what it costs

Addressable TV advertising cost

The fastest-growing channel in this set, and the one with the most paperwork in front of it.

UK addressable television — Sky AdSmart and its equivalents — has historically started around £3,000 for an entry campaign bought through a reseller, and that burst minimum is the number most first-time buyers meet. AdBuyMCP enforces a £1,000 floor on an addressable line in a plan, which is lower because a plan line is not a campaign: it is one channel's share of a larger budget, and the seller's own minimum still applies at booking. Two things to be clear about before reading any further. This channel grew 37% to £1.84bn in 2025 on AA/WARC figures, so the enthusiasm is warranted. And we do not buy UK broadcast inventory today: these are booking-paperwork rails, and no addressable delivery has ever been reconciled through us.
Enforced plan floor
£1,000 per line
Our fee on media
10%
Fidelity on this channel
55 / 100
Rails spend-verified
0 of 25
stageDesign-partner phase
how this channel compiles
Addressable & linear TV: what one audience becomes here, and the score for how much survived.
Read the channel page
before you plan around this number

You cannot fund an addressable TVcampaign here today. No buying rail has reached spend-tested or report-verified on the platform’s own evidence ledger, so live spend runs inside a design-partner engagement rather than from a self-serve top-up. Everything on this page is what a plan would carry, and the whole loop runs in a sandbox that needs no credentials. All 25 rails, graded.

two kinds of minimum

What we enforce, and what the market asks

They measure different things and both apply. One stops a pointless line surviving into a plan; the other stops a pointless campaign reaching air.

enforced plan floor — a product fact
£1,000 per line

Enforced when the plan is built. A line that cannot clear this is dropped and its budget redistributed across the lines that can, with a note saying so. Manual plans are validated against the same number.

market minimum — desk research, Aug 2026

From around £3,000 for an entry campaign via Sky AdSmart resellers. Comcast's Universal Ads launched UK self-serve in 2026 with low or no minimum, which is actively reshaping this number.

What other sellers ask for. Not a commitment by anyone, dated because these move, and sourced at the foot of this page.

the unit

How this channel is actually priced

A CPM against households selected on attributes, with the price rising as the selection narrows. Because a household is bought rather than an impression against a person, the effective cost per person reached depends on household size, which is a variable nobody controls.

The smallest buy worth making

A £3,000 to £5,000 burst over two to four weeks in a defined region. Addressable television rewards concentration: the same money spread nationally buys a frequency of roughly one, which is below the threshold at which television does anything at all.

the parts nobody prices

What else leaves your account

Everyone quotes a headline rate. Almost nobody publishes the data uplift, the production spec and the clearance lead time that sit beside it, which is where a budget actually goes wrong.

  • Clearance

    Copy must be approved before it airs, and superlative or health claims need documentary substantiation. That is time rather than a line item, but a rejected script can cost a fortnight.

  • Production

    A broadcast-spec mezzanine at 1920×1080, 25fps, at least 20Mbps, with supers inside title-safe and audio to EBU R128. Reusing a social cut will not clear.

  • The platform fee

    10% of media, or 5% plus £749 a month above £25,000 of trailing 30-day spend.

the thing that catches people out

That the lead time is the constraint rather than the money. This is booked as paperwork with clearance in front of it, so a campaign that has to be live in ten days usually cannot be.

and the budget question underneath

Below about £10,000 a month in total media, this is the wrong product. A 10% fee on £2,000 is £200 against the buyer who needs the most support from us, and a multi-channel plan at that budget is too thin to pace on any line and far too thin to power a causal test. Buy search and social directly, and come back when there is a second channel worth funding.

the other six

What the rest of the plan costs

Where the market figures come from

Desk research dated 3 August 2026. Rates move.

45 minutes. Bring a real brief and we compile it live. Bring a real budget and watch it split across seven channels against these floors — including the lines it cannot carry, which get dropped in front of you.

Talk it through
// book a working session

Bring a budget. We will tell you if it is too small.

45 minutes. Bring a real brief and we compile it live.

Book a working session

45 minutes. Bring a real brief and we compile it live.

Questions about addressable TV cost

Can I buy Sky AdSmart through AdBuyMCP today?

No. Sky AdSmart is a booking-workflow rail here: we generate the brief with the right household attributes, drive the clearance step and hold the order state machine, but we do not make the booking and it does not report the delivery. No addressable-TV delivery statement has been ingested through it. The supply page grades it accordingly.

Why is your floor £1,000 when the market minimum is £3,000?

Because they measure different things. £1,000 is the point below which an addressable line stops being worth carrying inside a multi-channel plan, so the planner drops it and redistributes the budget. £3,000 is what the seller will actually accept for a campaign. Both apply, at different moments.