What is the average cost of Super Bowl advertising in 2025? Peter Bray, founder and executive creative director of advertising agency Bray & Co., said advertisers paid nearly $8 million for 30-second spots during the Super Bowl. He estimated that about 51 minutes of advertising time has been sold during this year's approximately three to four-hour broadcast, bringing the total advertising sales to hundreds of millions of dollars.
The ads have already been launched. The price tag of nearly $8 million is nearly $1 million higher than the $7 million cost of a 30-second ad spot in the 2024 Super Bowl. The 30-second ad time during the 2023 NFL championship game was also about $7 million, up 55% from 2019. Bray said Super Bowl advertising costs are "gradually rising" and he believes that advertising sales for the broadcast will soon reach $1 billion.
“I think we’re going to hit $1 billion in ad sales in three years. That’s never happened on the planet. That’s how powerful this event is,” he said.
Why are Super Bowl ads so expensive?
“It’s also the Super Bowl of advertising,” Bray said. “It’s the time of year when the general public actually cares about advertising, so it’s an exciting time.”
Social media, he said, will only make the broadcast more important.
“It actually makes advertising in the Super Bowl more relevant than ever before because it’s hard to find a large audience at one time with all these different platforms,” Bray said. “Someone might advertise on TikTok or Instagram as an advertiser… all these different ad opportunities. But you might have duplication because the audience on TikTok, probably 90% is the same as the audience on Instagram, so there’s a lot of duplication.”
More than 120 million people are expected to watch Sunday’s Super Bowl, which will air on Fox and stream for free on Tubi. To capture the attention of those viewers, brands will try to use humor, emotion or famous actors to create a cultural moment that the general public can collectively engage with.
"Comedy can be a safe route for brands, and you don't want to divide your audience at all, so comedy makes sense. There are more celebrities being used now than ever before," Bray said.
Depending on the celebrity's name recognition, they can add anywhere from less than $50,000 to millions of dollars for a brief cameo. Bray said he estimates most stars who appear in Super Bowl ads charge around $2 million.
How much have Super Bowl ads cost in past years?
Super Bowl ads date back to the first Super Bowl in 1967. According to a schedule of ad prices listed on SportingNews.com, two networks aired the game, with NBC charging $37,500 for a 30-second ad and CBS $42,500. Since then, ad prices have largely risen steadily, with the cost of a half-minute ad topping $1 million in 1995 and reaching $5 million in 2017.
What is the most expensive Super Bowl ad of all time?
The most expensive Super Bowl ad of all time is Amazon's "Mind Reader" ad, which aired during Super Bowl LVI in 2022. The 90-second spot, which stars real-life couple Scarlett Johansson and Saturday Night Live comedian Colin Jost, reportedly cost $26 million to produce, according to experience management site Qualtrics.
What's the cheapest Super Bowl ad?
The cheapest Super Bowl ad of all time appears to have been one that aired in 2000 for a startup called LifeMinders.com. The 30-second spot was created by three in-house freelancers on a budget of less than $5,000, according to video marketing platform Wistia.
The low-budget, adorable ad attracted 700,000 visitors to its website in the week following the Super Bowl, according to AdAge. Sadly, the company appears to be no longer in business, as the domain is listed as available.
