On the eve of Super Bowl 59, the Philadelphia Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs aren’t the only ones dreaming of touchdowns. Brands and advertisers with millions riding on the success of commercials to be aired during the 2025 Super Bowl broadcast are also hoping to score. Here’s a look at how much money goes into Super Bowl ads, and why advertisers say the high-cost commercials are worth it.
How much do Super Bowl commercials cost on average for 2025?
Advertisers are shelling out close to $8 million on average for a 30-second spot during Super Bowl LIX, Peter Bray, founder and executive creative director at ad agency Bray & Co., told CBS MoneyWatch. He estimates that around 51 minutes of advertising has been sold for the approximately three to four hour broadcast this year, making the total amount of ad sales somewhere in the hundreds of millions.
The close to $8 million price tag is almost a million dollars more than the $7 million it cost for a 30-second spot in Super Bowl 2024. Commercial air time during the NFL Championship in 2023 was also about $7 million for 30 seconds, a 55% jump from 2019. Super Bowl advertising costs are “creeping up,” said Bray, who believes ad sales for the broadcast will soon reach $1 billion.
“I think in three years it’s going to hit a billion dollars in ad sales. And that has never before happened on the planet. That is the immensity of this event,” he said.
Why are Super Bowl ads so expensive?
“It’s the advertising industry’s Super Bowl as well,” Bray said. “It’s the one time of year where the general public actually cares about advertising so it’s an exciting time.”
And social media he says, has only made the broadcast more important.
“It’s actually made advertising in the Super Bowl more relevant than ever because what’s happened is with all these different platforms, it’s very difficult to find a large audience at once,” Bray said. “Someone might advertise as an advertiser on TikTok, or on Instagram … all of these different advertising opportunities. But you might be duplicating because the audience on TikTok, maybe 90% are the same audience on Instagram, so there’s a lot of duplication.”
More than 120 million people are expected to watch Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, which will be broadcast on Fox and livestreamed for free on Tubi. To keep those viewers transfixed, brands will try to use humor, emotion or a famous actor to create a cultural moment that a mass audience can engage with collectively.
“Comedy can be a safe route for brands, and you don’t want to divide your audience at all, so comedy makes sense. There’s more celebrities being used than ever,” Bray said.
Depending on a celebrity’s level of fame, they can add anywhere from less than $50,000 for a brief cameo to millions of dollars. Bray said he expects the tab for most stars to appear in a Super Bowl spot is in the $2 million range.
For his role in a Dunkin’ add last year, meanwhile, Ben Affleck was paid nearly $10 million, CNN reported. Dunkin’ is bringing Affleck back again this year, along with “Succession” star Jeremy Strong.
How much did Super Bowl commercials cost in past years?
Super Bowl ads go back to the first Super Bowl in 1967. Two networks aired the game, with a 30-second spot costing $37,500 on NBC and $42,500 on CBS, according to a timeline of ad prices listed on SportingNews.com. Ad prices for the most part have steadily increased since then, with the cost for a half-minute ad breaking $1 million in 1995 and reaching $5 million in 2017.
What is the most expensive Super Bowl ad ever aired?
The most expensive Super Bowl commercial of all time is Amazon’s “Mind Reader” ad, which aired during Super Bowl LVI in 2022. Featuring real-life couple Scarlett Johansson and comedian Colin Jost from “SNL,” the 90-second spot is reported to have cost $26 million to produce, according to experience management site Qualtrics.
What is the cheapest Super Bowl ad ever aired?
The cheapest Super Bowl ad ever made appears to be a commercial by a startup company called LifeMinders.com that aired in 2000. The 30-second ad was made by three internal freelancers with a budget of less than $5,000, according to video marketing platform Wistia.
Offering “highly personalized emails on topics you ask for,” the endearingly low-budget spot drew 700,000 people to its website in the week following the Super Bowl, according to AdAge. Sadly, it appears the company is no longer in business as the domain name is listed as available.
