Free tool · Search, Shopping and Performance Max
Work out your Google Ads budget from the result you want, not a guess
Enter a lead or revenue goal and your cost per click and conversion rate, and this Google Ads budget calculator returns the monthly budget, the average daily budget to enter in Google Ads, the clicks and conversions it should buy, and whether that budget is big enough for a Search campaign to learn. Industry presets use the LocaliQ 2026 benchmarks (US search campaigns, April 2025 to March 2026). Or switch to the second tab, enter the budget you have, and see what it should deliver.
Enter a goal or budget above. Results update as you type.
The maths, so you can check it
How this Google Ads budget calculator works
Most budget calculators multiply a daily number by 30 and stop. This one starts from the result you are paying for. Google Ads is an auction where you buy clicks, and a share of those clicks turns into leads or sales, so the budget that makes sense is the one that buys enough clicks to hit your conversion or revenue goal at a cost you can live with. The three inputs that matter are your average cost per click, your conversion rate, and the goal.
Working backwards from a lead goal
Divide the conversions you want by your conversion rate to get the clicks you need, then multiply by your cost per click. For 30 leads a month at an 8.18% conversion rate and a $5.42 CPC (the 2026 all industry medians), you need about 367 clicks and a budget of about $1,990 a month.
Clicks needed = target conversions / conversion rate Monthly budget = clicks needed x average CPC Average daily budget = monthly budget / 30.4
Working backwards from a revenue goal
Divide the revenue goal by your average order value to get the number of orders, then run the same maths. The calculator also reports the ROAS that plan implies, so you can see straight away whether the plan clears your break even ROAS. If it does not, the fix is usually a higher conversion rate or a lower CPC, not a bigger budget. Use the ROAS calculator to find your break even point first.
Turning a monthly budget into Google’s average daily budget
Google Ads asks for an average daily budget, not a monthly one, and it uses 30.4 as the average number of days in a month. Divide your monthly budget by 30.4 and enter that figure. A $3,000 monthly budget is an average daily budget of $98.68, not $100, and the difference matters because Google’s monthly spending limit is exactly 30.4 times whatever you enter.
How much does Google Ads cost in 2026?
There is no single price. The cost of a click is set in an auction, so it depends on how many advertisers want the same search and how relevant your ad and landing page are. The most reliable public data comes from the LocaliQ and WordStream benchmark study, which covers 13,474 US search campaigns across 23 industries between April 2025 and March 2026. The medians across all industries are a 6.64% click through rate, a $5.42 cost per click, an 8.18% conversion rate and a $66.69 cost per lead. The table below is what the industry presets in the calculator use.
| Industry | CTR | Avg CPC | Conv rate | Cost per lead |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Animals and Pets | 7.49% | $4.06 | 16.22% | $31.50 |
| Apparel, Fashion and Jewelry | 6.64% | $4.44 | 4.50% | $97.51 |
| Arts and Entertainment | 12.75% | $1.63 | 5.91% | $26.84 |
| Attorneys and Legal Services | 5.87% | $9.87 | 5.55% | $131.63 |
| Automotive, For Sale | 8.28% | $2.27 | 6.01% | $44.26 |
| Automotive, Repair, Service and Parts | 5.56% | $4.35 | 15.51% | $29.96 |
| Beauty and Personal Care | 6.75% | $4.62 | 10.35% | $39.25 |
| Business Services | 6.10% | $5.87 | 4.85% | $93.69 |
| Career and Employment | 5.88% | $5.81 | 3.05% | $67.36 |
| Dentists and Dental Services | 5.66% | $8.00 | 10.67% | $72.97 |
| Education and Instruction | 7.56% | $4.81 | 13.14% | $77.48 |
| Finance and Insurance | 9.83% | $3.39 | 2.64% | $74.44 |
| Furniture | 6.57% | $3.97 | 2.99% | $106.70 |
| Health and Fitness | 5.81% | $6.17 | 6.94% | $67.36 |
| Home and Home Improvement | 6.47% | $8.33 | 8.05% | $90.92 |
| Industrial and Commercial | 6.57% | $5.87 | 8.20% | $75.19 |
| Personal Services | 7.16% | $7.17 | 12.34% | $54.60 |
| Physicians and Surgeons | 6.61% | $4.76 | 12.43% | $40.04 |
| Real Estate | 7.61% | $3.22 | 3.70% | $102.51 |
| Restaurants and Food | 6.83% | $2.05 | 8.05% | $30.57 |
| Shopping, Collectibles and Gifts | 8.28% | $4.14 | 4.01% | $49.40 |
| Sports and Recreation | 8.75% | $2.77 | 7.69% | $44.26 |
| Travel | 9.32% | $2.14 | 5.83% | $44.70 |
Source: LocaliQ 2026 search advertising benchmarks (updated 1 June 2026) and WordStream 2026 Google Ads benchmarks. Figures are medians for US search campaigns. Ecommerce accounts tracked by Triple Whale across 21,000 brands report a lower 3.11% conversion rate and a 3.27 ROAS for Google Ads in the year to July 2026, so online stores should start from the Shopping, Collectibles and Gifts row or their own data rather than the all industry median (Triple Whale).
How much do small businesses spend on Google Ads?
WordStream’s cost guide puts typical small and mid sized business spend at $1,000 to $2,500 a month, with new campaigns commonly starting at $20 to $50 a day (WordStream, updated August 2026). Google’s own budget estimator shows the daily range that the middle 50% of advertisers in your business category and location spend, which is a useful sanity check but says nothing about what that money buys. That is the gap the calculator above fills.
How much should I spend on Google Ads?
Enough to buy the data a campaign needs to improve, and not so much that you are paying for clicks you cannot convert yet. Two thresholds decide whether a budget is viable, and the calculator flags both.
Is $10 a day enough for Google Ads?
It depends entirely on your cost per click. At the $5.42 median CPC, $10 a day is fewer than two clicks, which means weeks before a single conversion and no way to tell a good keyword from a bad one. At a $0.50 CPC in a low competition niche, the same $10 buys 20 clicks a day and is a perfectly workable test. The rule of thumb most practitioners use is at least 10 clicks a day per campaign, which is why the calculator turns your budget into clicks per day and warns you below that line.
What is the minimum budget for Smart Bidding to work?
Google’s own guidance is that an automated bid strategy can take up to around 50 conversion events, or three conversion cycles, to calibrate (Google Ads Help, about the learning period). A campaign producing 8 conversions a month will spend most of its life in learning. If your plan comes out below about 30 conversions a month, start with Maximize Clicks or manual CPC, use a higher volume conversion action such as a qualified page view or a lead form open, or consolidate campaigns so the conversions pool together.
Should the budget be based on last month or on the goal?
On the goal, cross checked against last month. If you already have an account, pull the last 90 days of CPC and conversion rate into the calculator. Then compare the budget it recommends with what you spend now. If the gap is large, the account is probably limited by budget on the campaigns that matter, and the fix is to move money rather than add it.
Daily budget vs monthly budget: how Google actually spends your money
Google Ads runs on an average daily budget. Google may spend up to twice that amount on days when searches are plentiful and less on quiet days, but it will not charge you more than 30.4 times your average daily budget in a calendar month (Google Ads Help, monthly spending limit). The calculator shows both numbers: the peak single day spend and the monthly cap.
Why did Google spend more than my daily budget?
Because the daily figure is an average, not a ceiling. Overdelivery lets Google buy more clicks on high demand days. If the month ends with served cost above the monthly limit, the excess is credited and shows up as a difference between served cost and billed cost in your reports (Google Ads Help, charges and your average daily budget).
Can I set a monthly budget instead?
Standard campaigns do not have a monthly budget setting, so the practical answer is to divide the monthly figure by 30.4 and leave the daily budget alone for the month. Changing the daily budget mid month resets the monthly limit calculation from that day, which is how advertisers end up with a bill that does not match either number they entered.
What does “Limited by budget” mean?
It is the status Google shows when your average daily budget is lower than the amount needed to capture all the impressions and clicks available for your targeting. Google will not raise your budget or change your bid targets for you (Google Ads Help, limited by budget). Your options are to raise the budget, narrow the targeting, or lower bids. From 17 August 2026, target based bid strategies such as Target CPA and Target ROAS behave differently under a budget constraint, so check the campaign status after any budget change (Google Ads Help, August 2026 change).
When should I use a shared budget?
When several campaigns have uneven daily demand and you would rather Google move money between them than leave some of it unspent. Shared budgets work for Search, Shopping, Display and Video campaigns. They are not available for Performance Max, App campaigns or experiments (Google Ads Help, shared budgets).
How to increase a Google Ads budget without breaking what works
- Confirm the campaign is actually limited by budget and has a conversion rate you are happy with. Scaling a campaign that converts badly just buys more bad clicks.
- Raise the budget in steps of about 20% and wait for the results to settle before the next step. Budget changes alone do not trigger a new learning period, but large jumps change which auctions you enter and can move your CPC.
- Watch cost per conversion, not spend. If the cost per conversion climbs with each step, you have found the point where the extra traffic is lower intent, and the next dollar is better spent on a new campaign, a new market or the landing page.
- Recalculate with this tool every quarter, or whenever CPC or conversion rate moves by more than 20%, because the budget that made sense in January rarely makes sense in a seasonal peak.
What to budget for besides the ad spend
The calculator has optional fields for a management fee and other monthly costs because the number that matters to your business is the all in cost per conversion. Typical extras are agency or freelancer management, landing page and call tracking software, creative for Display and YouTube, and the time someone spends checking search terms every week. If you run Shopping or Performance Max, add the cost of keeping the product feed clean, or run it through our free Google Shopping feed validator before you spend anything, because a disapproved feed spends nothing and converts nothing.
Google Ads budget calculator questions
Answers come from Google Ads Help and the benchmark studies linked above, not from opinion.
How do I calculate my Google Ads budget?
Divide the number of conversions you want by your conversion rate to get the clicks you need, multiply the clicks by your average cost per click to get the monthly budget, then divide by 30.4 to get the average daily budget to enter in Google Ads. For a revenue goal, first divide the revenue by your average order value to get the number of orders.
How much does Google Ads cost per month?
Whatever you set as the average daily budget times 30.4, at most. What that buys depends on your cost per click. The 2026 median CPC across US search campaigns is $5.42, so a $1,500 monthly budget buys roughly 277 clicks at the median, or about 23 leads at the median 8.18% conversion rate.
What is the average cost per click on Google Ads in 2026?
$5.42 across all industries in the LocaliQ and WordStream 2026 study, ranging from $1.63 in Arts and Entertainment to $9.87 in Attorneys and Legal Services. Display Network clicks usually cost under $1.
Is $5 or $10 a day enough for Google Ads?
Only if your cost per click is low enough for that money to buy around 10 clicks a day. At the median CPC of $5.42, $10 a day is fewer than 2 clicks and the campaign will not gather enough data to improve. At a $0.50 CPC it is 20 clicks a day and a reasonable starting test.
Why does Google Ads spend more than my daily budget?
The daily budget is an average. Google can spend up to two times it on any day, but not more than 30.4 times it in a month. Anything served above the monthly limit is credited back, which is why served cost and billed cost can differ in your reports.
Can I set a monthly budget in Google Ads?
Standard campaigns use an average daily budget. Divide your monthly figure by 30.4 and enter that. Avoid changing it mid month, because Google recalculates the monthly limit from the day of the change.
What does “Limited by budget” mean and how do I fix it?
Your average daily budget is below what is needed to show for every eligible search. Fix it by raising the budget, narrowing targeting, or lowering bids. Google does not change your budget or bid targets automatically.
Does changing my budget reset the learning period?
Google lists a new or reactivated bid strategy, changed bid strategy settings, and adding or removing campaigns, ad groups or keywords as learning period triggers. Budget changes are not on that list, but large changes alter the auctions you enter, so make them in steps.
How many conversions a month does Smart Bidding need?
Google says a bid strategy can take up to around 50 conversion events or three conversion cycles to calibrate. Below about 30 a month, expect a long learning period and consider a simpler bid strategy or a higher volume conversion action.
What is a good conversion rate for Google Ads?
The 2026 median for US search campaigns is 8.18%, but it ranges from 2.64% in Finance and Insurance to 16.22% in Animals and Pets. Ecommerce stores typically convert around 3%, so use the industry preset closest to your business, then replace it with your own data as soon as you have it.
How accurate is a Google Ads budget calculator?
As accurate as the CPC and conversion rate you enter. With your own account data it is close to what the account will do next month. With industry benchmarks it is a planning range, because your keywords, location and landing page can move both numbers by half in either direction.
Should agency fees be part of my Google Ads budget?
Keep them separate from the ad spend you enter in Google Ads, but include them when you judge cost per lead. The calculator’s all in cost per conversion adds the management fee and other monthly costs to the ad spend for exactly that reason.
Want a budget plan built from your own account data?
Send us access or a screenshot of your last 90 days and we will tell you which campaigns are limited by budget, which are wasting it, and what the budget should be to hit your number. It is the same process we use on every account we manage.
No obligation. If the budget is already right, we will say so.Related free tools and guides
