In brief
Sound.me is a two-sided creator marketplace: artists, record labels and brands pay creators to make short videos with their sound or product on TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts, and creators use the Sound.me app to apply to daily paid campaigns and cash out via PayPal. It has 3M+ registered creators in 61 countries, who have made 90M+ videos with 181B+ organic views for 20K+ advertisers.
What does "cost per 1,000 views" mean?
Cost per 1,000 views is your budget divided by the views it produced, times 1,000. It is the simplest way to compare very different kinds of promotion, because it turns a budget into the price of reaching 1,000 people once. Ad platforms call the same idea CPM.
For a creator campaign, the views are the total of every approved creator video made with your sound. On Sound.me, spend is what the advertiser was charged: the payments for approved videos. A video that doesn't follow your directions isn't paid, so it isn't part of the cost.
What does a Sound.me campaign cost per 1,000 views?
Start with the projection, because it is the average of real completed campaigns. For a worldwide, 7-day campaign, measured on TikTok campaigns:
| Budget | Projected views | Projected creator videos |
|---|---|---|
| $250 | ~211K | ~38 |
| $500 | ~332K | ~75 |
| $1,000 | ~524K | ~151 |
| $1,500 | ~685K | ~226 |
Then look at real results. These are the standard-budget case studies on the site, chosen as strong recent results at each budget:
| Campaign | Videos | Views | Per 1,000 views | First video |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $250, 72 hours, worldwide | 161 | 178K | $1.40 | under 10 minutes |
| $500, 7 days, United States only | 24 | 584K | $0.86 | about 18 hours |
| $1,000, 7 days, worldwide, ages up to 44 | 237 | 742K | $1.35 | about 17 hours |
| $1,000, 14 days, Europe, US and Canada | 78 | 507K | $1.97 | about 31 hours |
| $1,500, 72 hours, US, UK, Canada and Brazil | 63 | 1.34M | $1.12 | under 1 hour |
Bigger campaigns spread wider. The biggest single campaigns on the case studies page ran from $0.17 per 1,000 views (a major-label imprint's $6,518 worldwide campaign: 379 videos, 38.2M views) to $3.12 (an $11,408 worldwide campaign: 563 videos, 3.66M views). Treat case studies as what is possible and the projection as what to expect.
Why does the cost per 1,000 views vary so much?
- A few videos make most of the views. In the $1,500 campaign above, the best video had 74% of all views; in the $500 US campaign, 63%. When one video takes off, the cost per 1,000 views falls fast. When none does, it rises.
- Countries. Pay per view follows what advertisers pay for that audience, so creators in some countries cost more per view than others. Targeting lower-cost countries stretches a budget further. Promoting a song in a specific country shows the options.
- Creator size. In two real campaigns of about $10,000, creators under 20,000 followers came in at $1.15 per 1,000 views and creators with 50,000+ followers at $1.62. Micro-influencers vs big creators compares them.
- Run time. A 72-hour run reaches about 40% fewer views and creators than 7 days on TikTok campaigns. Choosing a run time explains the trade-off.
- The brief. Creative freedom fills fastest. A dance or a detailed custom brief can take creators longer.
- The song. Creators and viewers respond to the sound itself. No setting fixes a hook that doesn't land.
How does that compare with other ways to promote a song?
Compare like with like, and use your own numbers where you can:
- Ads. Your ad account reports its own CPM. Remember that an ad is a placement that stops when spend stops, while creator videos are organic posts that stay up (on Sound.me, for at least 45 days).
- Booking creators one by one. Commonly cited rates run from $25–150 per video for nano creators to $500–3,000 for mid-tier creators (creator rates in 2026). Divide the fee by the views a creator usually gets to estimate their cost per 1,000 views, and add the time spent negotiating.
- Playlist pitching. It sells placements or curator reviews, not views, so cost per 1,000 views doesn't apply. Judge it by streams instead.
What is a good cost per 1,000 views?
There is no universal benchmark, and a single number hides a lot. A useful rule is to judge a campaign against its own projection first: a worldwide, 7-day $1,000 campaign projected at about 524,000 views is about $1.91 per 1,000 views, so anything well under that did better than average. Then look past views:
- Engagement. In the standard-budget case studies, likes, comments and shares divided by views ranged from 2.1% to 5.9%.
- Where the views came from. Views in the countries where you tour or stream are worth more to you than cheap views elsewhere.
- What happened next. New videos on your sound page, comments naming the song, and streams in the weeks after.
How can you lower your cost per 1,000 views?
- Pick creative freedom unless your brief needs something specific.
- Keep targeting as broad as your goal allows. Worldwide campaigns fill fastest.
- Include small creators. They make many videos, and many videos give more chances for one to take off.
- Run 7 days rather than 72 hours when volume matters more than speed.
- Repeat what worked: rerun the brief and countries whose videos travelled.
Where do you see the numbers for your own campaign?
A live dashboard shows every creator post with views, likes, comments, shares and a country breakdown, updated every hour. Sound.me doesn't guarantee views, streams or sales, and it doesn't guarantee a cost per 1,000 views; it shows the projection for your budget before you pay. Budgets are $250, $1,000, $1,500 or your own amount; $100 for a first campaign during the flash sale in the 48 hours after sign-up. Sound.me pricing has the details.