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Google Ads has two costs: your ad budget, which you pay to Google, and, if you hire help, a management fee. Many local businesses in Canada spend about $500 to $2,500 a month on ads, and a single click often costs $1 to $5, rising to $10 to $50 or more in competitive industries such as law, insurance and emergency home services.
Our Google Ads management is $149, $299 or $499 a month, depending on your ad budget. Here is how the costs work and how to make every dollar count.
How Google Ads pricing works
You do not pay to show an ad on Google Search; you pay when someone clicks it. Every search runs a quick auction, and the price of a click depends on:
- Competition: how many businesses bid on the same search in your area.
- Quality: how relevant your ad and landing page are to the search. Better quality can lower the price you pay per click.
- Targeting: location, time of day and device all change the price.
You set a daily budget. On a busy day Google may spend up to twice that amount, but over a month it will not charge more than about 30.4 times your daily budget.
Typical cost per click by industry
| Industry | Typical cost per click | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Retail, restaurants, local shops | Often $1–$3 | Lower competition, lower value per sale |
| Clinics, trades, real estate, services | Often $3–$10 | Higher value per customer |
| Legal, insurance, finance, emergency home services | Often $10–$50+ | Very high value per customer, many advertisers |
These are rough ranges; your real cost depends on your city, keywords and how well the campaign is set up. Toronto and Vancouver are usually more expensive than smaller cities.
How much should a small business spend?
Start with what a customer is worth to you. An example:
- Monthly ad budget: $1,500
- Average cost per click: $5 → about 300 clicks
- If 5% of visitors call or fill in a form → about 15 enquiries
- Cost per enquiry: about $100
If one new customer is worth $1,000 to you and you win one in three enquiries, that is about $300 per customer, a good return. If a customer is worth $150, you need cheaper clicks, a better landing page or a different channel such as SEO.
Most local campaigns need at least $1,000 a month to collect enough data to improve. Smaller budgets can work for very local searches with few competitors.
Management fees
Agencies usually charge either a percentage of your ad budget (often 10–20%) or a flat monthly fee. Our fees are flat:
| Starter | Growth | Scale | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Management fee | $149/mo | $299/mo | $499/mo |
| Ad budget | Up to $1,500/mo | Up to $5,000/mo | Above $5,000/mo |
| Includes | Set-up, keywords, ads, call and form tracking, monthly report | Plus A/B testing, landing page advice, optimisation every two weeks | Plus Performance Max, remarketing, weekly optimisation, strategy call |
Plans have a 3-month minimum, then continue month to month. Your ad budget is paid directly to Google, in your own account.
How to lower your Google Ads costs
- Block wasted searches with negative keywords, such as "free", "jobs" or "DIY".
- Target only the areas you serve, and adjust bids for your best areas and hours.
- Send clicks to a focused landing page with a clear offer, a click-to-call button and a short form. See web design in Brampton for what that looks like.
- Track every call and form, so you can cut the keywords that do not bring customers.
- Review the campaign every one to two weeks. Most wasted spend comes from campaigns nobody checks.
Red flags when hiring a Google Ads agency
- The agency owns your ad account. It should be in your business's name.
- No conversion tracking, so nobody knows the cost per enquiry.
- Reports full of clicks and impressions but no calls, forms or sales.
Still have questions?
