Cost guide
How much does Google Ads cost?
Real market numbers, what they depend on and how management fees work. Nothing asked in return.
Run an agency?
If your clients ask for Google Ads and nobody on your team runs it, I can run their accounts under your brand. Your client only sees your agency.
- What you pay Google versus what you pay a manager
- The minimum budget a campaign needs to learn
- Common pricing models, with their downsides
Want the number for your client's account?
Two separate bills
With Google Ads you pay for two separate things, and it helps not to mix them. First, ad spend: what you pay Google every time someone clicks your ad. That money goes entirely to Google and you control it with your daily budget.
Second, the management fee: what you pay whoever builds, watches and optimises the campaigns. They are contracted separately. If someone quotes one single price without splitting them, ask how much of it actually reaches Google.
Cost per click depends on your sector
There is no price for Google Ads: there is an auction. You pay based on what competitors are willing to pay for the same search, adjusted for how relevant your ad is.
As an order of magnitude, a click in ecommerce or local searches usually sits between a few cents and a couple of dollars. In B2B services or software, between $2 and $8. In heavily contested sectors such as insurance, legal or home improvement, clicks above $10 are normal.
The practical takeaway: an expensive click is not a bad click if the customer it brings is worth a lot. What matters is the cost of winning a customer, not the cost of a click.
How much monthly budget makes sense
A campaign needs data to optimise. The working rule is that you need enough volume for roughly 15-30 conversions a month: below that, neither you nor the bidding system can tell what works from luck.
In money: if your click costs $1 and you convert at 3%, each conversion costs about $33 and you need something like $500-1,000 a month to learn anything. If your click costs $6, the same logic takes you into the thousands.
So there is no universal minimum. There is your minimum, and it comes from your cost per click and your conversion rate.
Rough calculator
Enter your monthly spend, an estimated cost per click for your sector and a conversion rate you think is reasonable. You will see the order of magnitude you can expect.
- Clicks per month
- 667
- Conversions per month
- 20
- Cost per conversion
- $50
This is a rough estimate, not a promise. Real numbers depend on your sector, your competition, your website and how well the account is run.
How management is charged in the market
Three common models. None is always better. Each has a downside.
Percentage of spend
A percentage of the advertising budget, usually between 10% and 20%.
- For: scales with account size and is easy to understand.
- Against: it rewards spending more, not spending better. On small accounts it doesn't cover the real work.
Flat monthly fee
A fixed monthly amount to run the account, whatever the spend.
- For: predictable for both sides, with no incentive to inflate budget.
- Against: the scope has to be defined well, or the fee falls short as the account grows.
Per project or per hour
A specific, bounded piece of work: a build, a migration, an audit, or a block of overflow hours.
- For: fits when you already have a team and just need hands or judgement at a given moment.
- Against: it doesn't cover ongoing optimisation, which is where performance is won.
So what are your rates?
I don't put a price or a "from" figure here, because it would be made up. An honest quote depends on how many channels there are, how the account is built, how broken the measurement is and the real work needed each month.
I'll propose a price after a 15-minute call. If you'd rather start from the data, I review your client's account with the fixed-price audit. If working together doesn't make sense, I say so and you keep the report anyway.
Frequently asked questions
- Does Google charge a minimum?
- No. You can start with a daily budget of a few dollars. Whether that budget gives the campaign enough data to improve is another question.
- Do I pay per view or per click?
- On search campaigns you pay per click: no click, no charge. On display or video you can pay per impression or per view.
- Can I start small and scale?
- Yes, and it is usually the sensible route. Start tight, validate which searches bring customers, then add budget to what already works.
- Is it cheaper for your client to run it in-house?
- On management cost, yes. On total cost, it depends. Most accounts I audit lose far more than good management costs, on badly filtered searches and badly measured conversions.
- Is there a catch with the audit?
- No. It has a fixed price of $350, you keep the written report, and it does not commit you to anything else.
Start here
Client account audit
Want the exact number for your client's account? We review it in the account audit.
The audit has a fixed price of $350 and does not commit you to anything else. If you then want to delegate your client’s campaigns, I’ll prepare a proposal based on what I’ve reviewed.
How it works
- Price
- $350
- Turnaround
- 3-5 working days
- Format
- Written report + 30-minute video call
- Commitment
- None
What I need to run it
- Read-only access to your client’s Google Ads or Meta Ads account
- At least 30 days of data with spend