 |
| E | 60,000 | Denied: no disclosure | $0 |
| F | 1,800 | Approved, but under the 2,000-view minimum | $0 |
| Total | 1,121,800 | $1,160 |
The campaign advertised $2.00 per 1,000 and paid $1,160 for 1,121,800 views. That works out to about $1.03 per 1,000, or about 52% of the advertised rate. The mechanics are real. The numbers are invented for the illustration and are not a forecast.
The dated observation
On 23 September 2026, RUCKUS read an analytics panel shown on the public pages of a large campaign platform. The panel labelled two figures CPM, $1.93 per 1,000, and eCPM, $0.99 per 1,000. The platform did not publish how the panel computes either one. Read as an advertised rate and an effective rate, the effective figure is about 51% of the advertised one. RUCKUS treats the pair as one market observation, not a benchmark, not a RUCKUS rate and not a promise.
On the same day, RUCKUS read a large public campaign board by hand. No advertised rate on it was more common than $2.00 per 1,000, and nearly nine in ten of the advertised rates sat between $1.00 and $2.50 per 1,000. Those are other companies' posted rates, published as market context. The census page has the method.
RUCKUS publishes an effective band for entertainment and gaming clipping of $0.20 to $1.00 per 1,000: the range RUCKUS uses for what a budget works out to once caps, minimums and denials are counted. The panel's $0.99 sits at the top of that band. Both are market context, not a promise.
Why the gap is there on purpose
Each mechanic protects somebody. A buyer sets the cap so one clip cannot take the whole pot and the rest of the budget reaches more clippers. The platform applies the minimum so the budget does not pay for clips nobody watched. RUCKUS denies clips that break the law or the brief so the buyer does not pay for them. The window keeps the buyer's spend finite. A buyer who removed all four would see the effective rate move closer to the advertised one, and would pay for broken clips, unwatched clips, and one clip taking most of the money.
What to compare instead
- Buyers: compare cost per 1,000 payable views, all in, with every fee included. RUCKUS reports it for every campaign next to public views, in separate columns. Public views and payable views explains the two columns.
- Clippers: read the cap, the minimum and the window before the rate. A clip that travels far past the cap earns the cap and nothing more. RUCKUS publishes no income figures, because nobody can know in advance what a clip will draw.
Why RUCKUS still advises about $2.00 advertised
Clippers choose between campaigns on the advertised rate, because it is the one number they can see before they cut. A buyer who advertises well under the rates on the board competes for the same clippers with less. On the day RUCKUS read the board, six campaigns the board showed as posted that day had no clippers attached yet, at advertised rates from $1.00 to $2.50 per 1,000. That is market context from other companies' posted campaigns, not a promise of views or earnings. Clippers need a rate to show up, and they stay for a clear brief, fast decisions and an organised bench. The levels of a clipping campaign covers those.
FAQ
Is 51% what a RUCKUS campaign will get?
No. It is one platform's panel on one day. The effective rate on any campaign depends on its cap, its minimum, its brief, its bench and how many clips pass review. The RUCKUS report shows the real figure for your campaign after it runs.
Why not just advertise the effective rate?
The platform pays eligible views at the advertised rate. A buyer who advertised the lower number would pay eligible views that lower number, and the effective rate would fall below it again, for the same reasons.
Does the cap hurt clippers?
It limits what one clip can earn. It also stops a single post from taking money that would otherwise pay many clippers, so the budget stays open to more of the bench.
Where does the $500 cap come from?
It is part of the RUCKUS Campaign Standard, published on the pricing page. A buyer can ask for a different cap, and RUCKUS puts its recommendation and the reason in writing.
