What Is the Minimum Budget for DV360? Figures for India

Does Google set a minimum spend for DV360?

Not publicly. Google sells Display & Video 360 through its sales team, its website shows no price or minimum, and the terms for a seat are agreed in each contract. Advertisers and agencies that sign with Google for their own partner seat usually take on spend commitments, which is the main reason most Indian teams start under a provider's seat instead. Our guide to getting DV360 access in India compares the routes.

So the minimum you actually face comes from somewhere else: your provider's terms, the publishers and screen networks you want to buy, and any measurement you add. This post takes each in turn. It does not list CPMs. For those, see our guide to programmatic advertising cost in India and our breakdown of DV360 pricing. To turn a minimum into impressions and reach, use the programmatic advertising cost calculator.

What minimum do DV360 providers ask for?

Most providers set one, and it rises with the amount of work they take on, because setup, trading and reporting take time whatever the budget. At DV360 Account we agree the minimum upfront, in writing, for each client.

Managed and campaign-based clients follow spend and delivery in our DV360 Reports Section, live dashboards built on DV360 data, rather than in the platform itself.

Which DV360 buys have no fixed minimum?

Anything bought in an auction. You bid as inventory comes up, so there is no deal for a publisher to approve and no booking size to meet.

• YouTube skippable in-stream, bumper, non-skippable and Shorts ads
• YouTube in-feed and audio ads, and Demand Gen line items
• YouTube on connected TV, which has no fixed platform minimum
• Open auction display and video across the wider web

That is why YouTube is the usual entry point for a first DV360 campaign. The trade-off with open auction is control. You set rules for where ads may run, but you cannot reserve a named site or a fixed volume.

Two YouTube buys work differently. The Masthead is quoted by Google per booking, and YouTube Select is quoted per campaign, depending on the lineup and setup. Ask about both well before your dates.

What do OTT apps, news publishers and DOOH networks ask for?

Premium inventory is bought through Programmatic Guaranteed (PG) or private deals, and each publisher or screen network sets its own minimum. These are the indicative figures from our channel pages. They are media amounts before fees and GST, and final numbers are confirmed for your dates.

The pattern is simple. Regional apps let you into OTT for a few lakh, the big national entertainment apps need about ₹10 lakh, and live sport needs a much larger commitment. Each news publisher counts separately, so three publishers mean about ₹15 lakh. If you need a named app on fixed dates, check its page under connected TV and OTT before you set the budget. Individual sites and screen networks have their own pages under news publishers and DOOH.

Does the deal type change the minimum?

Yes, because the deal type decides whether anyone is holding inventory for you.

A Programmatic Guaranteed deal reserves a fixed volume at a fixed price, so the publisher wants a booking large enough to justify setting that inventory aside. That is where most of the figures in the table come from. PG deals also need the publisher's confirmation before launch, so they cannot be switched on at the last minute.

A private marketplace deal invites you to bid on a publisher's inventory above an agreed floor price, with no guaranteed volume. On our news publisher pages, the same indicative minimum of about ₹5 lakh applies to PG and private deals alike.

Open auction has no deal at all, so there is no publisher minimum to clear. A news site can still show up in an open auction buy, but you cannot count on it.

So a particular app on particular dates means budgeting for its minimum from the start. If any good inventory for your audience will do, auction buying lets you begin smaller, though you give up the control that PG and private deals bring.

How much spend does a Brand Lift study need?

If you want evidence that a YouTube campaign moved ad recall or awareness, Google's Brand Lift study sets its own floor. Google's Brand Lift setup guide for DV360 places India in its lowest budget tier: at least US$5,000 of spend within 10 days to measure one question, US$10,000 for two and US$20,000 for three. Cross-exchange connected TV has no fixed minimum, but Google recommends at least US$15,000 per question. Google changes these thresholds from time to time, so check the eligibility shown when you create the study.

The amounts are converted into your account currency, with exchange rates refreshed four times a year. For one question, that works out to roughly ₹4–5 lakh of YouTube spend inside those 10 days, depending on the rate. Plan it in from the start, alongside the setup steps in our guide to measuring brand lift. If you add a study halfway through a flight, the spend left in any 10-day window may be too thin to qualify.

Is meeting the minimum enough to get a result?

Not always. A minimum is what a publisher will accept, not what your goal needs. ₹5 lakh clears a news publisher's floor, but if your audience is large and spread across several states, that amount may reach each person only once or twice, which is too thin to be remembered.

So size the plan in two passes. First, work out what your reach and frequency target needs, line by line. The cost calculator has the formulas and a worksheet for this. Then hold every deal line against the minimums above. One of three things will happen:

1. The line clears its minimum comfortably. Keep it.
2. The line falls just short, say ₹4.8 lakh against a ₹5 lakh floor. Round it up rather than cut your reach target.
3. The line falls far short. Drop that channel and move the money to one that can do a proper job.

The check works the other way too. If one line swallows most of the budget just to clear its minimum, the rest of the plan may be too thin to matter. Two channels done properly beat six done badly.

What can you do with a budget below the minimums?

You still have good options. In rough order:

1. Start with YouTube auction formats. There is no fixed minimum, and bumpers and skippable ads build reach without a deal.
2. Pick one regional OTT app from the table above rather than a national one.
3. Test DOOH in one city. Many screen networks start at about ₹2–3 lakh per campaign.
4. Run one burst instead of an always-on plan. A Campaign-Based Engagement covers a single launch or festive push without a long contract.
5. Keep small performance budgets in Google Ads. Where that line usually falls is set out in our DV360 vs Google Ads comparison.

How many weeks should a first DV360 campaign run?

Several weeks, not several days. Three things need time.

Automated bidding learns from delivery and conversions, and it needs volume before it settles. A test that ends after four days tells you very little about what a channel can do.

Frequency builds gradually. Three or four exposures spread across a few weeks give people more chances to notice and remember the ad than the same number crammed into a few days.

Measurement has its own clock. A Brand Lift study needs its spend inside a 10-day window, and a DOOH test is easier to read when a city runs for about two weeks before you compare store visits or searches.

A four-week flight, the length most of the example plans in our guides use, is a sensible default for a first awareness campaign. A festive burst can be shorter if the budget is concentrated on a few high-value days. Whatever the length, put Floodlight or analytics tags in place before launch, and book PG deals early, because festive and cricket dates sell out.

Which minimums can a first budget clear?

Set a first budget against the minimums above and it usually falls into one of three bands. These are illustrative, not fixed packages.

Fees and GST come on top of these figures. For what ₹5 lakh and ₹25 lakh actually deliver, see the sample plans in our programmatic advertising cost guide.

Next step

Ask for a free media plan with your real budget and dates. A DV360 specialist shows an indicative minimum for each OTT app and publisher, flags any line too small to book, and confirms the minimums and availability with you.