📍 Ad Break Placement Calculator
Enter your total content length and how many ad breaks you want to place to get evenly-spaced timestamp suggestions.
n breaks cut the runtime into n+1 pieces
The spacing divides by one more than the number of breaks, so the content segments come out equal rather than the gaps between breaks:
break i = total length × i ÷ (breaks + 1)Thirty minutes with two breaks gives 30 × 1 ÷ 3 = 10:00 and 30 × 2 ÷ 3 = 20:00, leaving three ten-minute stretches. A 25-minute episode with two breaks lands on 8:20 and 16:40, because 8.333 minutes is 500 seconds. Nothing is placed at 0:00 or at the end - these are mid-rolls only, so add a pre-roll or post-roll yourself.
Working with the timestamps
- Times are minutes:seconds throughout, with no hours field. A two-hour show shows its midpoint as 60:00, not 1:00:00. Convert before pasting into an editor that expects h:mm:ss.
- Move each marker to the nearest seam. An even split that lands mid-sentence is worse than one shifted 40 seconds to a topic change; the arithmetic is a starting point, not a cut list.
- Platforms set their own minimum length before mid-rolls are allowed - eight minutes on YouTube at the time of writing, though that rule has changed before and may again.
- The stepper caps at 10 breaks. Anything near that in a half-hour episode means an interruption every three minutes.
Frequently asked questions
Where should ad breaks go in a 30-minute podcast?
Two mid-rolls at 10:00 and 20:00 is the even answer, then nudge each to a natural pause. Many shows prefer the first break later - around 12 minutes - so listeners are committed to the episode before the first interruption.
How many mid-rolls is too many?
There is no fixed number, but the segment length is the thing to watch. Four breaks in 30 minutes leaves six-minute stretches of content, which is short enough that listeners notice the pattern.
Why is there no ad at the very start?
The tool places breaks strictly inside the runtime, dividing it into equal segments. Pre-roll and post-roll slots sit outside that split and are usually handled separately by your host or platform.