How Much Does It Cost To Advertise on Snapchat? US Guide 2024

When it comes to Snapchat ad costs, understanding the details can feel elusive at first glance.

Working out whether advert spending via Snap will give you a better return on investment than doing so on other social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook is no easy task, either. It’ll depend on who your audience is and also what budget constraints you’re contending with.

In this article, we demystify Snapchat’s ad pricing structure, highlight the factors that shape campaign budgets, and explore how you can achieve the best results for your business, like pricing trends around the best time to post on social media. From advert format choices to effective spending strategies, this guide offers insight to help you make the most of your Snapchat investment.

Snapchat Advertising Costs in 2024: Bidding and Budgets

Snapchat adverts operate on a flexible pricing structure, allowing advertisers to control spending to meet their budgets. Here’s a summary of what you can expect from its ad pricing.

Snapchat ad pricing explained

Snapchat charges advertisers per 1,000 impressions – also known as CPM (Cost Per Mille). In other words, the overall price of Snapchat ads depends on how many times an advert is seen by users.

While this is ultimately how payment is taken, that cost per 1,000 impressions will depend on its goal-based bidding system. You will set the most you’re willing to pay each time someone takes a specific action after seeing your ad, for instance, per impression, video view, click, or app install. If you aren’t entirely sure, you can determine the best course of action via specific objectives, which we discuss later on this page.

Your campaign will then be delivered to optimize towards your selected goal at the lowest cost, targeting the audience you’ve specified in the campaign targeting settings. So, this cost ultimately depends on your bid, bid goal, performance, and budget with payment being taken on a per 1,000 impressions basis.

Factors influencing Snapchat ad cost

Like any capitalist market, there are varying factors that dictate the fluctuations in price for Snapchat ads. Here are a few of the core reasons why prices change over time:

• Bidding strategy: Snapchat’s auction-based bidding allows for several strategies to approach purchasing ads based on pre-defined limits or processes, as shown in the image above:
  • ‘Auto-Bidding’: Adjusts bids automatically to maximize action efficiency but may lead to higher costs if not monitored closely.
  • ‘Max Bid’: Sets a ceiling on spending per action, giving more cost control but requiring knowledge of competitive bid levels.
  • ‘Target Cost’: Aims for a stable cost per action by dynamically adjusting bids, useful for campaigns focused on consistent conversion costs​
• Audience targeting: Precise targeting, such as specific demographics or interests, increases competition for a smaller audience and may raise costs. However, this precision often enhances engagement, making it cost-effective for targeted campaigns. On the other hand, broader targeting reduces costs but can dilute engagement​

• Time of the year: Seasonal demand spikes during periods like holiday seasons, back-to-school time, and other major events (e.g. during the Super Bowl) can raise costs as more brands compete for visibility.
• Ad types: Snapchat’s range of ad formats impacts costs differently. For instance, Lenses and AR experiences are premium options, while simpler ads like single image or video ads may offer more budget-friendly visibility, especially for direct-response goals.
• Industry competition: Advertisers from competitive sectors may pay more as Snapchat prioritizes placements with the highest potential return. This means ad costs can vary widely across industries.

Average cost of Snapchat ads

As of October 2024, the current cost of Snapchat ads is $9.63 CPM (cost per thousand impressions) according to Gupta Media’s Social Media CPM Tracker. The same resource states the average cost per link click (CPLC) is $1.02, with the average link click-through rate (LCTR) being 0.94%.

However, it’s worth noting that costs fluctuate across days, weeks, and months depending on several factors including general supply and demand for specific ad types, audiences, and ad space at particular times. You can see these fluctuations across Gupta Media’s historical data for Snapchat prices across 2024.

How much should I spend on Snapchat ads?

As stated above, the minimum daily advert spend is $5 meaning you’ll need to spend at least this amount per day to advertize with Snapchat. If you were to spend this minimum figure on a month’s duration of ads, that would be $155 for 31 days.

However, Snapchat recommends that advertisers spend at least $20 to $50 per day to quickly optimize ad performance through its “Exploration Phase”: a period where Snapchat’s system learns who in your audience is most likely to take action on your ad. By front-loading your spending, Snapchat’s algorithm can learn to better target ads to the types of consumers who are most likely to be interested in your products and/or services as quickly as possible, avoiding unnecessary spending on untargeted ads.

Snapchat Ad Costs vs Other Platforms

Compared to platforms like Meta (Facebook and Instagram), Spotify, and TikTok, Snapchat has generally been a cost-effective option for awareness campaigns and brand building since the launch of its Ads Platform in 2014.

However, over recent years and across 2024, Snapchat’s CPM has steadily increased to almost double the average CPM of TikTok and just below the average of Meta (Instagram and Facebook), according to data from Gupta Media. You can see this in its visualization below.

Are Snapchat Ads Worth the Cost For My Business?

Whether Snapchat ads are worth investing in for your business will ultimately depend on the audiences you are trying to market to and interact with. According to Snapchat’s latest company filings, 75% of Gen Z and millennials (users between the ages of 13 and 34) in over 25 countries are active users of the platform.

Here’s a quick summary of the other commonalities in Snapchat’s audience, and therefore who we think Snapchat Ads are best used by.

Snapchat’s audience size: 800 million Monthly Active Users

In February 2024, Snapchat broke the 800 million user mark and it is reportedly hoping to go past the one billion user mark by the end of 2025. The latest figures show that Snapchat has over 100 million users in the US specifically (106.7m), though India leads the way with a whopping 202.51 million users in 2024.

That sees Snapchat sitting in 10th amongst the biggest social media platforms in terms of active users, according to research by Exploding Topics. Here’s the top 10 in full:

Source: Exploding Topics

Looking at potential audience size for any advertisements then, you could gain a larger audience elsewhere in the aggregate, such as with ads via Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook.

However, it’s important to know the make-up of your audience. A larger audience size isn’t always better depending on the demographic you are looking to target.

Snapchat’s demography: Primarily for Gen-Z audiences

Here are three core facts about the demographic makeup of Snapchat’s user base we’ve discovered to help you work out if there is an audience for your business.

1. Most Snapchat users are between 18 and 24 years old

The majority of people using Snapchat fall into the 18-to-24 age range, according to the latest data via Statista. This demographic makes up 38.5% of the app’s 800 million strong user base. In other words, if you know your audience falls into this group, Snapchat is a superb option.

Instagram also skews towards this age group, with 31.7% of users between 18 and 24. Though, notably, it also has a higher percentage of users between 25 and 34 (30.6%) than Snapchat.

Facebook, on the other hand, has the majority of its users between 25 and 34 (accounting for 31.1% of its user base according to the latest Statista data).

2. One-fifth of Snapchat users are teenagers

To add to the young slant of Snapchat’s demography, the same data tells us that 20% of users are between 13 and 17. And since 2020, it has reigned as the most popular messaging app for this age group in the US.

Furthermore, despite being against its terms of service, it is estimated that 2.8 million US Snapchat users are younger than 12 years old.

3. Even gender split for Snapchat users

The gender distribution of Snapchat users is almost exactly 50-50, according to the latest data via Statista. 49.1% of users identify as female while 49.2% identify as male. So, you’ll have the freedom to target your ads to any specific gender group of your choosing.

For comparison, Instagram has a near-identical gender distribution, meanwhile, X (Twitter) has the highest share of male users with 60.3% of its worldwide audience base being men.

If you are looking to target ads towards both men and women below 35 years of age, or even more specifically people younger than 25 years old and teenagers, then Snapchat is one of the best options around.

Snapchat audience engagement

It’s all well and good having an audience for your adverts, but if users on a platform aren’t as actively engaged with ads as other platforms it might feel misguided to invest. Looking at the active daily users of Snapchat in 2024, we can see that the platform has 443 million people engaging daily, according to Snap’s Q3 2024 reporting announced on 29th October 2024.

That’s around half its monthly user base, which is a pretty impressive ratio given that Instagram reportedly has 500 million daily active users from over 2 billion users at the time of writing. The Financial Times reports that X (Twitter) has around 251 global daily active users as of the second quarter of 2024, although Facebook reportedly has 3.27 billion daily active users according to its 2nd quarter 2024 financials.

Specifically looking at engagement with advertisements, we can see that Snapchat is particularly fruitful for influencer marketing.

According to eMarketer, Snapchat beat both TikTok and Instagram in creator-driven shopping with 85.6% of social shoppers in its survey saying who said Snapchat content led them to make a purchase, also said they had made a purchase because of creator or influencer content.

Given the vastly varying success of different ad campaigns, no matter the social media platform, it is difficult to give a definitive answer on the engagement with advertisements on Snapchat or elsewhere.

Jump to our Snapchat Ads examples section for an idea of the type of campaigns that have had success in 2024, or continue scrolling to first look at the various objectives you may have, the ad types that could help you to achieve them, and the latest updates to Snapchat’s Ads Platform.

How Snapchat Ads Work: Types, Objectives, Updates and Examples

How Snapchat ads operate is pretty straightforward.

Types of Snapchat advert

Snapchat groups its advert types into roughly six different types:

What type of Snapchat ad is best for me?

In 2024, Snapchat updated its Ads Manager to change the number of campaign objectives from 12 to 5. Campaign objectives are broad outlines of the goals you want to complete with your adverts.

Here’s a breakdown of each of the five current objectives, explained via their defined business goals, the ad types that are relevant for each objective, and other attachment options available via Snapchat to help this.

New Snapchat ad features for 2024

Snapchat has rolled out several new features aimed at improving ad effectiveness and targeting over the past year.

Namely, it has invested in larger machine learning (ML) models, improving signals, and adding more ad formats, according to Snap’s Q2 2024 earnings report. The same report states that this has seen advertisers more than double year-on-year. Here’s what has changed:

• Improved lead generation tools: Snapchat’s Lead Gen suite improvements, including Zapier CRM integration and signal-based leads optimization, have reportedly reduced cost-per-lead by 69%, increased lead submission rates by 62%, and improved click-through rates by 21%.
• Upgrades for app advertisers: Expanded ‘7-0 optimization’ now supports app installs, purchases, and re-engagements, driving up Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) by 30-50% for clients like Roblox, especially benefiting mobile gaming advertisers.
• eCommerce and web advertising optimization: Snapchat’s ‘Value Optimization’ tool boosts purchase cart sizes (up 27% for Lancôme, for instance) and platform conversions (up 3.8x for Wrangler), with ROAS up by 212% and a bounce rate reduction of 50%.
• New takeover products: Snapchat’s First Lens Unlimited and State Targeted First Story AR products arrived, allowing for state-specific targeting and a broader reach, offering 25-45% higher impressions.
• AR and AI-powered creative tools: With its new AR Extensions and the GenAI Copy Generator, Snapchat combines AR with AI, providing tools to increase Ad Awareness by 1.6x and boost attention by 5x, with custom ML and AI creative solutions expanding globally.

Snapchat ad examples

Several brands have leveraged Snapchat to reach Gen Z audiences, including luxury brands like Cartier, institutions like the University of Idaho, and. Each of them took a slightly different approach to Snap Ads; here’s what they did:

The University of Idaho lead generation: In efforts to boost the number of students interested in attending the University of Idaho (UoI), it launched two lead-generation campaigns (one for in-state and one for out-of-state persons) on Snapchat between August and November 2024 to align with the university application window.

Cost per conversion on Snapchat was reportedly 22% lower compared to other social media marketing tactics used, while UoI gained 67% of overall undergraduate impressions via Snapchat.

Crumbl’s app install and web link ads: After initially experimenting with Snapchat’s ad platform to see if they could drive app installs and web purchases of its cookies, Crumbl committed to Snapchat after a few months. Quarter on Quarter, it saw a +32.3% return on investment, with the number of purchases soaring +242% in the same period.

Cartier’s AR experience: In April 2024, Snapchat partnered with Cartier to celebrate the 100th anniversary of ‘The Trinity Collection’, allowing users to virtually try on and shop the Classic Trinity Ring through an AR lens.

How to Lower Snapchat Ad Costs: Optimize Advertising Spend

If you want to optimize your ad spend, it might take some trial and error – especially if you are new to social media advertising. Here are some ideas on how you could look to lower ad costs over time.

• Improve targeting: Focusing on specific demographics, age groups, or locations can reduce costs by limiting your audience to the most relevant users. Choosing the objective and the goal-based bid type that best aligns with your desires will also help with this.
• Defined timing: Planning campaigns to avoid peak times of demand, or allocating extra budget during these popular periods, can better optimize spending to specific campaign goals.
• Run A/B tests: Experimenting with ad creatives, visuals, and messaging helps identify high-performing combinations, lowering costs over time.
• Experiment with bidding strategies: Trying different bidding strategies and experimenting with suggested bids can help you work out which is the best option for your brand’s bottom line.
• Use Snap Pixel: Installing Snap Pixel – a free tool (actually, a piece of JavaScript code) that helps advertisers measure the effectiveness and interactions with their ads – can allow you to retarget spending on users who have already shown interest in your brand.
• Take advantage of ad credits: Snapchat periodically offers promotions. At the time of writing, it is offering $75 in ad credit when spending $50. These sorts of incentives can provide extra reach at no additional cost.