How much do Facebook ads cost?
In LocaliQ's 2026 benchmarks, Facebook traffic campaigns averaged $0.60 per click and lead campaigns averaged $1.80 per click and $27.39 per lead. You set the budget yourself and Meta charges through an auction, so your real cost depends on your objective, audience, creative and industry more than on any average.
What you actually pay for
Facebook and Instagram ads have no list price. You set a daily or lifetime budget, choose an objective, and Meta's auction decides how far that budget goes. Meta names the campaign objective as a large driver of cost, along with ad quality, bid strategy and performance goal.[4] It also says broader audiences and more placements give the system more chances to find people who respond: ad sets with audiences of at least 2 million often perform better, and it suggests at least six placements or Advantage+ placements.[4]
That is why two businesses with the same budget can see very different costs. A store asking Meta for purchases pays for a narrower, harder result than a page asking for link clicks.
2026 benchmarks: traffic vs leads
LocaliQ, which publishes with WordStream, splits its 2026 Facebook data by objective. Traffic campaigns averaged a 1.93% click-through rate and $0.60 per click, down from $0.70 the year before. Lead campaigns averaged a 2.70% click-through rate, $1.80 per click, an 8.54% conversion rate and $27.39 per lead.[1] The page reports averages and does not state its data period or campaign count, so read these as a rough guide.
| Industry | Avg. CPC | Avg. cost per lead |
|---|---|---|
| Real Estate[1] | $1.27 | $13.74 |
| Career & Employment[1] | $0.73 | $12.30 |
| Arts & Entertainment[1] | $0.88 | $14.59 |
| Sports & Recreation[1] | $1.08 | $15.49 |
| Education & Instruction[1] | $1.72 | $26.31 |
| Health & Fitness[1] | $1.84 | $27.11 |
| Physicians & Surgeons[1] | $1.68 | $32.14 |
| Automotive (for sale)[1] | $2.01 | $35.52 |
| Industrial & Commercial[1] | $1.55 | $35.87 |
| Personal Services[1] | $1.62 | $38.09 |
| Furniture[1] | $2.18 | $39.25 |
| Home & Home Improvement[1] | $2.18 | $42.95 |
| Beauty & Personal Care[1] | $2.97 | $50.91 |
| Dentists & Dental Services[1] | $5.70 | $61.56 |
For traffic campaigns, LocaliQ's per-industry CPCs sit in a narrow band, from $0.34 for arts and entertainment to $0.86 for finance and insurance.[1]
CPM: the cost of reach
CPM, the cost per 1,000 impressions, is the price Meta's auction sets before anyone clicks. Superads publishes figures from over $3B in Facebook spend across accounts that use its tool. Its 2026 page puts the headline CPM at about $20.59, peaking at $24.26 in November 2025 and falling to $16.47 in July 2026; its median CPC is about $1.05.[2][3] The page is inconsistent about its date window and whether the headline is a median or a mean, which we note in the sources.
The pattern is more useful than the number: CPMs rise into the holiday season, when more advertisers bid for the same people, and ease afterward. Plan Q4 budgets and targets with that in mind.
How Meta paces your budget
- Daily budget. Meta may spend up to 75% over the daily amount on a good day, but weekly spend won't exceed seven times the daily budget.[4]
- Lifetime budget. Daily spend moves around, but the total stays within what you set.[4]
- Starting point. Meta recommends at least $5 and a run of more than six days.[4] For a sales campaign, budget for enough conversions to learn from; see the learning phase.
Work out a budget from cost per lead
A home improvement company that wants 20 leads a month
Then compare it with what a lead is worth: if one in five leads books a $2,000 job, 20 leads bring four jobs and $8,000 in revenue for $859 of ads.
For comparison, LocaliQ's 2026 Google search averages were $5.42 per click and $66.69 per lead across all industries.[5] Google clicks cost more because the person is already searching; see Facebook ads vs Google Ads.
Where RunAds fits
RunAds is an AI agent that builds and runs Google Ads campaigns, and the same budget math drives its Meta campaigns. Meta support is in early access: Mission Control builds the Facebook and Instagram campaign from your site, writes the ads, and you approve it before anything spends. You can also create it paused and turn it on yourself in Meta.
Credit packs from $25, 5 credits per $1 of ad spend.
Common questions
What is the minimum budget for Facebook ads?
Meta's pricing page recommends starting with at least $5 and running a campaign for more than six days, so the system has time to learn. That is a floor for testing, not a budget that will produce many sales.
Can Meta spend more than my daily budget?
Yes. Meta says it may spend up to 75% over your daily budget on a given day to catch good opportunities, but spend averages out over the week and won't go past seven times the daily amount.
What is a normal CPM on Facebook?
Superads, which reports on over $3B of spend from accounts using its tool, puts its headline 2026 CPM at about $20.59, with a November 2025 peak of $24.26 and a July 2026 low of $16.47. Treat that as one dataset, not a rule; CPMs swing by country, season and audience.
Why are lead campaign clicks more expensive than traffic clicks?
Lead campaigns ask Meta to find people likely to fill out a form, a smaller and more valuable group than people likely to click. In LocaliQ's 2026 data that pushed average CPC from $0.60 for traffic to $1.80 for leads.
Are Facebook ads cheaper than Google Ads?
Per click, usually. LocaliQ's 2026 Google search average was $5.42 per click against $0.60 for Facebook traffic campaigns. Per lead the gap is smaller ($66.69 vs $27.39), and the two reach people at different points in the buying process.
Sources
- Facebook Advertising Benchmarks for 2026, LocaliQ (with WordStream). Last updated September 23, 2026.Averages for Traffic and Leads campaigns across 20+ industries. The page does not state the data period or campaign count.
- Facebook Ads CPM Benchmarks (2026), Superads. Checked Nov 9, 2026.Over $3B of spend from thousands of Superads accounts, anonymized. The page labels its window November 2025 to October 2026 in one place and July 2025 to July 2026 in another, and calls its figures medians while describing the headline CPM as an average.
- Facebook Ads CPC Benchmarks (2026), Superads. Checked Nov 9, 2026.Median CPC across campaigns from the same Superads dataset.
- Facebook and Instagram Ads Pricing & Cost: An Overview, Meta for Business. Checked Nov 9, 2026.Meta may spend up to 75% over a daily budget on a given day, but no more than 7x the daily budget in a week. Recommends starting with at least $5 and running more than six days.
- NEW 2026 Search Advertising Benchmarks (+Tips), LocaliQ (with WordStream), by Stephanie Heitman. Last updated June 1, 2026.Google Ads and Microsoft Ads search campaigns across 23 industries. The page labels each figure an average.
Every outside number on this page links to its source above, with the date we checked it.
Related pages
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