PPC management cost and the pricing models behind it

Before comparing quotes, separate the two kinds of money involved.

• Ad spend is what you pay Google, Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn, Microsoft or YouTube for clicks and impressions. It buys distribution.
• The management fee is what you pay the people who plan, build, run and improve the campaigns. It buys expertise and time.

The cleanest setup is when ad spend goes from your own card to the platforms, inside ad accounts registered to your business, and the agency only invoices its fee. When an agency pays the platforms and bills you a single combined amount, it becomes hard to see what you actually spent on media and what you paid for service. Ask about this first, because it shapes every other comparison.

You pay a fixed amount each month for a defined scope: a set of channels, a spend range, a number of new creatives and a reporting rhythm. Your fee does not rise automatically when the agency increases your budget, which removes any incentive to spend more for its own sake.

The trade-off is that scope matters. A flat fee without a clear list of deliverables can quietly shrink to a few bid changes and a monthly report. Look for a written list of what is included and a spend ceiling, so you know when the plan would need to change.

The agency charges a share of your monthly media budget. This model is common because it scales with account size, and larger accounts usually need more work. It is easy to understand and easy to budget for.

The weakness is incentive. When the fee grows with spend, the agency earns more by recommending a bigger budget even if the extra spend brings weaker returns. A minimum monthly fee is normal in this model, because a small budget still requires setup, tracking and creative work.

Some consultants and freelancers bill by the hour. It is transparent for small, well defined tasks such as a one-time account review or fixing a tracking problem. For ongoing management it is harder to predict, and you pay for time rather than for outcomes or a defined output.

Hybrid models combine a base fee with a percentage above a spend threshold, or a base fee with a bonus tied to results. Pure performance pricing, where you only pay per lead or per sale, exists too, but it usually comes with conditions: the agency may control the ad accounts, choose which leads count or limit the offers it is willing to promote. Read those conditions closely.

Whatever the model, the same factors decide how much work an account needs.

• Number of channels. Running Google Ads alone is a different job than coordinating Google, Meta, TikTok and LinkedIn with shared audiences and consistent tracking.
• Monthly ad spend. Larger budgets support more campaigns, more audiences and more testing, and mistakes cost more.
• Creative volume. Social and video channels need a steady supply of new ads, because creative fatigue sets in as audiences see the same ad repeatedly.
• Tracking complexity. A store with one checkout is simpler than a B2B funnel that needs CRM offline conversion import, server-side tagging and several Conversions API integrations.
• Landing pages and testing. Building and testing pages adds design, copy and development time.
• Reporting depth. A live dashboard and a monthly review cost less to deliver than weekly written notes, warehouse exports and a custom attribution model.
• Compliance and security needs, such as procurement paperwork, security questionnaires and data processing agreements for larger companies.

Published prices in this market vary widely and many agencies do not publish them at all, so any single industry average should be treated with skepticism. Broadly, freelancers sit at the lower end, specialist agencies in the middle, and full-service teams that include creative, landing pages and server-side tracking at the higher end. Percent of spend models commonly fall somewhere in the low to mid teens as a share of budget, usually with a monthly minimum. Compare scope line by line rather than comparing headline numbers.

A fair management fee covers the work needed to run campaigns well, not just to keep them switched on.

• An audit of existing accounts and tracking at the start.
• Strategy, account structure, audiences and budget allocation across channels.
• New ad creatives every month, not only recycled assets.
• Conversion tracking that sends the right events to every platform you run.
• Ongoing optimization of bids, keywords, audiences and placements.
• Reporting you can read without a meeting.

• The ad spend itself, which belongs to the platforms.
• Large creative productions such as filmed shoots with actors and locations.
• Full website builds beyond campaign landing pages.
• Software subscriptions the client chooses to use, such as a CRM.

• Setup fees that cover work any agency must do to start, such as account access and an initial audit.
• Markups on ad spend hidden inside a combined invoice.
• Long minimum terms with early exit penalties.
• Charges for giving you access to your own data.

We publish our prices and every plan is a monthly subscription with no setup fee. Ad spend is always paid by you directly to the platforms from your own card, in ad accounts you own. The audit is part of onboarding on every plan.

• Growth costs $2,500 per month. It covers up to $25,000 of monthly managed ad spend on 2 channels, 8 new ad creatives a month, 1 landing page at start, GA4, Google Tag Manager and one Conversions API, a live dashboard with a monthly review and a dedicated specialist.
• Scale costs $6,000 per month. It covers up to $100,000 of monthly managed spend on up to 5 channels, 25 new creatives a month, 3 landing pages at start plus 1 per month, full server-side tracking with all Conversions APIs and CRM offline import, 1 A/B test a month, weekly notes, a lead strategist, channel specialists and a designer.
• Enterprise costs $10,000 per month. It covers up to $400,000 of monthly managed spend (2% of spend above that cap) on all 7 channels, 60 new creatives a month, data warehouse export, a custom attribution model, 3 A/B tests a month, a quarterly planning document, a named account lead and a response time of 4 business hours.

Paying annually takes 15 percent off every plan: $2,125, $5,100 or $8,500 per month. If you prefer a spend-based fee, we charge 12% of monthly managed ad spend with a $3,000 monthly minimum, at Scale-level service across all channels, billed monthly on the previous month's spend. You can cancel any time and the change takes effect at the end of the paid month.