Google Ads vs Facebook Ads: what each one really costs

The honest answer to "how much does Google Ads cost?" is "whatever you tell it to", and the same is true of Facebook ads on Meta. Both platforms bill against a budget you choose, neither has a minimum you would notice, and both will happily take a hundred euros a month or a hundred thousand. So the useful questions are narrower. What does a click cost in your market, for your kind of search? What does a lead cost, and what does it turn into? And how much do you have to spend before either platform tells you anything you can act on? Here is each of those, with click prices we pulled from Google’s own Keyword Planner this week for four markets, the benchmark figures and how little weight they can carry, and the fees that land on top of the budget.

What a top-of-page click costs, by market

Google Keyword Planner, queried from our own Google Ads account on 25 September 2026: the low and high top-of-page bid for each search, per country, in the local language. Germany: notdienst klempner, anwalt scheidung, seo agentur, crm software, steuerberater, webdesign agentur, kfz versicherung, hochzeitsfotograf, laufschuhe. Romania: instalator, avocat divort, agentie seo, crm, contabil, agentie web design, rca, fotograf nunta, pantofi alergare. The account bills in lei; converted at 5.09 lei to the euro. A dash means Google returned no figures for that search in that country. These are estimates of what it takes to appear above the results, not what anyone actually paid.

The benchmarks, and how much they can carry

WordStream by LocaliQ, Google Ads Benchmarks 2026 (April 2025 to March 2026) and Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2026 (April 2025 to June 2026). US campaigns run by LocaliQ clients; the "averages" are medians, in US dollars.

Both platforms cost whatever you tell them to

Start with how the bill is built, because it explains most of the horror stories. On Google Ads you set an average daily budget, and on any single day the campaign may spend up to twice that. What it may not do is exceed 30.4 times the daily budget over the month, which is the average number of days in a month, and Google states plainly that you will never pay more than those limits. Meta works the same way with different numbers: a day can run up to 75% over the daily budget, and a week, counted to Saturday midnight, is capped at seven times the daily figure.

So a budget on either platform is a monthly or weekly ceiling that is spent unevenly, not a daily one. That surprises people in week one and matters very little after that. Neither platform publishes a minimum spend you would ever hit; Meta says only that minimums vary by country and objective, and that a daily budget should be at least five times the cost per result you are aiming for.

The ad budget is paid to the platform directly, and it is the part of the bill you control completely. What you control less is everything on top of it, which the next two sections cover: the price of each click, and the fees that are added after the budget is spent.

Google Ads cost per click in four markets

The first table is our own measurement rather than someone else’s benchmark. We asked Google’s Keyword Planner, from our own ads account, what it takes to appear at the top of the results for the same eleven kinds of search in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Romania, each in its own language. The spread is the whole story. A click for "emergency plumber" in the US can cost up to €104; the plain Romanian search for a plumber tops out at €1.63. Car insurance runs to €120 a click in America and under €10 in Germany.

The price of a click is set by what a customer is worth to the advertisers bidding against you, not by the platform. Personal injury law in the US is expensive because a single case is worth tens of thousands of dollars to the firm that wins it. Running shoes are cheap everywhere because the margin on a pair is thin and the shopping ads above the text results take most of the clicks. Your own position in that range depends on your market and your Quality Score, which is why what actually moves Quality Score is worth reading before you raise a bid.

What the benchmarks say, and how little they can carry

The most quoted benchmarks come from WordStream by LocaliQ, which publishes medians from its clients’ US campaigns every year. The 2026 figures put a Google search click at $5.42 and a lead at $66.69, against $1.80 a click and $27.39 a lead for Meta’s lead campaigns. Put side by side, that reads as Meta leads costing well under half as much, and that is the comparison most articles stop at.

It should not survive a second look. The Google figures rest on 13,474 campaigns; the Meta lead figures on 452, with as few as four in some industries. A Meta "lead" is usually a form filled in without leaving the app, often with details the platform fills in for you, while a search lead typically arrived on your website looking for exactly what you sell. Ruler Analytics, which tracks leads through to qualified leads and sales across mostly UK clients, measured paid search converting at 5.4% on that stricter definition, against 2.11% for paid social. A cheaper lead is not a cheaper customer, and by the time anyone signs, the gap has usually narrowed and can reverse.

E-commerce shows the same pattern from the other end. Triple Whale’s data across more than 40,000 brands puts the median return on Meta ad spend at 1.88 for August 2025 to July 2026; its Google figure across 18,000 brands for 2025 is 3.68. The periods differ and Google’s number includes shopping ads and brand searches, which flatter it, so treat the gap as a direction rather than a ratio. The direction is consistent, though.

Why they are not the same product

Google Search reaches people while they are searching for what you sell. It captures demand that already exists, which is why it is expensive where that demand is valuable and why it cannot create more of it: if nobody searches for your product, no budget will make them. Meta shows ads to people who were doing something else. It creates demand, or at least awareness, among people who fit a profile, which is why its clicks are cheaper and its visitors colder.

The two also count success differently, which flatters one of them in the reports. Google’s default is data-driven attribution with a 30-day window after a click, and only a one-day window for people who merely saw a display or video ad. Meta can count a conversion from someone who clicked within seven days, and also from someone who only saw the ad within one day, or who watched a few seconds of a video. Neither is dishonest, but they are answering different questions, and a Meta dashboard will usually claim more of your sales than a Google one would for the same effect.

That is also the practical difference in what each one asks of you. Search ads are mostly words and landing pages; if the page is weak, you pay for clicks that leave. Meta ads are mostly creative: the image or video is the targeting now, and a campaign lives or dies on how many new creatives you can feed it. Budget for that production, or the cheap clicks will get expensive fast.

How much you spend before either one tells you anything

This is the number that should set your budget, and it has nothing to do with platform minimums. Meta says an ad set leaves its learning phase after about 50 results in the week following its last significant edit; until then, delivery is unstable by design. Google’s target cost-per-acquisition bidding wants at least 30 conversions in the past 30 days before it works as intended.

At the US medians that is roughly $1,370 a week for one Meta ad set and around $2,000 a month for one Google campaign, which is our arithmetic on the benchmark figures, not a number either platform publishes. In Romania the same thresholds cost a fraction of that, because the clicks do. Your minimum budget is however much buys enough conversions for the algorithm to learn, and below it you are paying to generate noise.

Below that level, a campaign still works, but the automated bidding is guessing, and so are you. That is fine for a first month, as long as nobody reads the second week’s cost per lead as a verdict. It is also why we tell people to plan on roughly €500 a month for Google to gather usable data, and closer to €1,500 in expensive sectors like legal, dental and home services, before they buy Google Ads Setup from us.

The fees on top of the budget

In several European countries both platforms add a surcharge on top of the ad spend, to pass on national digital services taxes. Google currently charges 5% on ads shown in Austria, 3% in Spain, 2.5% in Italy, 2% in France and the UK, and 4.5% in Turkey. Meta introduced its own location fees on 1 July 2026: 5% in Austria and Türkiye, 3% in France, Italy and Spain, and 2% in the UK. Neither budget covers these fees; they are charged on top of it.

Germany and Romania are on neither list, and Google’s own example makes the point: advertise in Germany, Austria and Poland and you pay only the surcharges for the countries that have one. Value-added tax is separate again. A business buying from Google Ireland or Meta Platforms Ireland is invoiced without VAT and accounts for it itself under the reverse charge, at its own country’s rate; a consumer, or a business that has not given a VAT number, pays it on the invoice.

What running them costs

Management is the last line on the bill, and there is no trustworthy recent survey of what agencies charge for it. The most cited one, from Credo, was last updated in 2022 and found about half of agencies with a monthly minimum between $1,000 and $3,000, and most charging $50 to $200 an hour. Percentage-of-spend pricing is also common, usually quoted at 10% to 20%, and it has an obvious problem: the agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not the extra spend works.

We price it differently, and say so because it is the thing to ask any agency. Google Ads Setup is €399 and Meta Ads Setup is €299, one-off, and ongoing management is Ads Administration from €249 a month on a fixed plan. The ad budget itself is always paid straight to Google or Meta, and we never take a cut of it.

Google Ads or Facebook Ads: which one to start with

If people already search for what you sell, start with Google. Dentists, lawyers, plumbers, accountants, B2B services, anyone replacing something that broke: the demand exists, and the only question is whether you appear when it shows up. If they do not yet know they want it, start with Meta. A new product, something visual or bought on impulse, an event, a local business people would love if they knew it existed: there is nothing to search for yet, so you have to go and interrupt someone. For a local business, the free half of that search demand sits in the map results, covered in Google Business Profile optimisation.

With a small budget, pick one and run it properly rather than splitting it across both and starving each of the conversions it needs to learn. E-commerce is the usual exception, because shopping ads on Google and prospecting on Meta do different jobs for the same catalogue. And if you are weighing paid clicks against earning them, SEO vs Google Ads, cost per lead compares the two over time, and our marketing glossary explains what a cost per lead and a return on ad spend actually measure.

Sources

Checked September 2026. The click prices in the first table are our own Keyword Planner query; the benchmarks are US medians from the publishers named, and the fee and billing rules come from Google’s and Meta’s own help pages.

• WordStream by LocaliQ — Google Ads Benchmarks 2026 ↗

  13,474 US search campaigns, April 2025 to March 2026, medians: cost per click $5.42, click-through rate 6.64%, conversion rate 8.18%, cost per lead $66.69, with industry breakdowns.

• WordStream by LocaliQ — Facebook Ads Benchmarks 2026 ↗

  Lead campaigns: cost per click $1.80, click-through rate 2.70%, conversion rate 8.54%, cost per lead $27.39, from 452 US campaigns with as few as four per industry.

• Ruler Analytics — Conversion rate benchmarks 2026 ↗

  Over 110 million sessions and 5 million conversions, mostly UK clients, counting a conversion as a qualified lead or sale: paid search 5.4%, paid social 2.11%.

• Triple Whale — Facebook ad benchmarks by industry ↗

  More than 40,000 e-commerce brands, August 2025 to July 2026: median return on ad spend 1.88, cost per thousand impressions $15.06.

• Triple Whale — Google Ads benchmarks ↗

  More than 18,000 brands, calendar year 2025: median return on ad spend 3.68, including shopping, Performance Max and brand search.

• Google Ads Help — About spending limits ↗

  A daily spending limit of twice the average daily budget, a monthly limit of 30.4 times it, and the statement that you never pay more than those limits.

• Meta Business Help — About daily budgets ↗

  Up to 75% over the daily budget on a given day, and never more than seven times the daily budget in a week ending Saturday at midnight.

• Meta Business Help — About the learning phase ↗

  The learning phase usually ends after about 50 results in the week after an ad set’s last significant edit.

• Google Ads Help — About Target CPA bidding ↗

  The guidance to measure performance over the last 30 days, including at least 30 conversions, before relying on target cost-per-acquisition bidding.

• Google Ads Help — Jurisdiction-specific surcharges ↗

  Current surcharges for Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey and the UK, charged on top of the budget; Germany and Romania are not listed.

• Meta Business Help — About location fees ↗

  Location fees of 2% to 5% for Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Türkiye and the UK, not covered by the ad budget or spend cap.

• Google Ads Help — VAT in the European Union ↗

  No VAT added for business accounts, which self-assess it at their own member state’s rate; VAT charged only to accounts marked as non-business.

• Credo — PPC pricing survey ↗

  Last updated 2022, respondent count not disclosed: about half of agencies with a monthly minimum of $1,000 to $3,000, and 85% charging $50 to $200 an hour. The most recent survey we could find, which says something in itself.