Google Ads budget calculator

Where to find your cost per click

Open Google Keyword Planner inside your Google Ads account, add the searches your customers type, set your country or city, and look at the top-of-page bid range. Google describes these as estimates of what advertisers have paid; they are a starting point, not a promise. Use the middle of the range for a first budget and correct it after two to four weeks of real data.

Your real cost per click also depends on how good your ad and landing page are. Google's auction rewards relevant ads, so a well-matched ad can pay less per click than a weaker one bidding more. That is why the same keyword can cost two businesses very different amounts.

Why the conversion rate matters more than the click price

Doubling your landing page conversion rate halves the budget you need for the same number of leads. Cutting the click price by the same amount is far harder, because you are competing with everyone else in the auction. If the calculator shows a budget you cannot afford, the cheapest fix is usually the page, not the bid: one clear offer, a fast page on a phone, a short form and a WhatsApp button.

Try it in the calculator: change the conversion rate from 3% to 6% and watch the monthly budget fall by half while the leads stay the same.

How Google spends a daily budget

Google Ads can spend up to twice your average daily budget on a busy day, but over a month it will not charge more than 30.4 times the daily budget for that campaign. So set the daily budget from the monthly figure you can live with, and do not panic if one day looks high.

Give a new campaign at least a few weeks before judging it. The first days are noisy, search terms need cleaning, and conversion tracking needs to be checked against real enquiries.

Start small, then scale what works

Begin with a budget that buys enough clicks to learn something in a month, on a handful of tightly related keywords, with conversion tracking working from day one. Look at the search terms report every week, add negative keywords for searches that will never buy, and only then raise the budget on the ad groups that produce leads at a cost you are happy with.