Ad budget calculator.

How the budget is worked out

• Clicks needed = leads or sales you want ÷ conversion rate.
• Monthly budget = clicks needed × cost per click.
• Daily budget = monthly budget ÷ 30.4, the average number of days in a month. Google’s help on daily budgets uses the same figure.
• Cost per lead or sale = cost per click ÷ conversion rate.

A worked example: you want 50 leads a month from Google Search, where the 2026 average is $5.42 a click and 8.18% of clicks convert. You need 50 ÷ 0.0818 = about 612 clicks. At $5.42 each that is about $3,317 a month, or $109 a day, and each lead costs about $66.

Where the preset figures come from

The Google Search preset uses 2026 industry averages for search ads across all industries: an average cost per click of $5.42, a conversion rate of 8.18% and a cost per lead of $66.69.

The Meta preset uses 2026 industry averages for campaigns with the leads objective: $1.80 a click, an 8.54% conversion rate and $27.39 per lead. Each average is measured on its own, so $1.80 ÷ 8.54% ($21.08) does not match the $27.39 cost per lead exactly. Traffic campaigns average about $0.60 a click, but there is no matching conversion rate for them.

These are averages across many industries. A legal or finance advertiser can pay several times the average per click, and a local shop much less. Treat the presets as a starting point until you have your own figures.

How a daily budget is spent

A daily budget is an average, not a hard cap for each day. Google says a campaign can spend up to twice its average daily budget on a busy day, but no more than 30.4 times it over a month. So set the daily figure from the calculator and judge spend over the month, not day by day.

Budget enough to learn from

Automated bidding on Google and Meta learns from conversions. A budget that buys two or three leads a month gives the system, and you, too little to work with, and one good or bad week changes everything. If the calculator shows a budget you cannot afford for the goal, lower the goal, narrow the campaign to your best product or area, or work on the conversion rate first: doubling it halves the budget for the same number of leads.

Running the campaign

We set up and run Google Ads and Meta Ads campaigns around a lead or sales target like this one, then report what each lead actually costs. For online shops, the break-even ROAS calculator shows the most you can pay for a sale before ads lose money. To talk through your budget, contact us.

What press coverage does for a brand that runs ads

Most people who click an ad do not buy on the first visit. Many search the brand name first, and more of them now ask ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google’s AI Overviews whether the company is real and who runs it. If the only pages they find are your own site and your ads, they have nothing independent to go on.

• A page about you that you did not publish yourself. An editorial feature is a public, indexed article about your brand and its founder. Google and AI assistants look up pages like it when someone asks about you, so it is one of the pages they can find and quote. We promise the article, not where it ranks or whether an assistant mentions it.
• More trust before the click. Someone who has read about you is more likely to buy when they see your ad again. That can lift the conversion rate this calculator depends on, though no feature can promise a number.
• A profile for the founder. Partners, investors, hires and event organisers search the founder’s name too. A feature gives them a clear story to read, and a link to send.
• Material for your ads and social. “As featured in” with the publication’s name, quotes from the article, and a link in your bio give your ads and posts something to point to.

Our PR & Media Placements service writes the feature from a short brief, and you approve every word before it goes live. Features start at $249 for one publication, and on the titles marked Guaranteed · 24h on our PR page the approved feature is live within 24 hours of your approval (business days) or you get a full refund. Every feature is sponsored content and labelled as such, as our disclaimer states.