Google Ads has no price list. You pay for each click at whatever price comes out of an auction, Google adds a 2% Digital Services Tax fee to the invoice for ads served in the UK and, if someone else runs the account, their fee comes on top. On the three Italian accounts we manage, between September 2025 and August 2026, a click on the Search Network cost an average of €1.81 (£1.53) and a conversion €117.80 (£99.83). Put in a row, those numbers say that a small business starting with a £1,500 monthly budget and a £500 management fee pays about £135 for each enquiry that comes in, all in, and UK click prices are usually higher than Italian ones.
Most UK pages that answer this question stop at the cost of the click. Below is the full bill, item by item, with the source of every figure. Euro figures from our accounts are converted at the Bank of England rate for 8 October 2026 (€1.18 = £1).
The four items that end up on the bill
The cost of Google Ads is the sum of four items. Two go to Google, two to whoever works on the account. If you compare quotes by looking only at the first, you end up comparing different things.
| Item | Who gets it | How it's calculated | Order of magnitude in the UK |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clicks (or impressions, or views) | An auction on every search; you pay for the interaction | £1.00 to £1.63 in our three Italian accounts; £3.03 to £35.94 on the UK commercial searches listed below | |
| Digital Services Tax fee | 2% of spend on ads served in the UK | £20 for every £1,000 of budget | |
| Management | Agency or freelancer | Fixed fee, percentage of budget or hours | From under £350 to £5,000 a month as declared, or 5-25% of budget |
| Setup and tracking | Agency, developer or you | One-off | £300 to £2,500 on the two UK pages that state it |
What a click costs, and why the average is no use
Cost per click is the price you pay when someone clicks your ad. It's set by an auction that runs on every search, and it depends on your bid, the quality of your ad and how many other advertisers want the same query at that moment. The mechanics, including the difference between maximum and actual CPC, are explained in our guide to cost per click.
The UK pages on page one give ranges such as £0.50 to £5.00 (Candid Digital) or a single average such as £2.50 (Cloudswitched) or "about £3.33" (PPC Geeks), without saying which accounts they were measured on. Our sample is small but stated: three Italian companies, twelve months, €115,984 (£98,292) spent on the Search Network, 63,936 clicks. CPC was €1.92 (£1.63) for a solar panel installer, €1.84 (£1.56) for a solar shading company and €1.18 (£1.00) for a large-format digital printer. There's a 63% difference between the dearest and the cheapest, in the same country and the same period. The full detail is in our verified Google Ads statistics.
On individual UK searches the range widens. With Keyword Planner values read via DataForSEO in October 2026 and converted from US dollars at the Bank of England rate for 8 October 2026 ($1.3226 = £1), "led wall" costs £3.03 a click, "accountant london" £9.49, "plumber london" £7.32, "emergency plumber london" £30.12 and "divorce solicitor london" £35.94. Our guide to Google Ads for small business has the same kind of table for 12 sectors, with each CPC also turned into a cost per enquiry.
American figures turn up on UK pages too, often without saying so. The WordStream 2026 benchmark, by Susie Marino, on 13,474 US campaigns between April 2025 and March 2026, gives a median CPC of $5.42 (£4.10) and a cost per lead of $66.69 (£50.42). It's a US sample, and a median across every sector says nothing about yours: in the table above, an accountant in London pays more than twice that per click, an LED wall supplier less.
The budget: how much Google spends in a day and in a month
A Google Ads campaign budget is an average daily amount, not a hard cap. Google Ads Help sets two rules worth knowing before you sign anything.
- On a single day, spend can reach twice the average daily budget. With £10 a day, a Tuesday can cost £20.
- Over the month you're never charged more than the daily budget multiplied by 30.4. With £10 a day the cap is £304, and if costs reach £310 you pay £304.
There's no minimum spend: you can switch on a campaign with £5 a day. The minimum that makes sense comes from the conversions you want. At our average cost of €117.80 (£99.83) per conversion, ten contacts a month need a budget of about £1,000; with the lowest and highest values in our sample, €55 to €147 (£47 to £125), the range runs from £470 to £1,250. In our guide for small businesses we set the sensible threshold at 10-15 enquiries a month, below which there isn't enough data to tell what's working.
Then there's a start-up cost that no invoice names. When a campaign uses automated bid strategies, Google says in its documentation on the learning period that calibration can take up to 3 weeks or 1-2 conversion cycles. Those weeks are paid at full price. If your business closes a quote in 40 days, the first month does more to teach the algorithm than to sell, and it's worth knowing that before you judge the campaign. When it makes sense to start is covered in when Google Ads is worth it.
The 2% that hardly anyone puts in the quote
Since 1 November 2020 Google has added a "UK DST Fee" of 2% to the invoice for ads served in the United Kingdom, passing on the cost of the Digital Services Tax. In Italy the equivalent surcharge went up from 2% to 2.5% on 1 July 2024, as Search Engine Land had reported when the first version was announced. What counts is the country where the ad is shown, not where the business is based: Google says the fee applies "regardless of where your actual business is located", so a company based abroad advertising in the UK pays it too.
| Country where ads are served | Surcharge | In force since |
|---|---|---|
| Austria | 5% | 1 November 2020 |
| Türkiye | 4.5% (previously 7%) | 1 January 2026 |
| Spain | 3% (previously 2%) | 1 July 2024 |
| Italy | 2.5% (previously 2%) | 1 July 2024 |
| France | 2% | 1 May 2021 |
| United Kingdom | 2% | 1 November 2020 |
On a budget of £1,500 a month that's £30 a month, £360 a year. It won't change the decision to advertise, but it does change how two quotes compare: if one says "£1,500 all in", the clicks you're buying are worth about £1,471. VAT is a separate line again: UK businesses pay VAT on Google Ads at the standard 20% rate, which a VAT-registered business reclaims, so it hits cash flow rather than cost. Of the seven UK pages we read for this article, not one mentions the DST fee, and only Cloudswitched mentions VAT.
What management costs: what UK agencies say they charge
Google Ads management is the work of whoever builds and optimises the campaigns: choosing keywords, writing ads, adding negatives, setting bids, reading search terms, reporting. We found no UK survey with a stated sample on this item. What does exist is the prices agencies publish on their own pages, and we've put them side by side.
| Page | Management | Advertising budget suggested |
|---|---|---|
| Anicca | Freelancers and small agencies under £350/month; mid-size accredited agencies from £500-1,000/month; larger agencies from £1,000/month; or 10-15% of spend | Small agencies under £1,000/month; mid-size £500-10,000/month |
| Mikencube | £500-2,000/month fixed, from £300 for micro businesses, or 10-25% of budget; setup £300-800+ per campaign | Not stated |
| Cloudswitched | Agency £800-5,000+/month plus £500-2,500 setup; freelancer £400-2,000/month; or 12-20% of spend with a £500-1,000 minimum | At least £500/month; £1,500-5,000 for small firms with 6-25 staff |
| Whitehat SEO | Full service £3,000-5,000/month, some agencies from £500-750; or 5-10% of spend with a £1,000-2,000 minimum | Not stated |
| Method | Not stated | Local £300-1,000/month; mid-sized £1,000-5,000; national £5,000-10,000+ |
| PPC Geeks | Not stated | Not stated; average CPC "about £3.33", no source |
On the fixed fee, the meeting point is £500 a month: it's the entry price for mid-size agencies on Anicca, the bottom of Mikencube's range and of Whitehat's cheaper agencies, and the minimum in Cloudswitched's percentage model. Below it are freelancers and micro-business packages, above it multi-channel or full-service management.
The most solid international reference is Clutch's PPC pricing guide, updated on 21 September 2026 and based on verified client reviews, mostly from the US. Most agencies charge $100-149 an hour, the North American and Western European band; in Eastern Europe and Asia rates drop below $50. The average project is worth $7,165 (£5,418) a month over 14 months: a client of a different size from the typical UK small business. On the same platform there are 2,418 PPC agencies listed in the UK, and Clutch puts the UK average in the $50-99 an hour band (£38-75).
We measured the same gap for SEO, where 47% of European agencies charge under $75 an hour against 23% of North American ones: the details are in how much SEO costs. The same rule applies if you're buying in the UK: American figures describe a different market.
Percentage, fixed fee or hours: who gains when you spend more
How the fee is calculated matters as much as the figure, because it decides what the person running the account has an incentive to do. Directive, a US agency, describes four models in its analysis of pricing models, each with its own conflict of interest.
| Model | How it works | What it rewards | The risk for the client |
|---|---|---|---|
| Percentage of budget | 10-20% of ad spend | Higher budgets | Cutting wasted clicks reduces the fee of the person who should be cutting them |
| Fixed fee | An agreed monthly amount | Efficiency | The work shrinks if the scope isn't written down |
| Hours | Hourly rate, billed on actuals | Time spent | More hours don't mean better campaigns |
| Results-based | Fee tied to leads or sales | Number of conversions | Lots of poorly qualified leads |
On small budgets the percentage doesn't add up: 15% of £1,000 is £150, a few hours' work. That's why the agencies that use it set a minimum. In the US, WebFX charges 15% of spend with a minimum of $975 a month, and SEO Smooth $500 flat up to $2,000 of budget, then $1,250 or 15%. In the UK, Cloudswitched gives a £500-1,000 minimum and Whitehat £1,000-2,000. The practical result is that below about £3,000 of monthly spend almost everyone, in the UK too, is in effect working on a fixed fee.
If the quote in front of you is a percentage, ask for a cap on the fee or a review when the budget goes up. If it's a fixed fee, ask what's included each month, in writing. In the quotes we send, initial setup is a separate line from the monthly fee and Google bills the budget directly to the client: that way the client can see how much goes on clicks and how much on work.
The full bill in three scenarios
This is the table the UK pages leave out: the four items added up and divided by the contacts that come in. The assumptions are stated. A CPC of €1.81 (£1.53) and a cost per conversion of €117.80 (£99.83), our average values on the Search Network in Italy. Management at a flat £500 in the first two scenarios, the most frequently quoted entry point, and at 15% in the third. The 2% DST fee calculated on spend. VAT is left out because a VAT-registered business reclaims it. With UK click prices, which on the searches in our table are often several times higher, every line below the budget changes: use the structure and plug in your own CPC.
| Item | Starter | Small business | National campaign |
|---|---|---|---|
| Click budget | £500 | £1,500 | £4,000 |
| DST fee 2% | £10 | £30 | £80 |
| Management | £500 | £500 | £600 (15%) |
| Monthly total | £1,010 | £2,030 | £4,680 |
| Estimated clicks | 326 | 978 | 2,608 |
| Estimated contacts | 5.0 | 15.0 | 40.1 |
| Cost per contact, all in | £201.66 | £135.10 | £116.80 |
With a £500 budget, management weighs as much as the clicks, and a contact costs twice what the Google Ads dashboard says. At £4,000 the gap falls to 17%. That's why a campaign with a minimum budget and professional management rarely makes sense: either raise the budget, or run it in-house and buy a few hours of consultancy to set it up.
Cost per contact varies a lot by sector. In our sector guides, with CPCs measured on Google UK, an enquiry costs from £101 in Bristol to £164 in Leeds for a dentist, a lead for an accountant in London £190, and the first quote requests for a builder £250. These are platform costs: management has to be added as in the table.
Performance Max costs less per click, not necessarily per contact
Anyone trying to bring down their cost per click sooner or later comes across Performance Max, the campaign type that spreads ads across Google's whole network. Over the same twelve months and on the same three accounts we spent €29,825 (£25,275) on it: a CPC of €0.19 (£0.16), ten times less than Search, and a cost per conversion of €28.64 (£24.27) against €117.80 (£99.83).
Put like that it looks like the answer to "how do I spend less". It isn't. A large share of Performance Max impressions come from Display, YouTube, Discover and Gmail, where nobody was searching for your service, and the conversions it counts are often of a different kind from a quote request. In one of the accounts we manage, Performance Max counted 1,487 "conversions" at €0.61 (£0.52) each: the full story is in our guide for small businesses. The same check applies to traffic from Google search partners, which lowers the average CPC and should always be read separately.
Five questions to ask before you sign a quote
- Do you pay the click budget directly to Google, or does it go through the agency's invoice? If it's the second, ask to see the account's charges.
- Is the account in your company's name? If you change supplier one day, the history of your campaigns and conversions has to stay with you.
- What will be counted as a conversion? A submitted form and a visit to the contact page aren't worth the same, and the conversion rate changes accordingly.
- Are the 2% DST fee and VAT inside or outside the figure given as the budget?
- What's the minimum term, and how much notice do you need to give to leave? With a learning period of up to three weeks, a three-month commitment is reasonable; twelve months locked in from day one isn't.
With the answers in hand you can do the sum that really matters, the return: how many contacts become customers and how much margin each one leaves. We go through it step by step in our guide to ROI, and in the benefits of Google Ads you'll find the threshold below which the channel is just a cost. If you're also weighing up organic search, how the two work together is in SEO and Google Ads, and the search-by-search choice in SEO or Google Ads.
FAQs
It depends on the sector, but the bill always has four items: the click budget, a 2% Digital Services Tax fee on ads served in the UK, management and setup. With a £1,500 budget and £500 management you spend about £2,030 a month. At a cost per conversion of £99.83, the average of the three Italian accounts we manage, that brings in about 15 contacts at about £135 each, all in. UK click prices are often higher, so plug in your own CPC.
No. Google doesn't set a minimum amount and you can start with a few pounds a day. The sensible minimum comes from conversions: for ten contacts a month, with a cost per conversion between £47 and £125 as in our sample, you need a budget of between £470 and £1,250.
It depends on the bidding. On the Search Network with cost-per-click bidding you only pay for clicks. In CPM campaigns you pay for impressions, in CPV video campaigns for views. Either way Google won't charge you more in a month than your average daily budget multiplied by 30.4.
It's the UK DST Fee, which Google has added since 1 November 2020 to pass on the cost of the Digital Services Tax: 2% of spend on ads served in the United Kingdom. It applies according to the country where the ad is shown, not where the advertiser is based. VAT at 20% is a separate line.
UK agencies that publish prices quote fixed fees from about £500 a month, freelancers and micro packages from about £300, or a percentage of 5-25% of budget, usually with a minimum of £500 to £2,000. None of these figures comes from a stated sample. On budgets under about £3,000 a month a percentage covers only a few hours' work, which is why almost everyone applies a fixed minimum.
The cost that doesn't appear on any invoice
The most expensive item in Google Ads isn't on any of the four lines. It's the budget spent while the account is counting the wrong thing. Automated bid strategies learn from whatever you mark as a conversion: if you count visits to the contact page or clicks on the phone number, the algorithm learns to buy those, and it does it well.
When conversions outnumber clicks, the tracking is broken in an obvious way. The more expensive case is the other one, when the numbers look plausible but don't match any enquiry the business actually received. Before negotiating on the fee, compare the dashboard's conversions with the emails and phone calls you really got, for a month. If they don't match, that's where the first pound should go. It's the check our Google Ads management starts with, and the projects we've worked on show what happens to the numbers afterwards.
