When someone asks "how much does a Google Ads or Meta Ads campaign cost", they picture one number. But an invoice always has two: the media budget that flows out to Google and Meta, and the fee for someone steering that budget. Confusing those two lines is the most common source of disappointment after month one.
Below we break ad cost into two layers, walk through the real billing models, entry thresholds that make sense for the market, and the two places where money burns twice. At the end — control questions worth asking before you sign a campaign-management contract.
Two layers of cost: media budget vs fee
Media budget is the money you pay the platform for impressions and clicks. It doesn't go to the agency or the freelancer — it goes straight to Google and Meta. It's your cost of buying traffic.
Management fee is payment for the work: strategy, campaign setup, creative production, daily optimisation, reporting. You pay it so the media budget isn't thrown away. A good fee pays for itself many times over in a lower cost of acquisition. A bad fee is a tax for nothing.
The key rule: these two numbers are independent. You can have a high media budget and a low fee (large e-commerce, simple structure), or the reverse — a small budget and a high fee (a complex B2B funnel, a lot of strategic work on little money).
Billing models — and when each makes sense
- Percentage of budget (usually 10–20%): the simplest, most common model. You pay, say, 15% of what you spend on media. Upside: it scales with you. Downside: the agency earns more when you spend more — not always aligned with your interest in spending smarter.
- Flat fee (retainer): a fixed monthly amount independent of budget, realistically from about €500 (one channel, small scale) to €2,000–3,500+ (two channels, creative, reporting, optimisation). Upside: predictability and no conflict of interest when scaling. Downside: at a very small budget the fee can exceed the media itself.
- Hybrid (lower retainer + smaller %): the most common sensible setup at mid scale. A fixed base covers the foundational work, the percentage scales with the budget. Balances predictability and flexibility.
- Performance-based (CPA / % of sales): tempting, because "you only pay for results". In practice it only works with high-volume e-commerce and clean attribution. With B2B, a long buying cycle and offline conversions it almost always leads to a dispute over whose sale it was. Treat with caution.
The billing model isn't neutral. It sets what the agency cares about. Before you pick a price, check whose interest it rewards.
Real entry thresholds
Not every budget makes sense. Below a certain threshold the algorithm has nothing to learn from, and the fee eats the whole thing. As a rough guide:
- Google Ads — a sensible minimum of about €700–1,200/mo in media budget. Below that, in more expensive verticals (law, medicine, finance, B2B), a single click can cost €1–5 and the budget evaporates before you gather any data.
- Meta Ads — a sensible minimum of about €500–900/mo. Meta is cheaper per click but needs budget for the learning phase and creative testing. Below that you run one creative and never know whether the problem is the creative or the offer.
- Fee in practice: at small scale, a fee equal to the media budget is a signal you're too early — or that it's worth starting on one channel, gathering data and scaling, rather than splitting the budget across two fronts at once.
Where companies pay twice
There are two classic places where money disappears — and both are avoidable.
First: the agency takes a percentage but doesn't optimise. The campaign is set up once, the budget runs, the invoice comes monthly, and nobody looks at the account daily. You're paying a percentage of a budget that would have spent itself without an agency. The test: ask for a change log from the last month. If nothing happened in the account, you're paying for presence, not work.
Second: no conversion tracking = burning budget. If the account has no properly configured conversions (purchase, lead, phone call, form submission), the algorithm optimises for clicks, not sales. That's literally paying for traffic that was never going to buy. Surprisingly often this is missing even at budgets of several thousand a month. It's the same problem we wrote about with website pricing — without measurement you don't know whether you deliver anything. See the post on website cost.
Google Ads vs Meta Ads — when to use which
This isn't an either–or choice, it's a question of buying intent. Simplified:
- Google Ads captures existing demand. Someone is already searching for "plumber near me" or "CRM system for agencies" — you just step into their path. Higher intent, higher cost per click, faster conversion. Makes sense when your product is already being searched for.
- Meta Ads creates demand. No one is searching for your brand — you interrupt the scroll with an offer. Cheaper click, a bigger role for creative, a longer road to conversion. Makes sense for visual products, new categories, and building recognition.
- Most often: both, in sequence. Meta builds awareness and reach, Google collects the people Meta warmed up who then started searching. But starting on two channels at once with a small budget is fragmentation — better one channel to a real result, then the second.
Questions to ask a quote
- What exactly does the fee cover, and what is media budget — shown as two separate line items?
- Who has owner access to the ad account (it should be you — the account stays with you afterwards)?
- How and how often do you optimise — can I see a change log from a real campaign?
- Does the price include setting up conversion tracking, or do you assume it already works?
- What's the real minimum budget for this to make sense in my vertical?
- Who produces the creative (graphics, video, copy) — is that in the fee or an add-on?
How we approach this at Krowd
At Krowd Agency a campaign never launches without two things: properly configured measurement, and a clear split between fee and media budget on a single invoice. Media is one of the deliverables, not a separate island — which is why the CTR in our campaigns comes from strategy, creative and the site being built by one team.
If you want a second opinion on a budget or an existing campaign, write to us through the contact form with two things: what should happen (leads, sales, traffic) and your monthly media budget. That's enough for us to come back in 24h with a reasonable scope — and an honest answer on whether it's simply too early.