Facebook Advertising Costs By CPC
Always fresh Facebook ad cost data from hundreds of millions of spend per month.
How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost?
That depends on a few things, but supply and demand play a big role.
Facebook ads are sold in an auction environment, which means you bid against other advertisers for ad placements. In a traditional auction, the highest bidder wins. But with Facebook Ads, the bid is only one part of it.
And the other parts are outside of your control.
You directly control the amount you spend on a Facebook ad campaign—and that could be $10 per week or $10,000 per week. You also use tools inside the platform to control the cost of each result to a degree.
That’s where the control ends.
There is no telling if you’ll consistently get the results you want for a purchase, download, or click at the price you want to pay.
Three factors make up Facebook advertising costs:
- The ad auction itself: And the competitive levels
- The offer/creative: How good is that performing when it comes to what your prospects care about?
- The relevance score: How does Facebook reward you with lower CPCs based off your score?
Ad Auction
Offer/Creative Performance
Relevance Score
Facebook isn’t trying to empty your wallet with a mean laugh and a kick to the shins. Facebook wants you to do well because its goal is to increase how much time users spend on the platform, and when low-quality ads flood news feeds, users could leave.
So, if your ad is hot (highly relevant and people like it), Facebook cheers for you by charging you less (your relevance score should go up). But Facebook quickly puts the pompoms away if users don’t engage with your ad—poor performers cost more for Facebook to show it.
On the user experience side, Facebook measures value in different ways:
- The ratio of negative to positive reactions to your ad
- The number of users who hide or report your ad
On the advertiser side, Facebook estimates the action rate and your bid to determine advertiser value. Facebook Ads mostly measures this based on how well your ad achieves the objective you set for it. If an ad performs well, it means the user likes it.
This is a handy Facebook ads cost formula:
Facebook Ads Cost Formula
The best creative/ads have a high total value, calculated “under the hood” by examining both the advertiser and consumer sides.
Advertiser value = your bid multiplied by Facebook’s performance prediction (along with your relevance score).
Consumer value = how people receive your ad (do they like it or not? Which ends with a relevance score)
Your job is to set the budget for your campaigns, focus on finding the right audiences for your product, and create the best ads possible. Doing these things well will drive the cost of your Facebook ads down so you get the most performance from your Facebook Ads budget.
Use our Facebook Ads cost charts above to find the average cost of Facebook ads by your campaign objective.
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We Spent Hours Compiling The Best Questions & Our Favorite Answers, Enjoy
Don’t see an answer to your question? Ask it during your free marketing plan.
1
What is a good cost per click on Facebook Ads?
Facebook advertising cost changes by industry and campaign goals. The main question should be whether your CPC and conversion rate combine to provide an acceptable cost per conversion.
If your CPC supports a strong return on investment, it’s more beneficial to focus on increasing volume rather than reducing CPC alone as a continuous reduction in CPC will eventually suffocate your conversion volume.
2
Is $5 a day enough for a Facebook ad?
An advertising budget of $5 a day works if you’re getting started, especially targeting a specific niche or local audience.
With a smaller budget, you’ll still get visibility and test some of Facebook ad’s effectiveness.
Obviously a lower budget can equal lower reach, but it’s an excellent way to see initial results, gather data, and make optimizations before scaling up further.
3
Is $1,000 enough for Facebook ads?
Depends. Is it per day, week, or month? It depends on what your goal is.
A $1,000 budget gives you room to test ad types, audiences, and objectives so you see what works for your brand. With $1,000, you can split-test ad creatives and target audiences to improve ad performance.
This budget could be substantial enough to run Facebook Ads consistently for a while depending on how much you spend of that per day. But with that, learn and adjust your bidding strategy.
4
How much are Facebook ads per 1,000 views?
We dedicated a page on Facebook Ads by CPM to answer this very question.
But quickly, the cost per 1,000 impressions (CPM) on Facebook varies depending on industry, targeting, and ad quality. In general, the CPMs could range between $5 and $30.
Industries like finance or tech might have higher CPMs due to ad auction competition, while less competitive fields may see lower costs. Testing and optimizing ads can reduce the CPM over time.
5
What does CPC mean on Facebook?
CPC stands for cost per click. It measures how much you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. CPC is calculated by dividing your total ad spend by the number of clicks. This metric is essential for understanding how efficiently your budget drives direct engagement.
For example, if you spent $10 and received 50 clicks on your ad, your CPC would be $0.20, which means it costs you 20 cents for each click (($10/50) = $0.20).
CPC is especially useful to be aware of to understand the leading indicators towards your business goals if your goal is to drive traffic to a specific landing page or get users to engage directly with your ad content.
6
Why is my Facebook average CPC so high?
Could be many different reasons, but these are the most common:
- Ad fatigue: When people see the same ad over and over, it gets boring. They stop engaging, which increases your CPC. Refresh your ad creatives or try new messaging to re-engage your audience.
- Low relevance score: Are you SURE your ad is highly relevant to the audience you’re targeting? Tip: use eye-catching visuals and clear, engaging ad copy.
- Narrow targeting: If your audience is too small or highly specific, competition within that niche can increase the cost of each click. Consider expanding your audience slightly to reach more users at a lower cost.
- Restrictive objectives: Campaigns with high-intent actions, like purchases, can come with higher CPCs. Try switching to an objective further up the funnel, like link clicks, to bring costs down and gradually nurture potential customers.
- Unexpected platform shifts: Platform fluctuations drive up CPCs. Facebook advertising performance swings daily, and CPC takes a hit with this variability. Automated rules pause ads with unusually high CPCs early in the day and restart them later or the next day to avoid costly dips in performance.
7
Budget recommendations for Facebook advertising CPC campaigns
Minimum Viable Budget
- Daily: $20-$30 ($600-$900/month)
- Expected Clicks: 200-300/month
- Best for: Testing keywords, audience targeting, and ad formats to learn what works
A budget at this level works well for initial tests but hits a wall for reach and consistency. It’s okay to explore audiences or keywords, but it may take longer to gather enough data for actionable insights.
Recommended Budget
- Daily: $50-$100 ($1,500-$3,000/month)
- Expected Clicks: 500-800/month
- Best for: Lead generation, driving website traffic
Yes. This budget reaches a broader audience, will see consistent ad delivery, and packs enough volume punch for meaningful performance analytics. It’s a good budget for businesses that want to drive consistent traffic or leads without immediately scaling aggressively.
Aggressive Budget
- Daily: $200+ ($6,000+/month)
- Expected Clicks: 1,200+/month
- Best for: Scaling successful campaigns that already show proven results
Whoop! This level of ad spend is ideal for scaling up campaigns with a strong performance history, high reach, and frequent engagement—especially valuable for competitive industries or high-stakes campaigns.
8
How does Facebook Ads compare to Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads?
Facebook Ad campaigns are great for certain types of businesses. Here’s how it stacks up to Google Ads and LinkedIn Ads:
- Facebook Ads: Facebook excels at reaching broad audiences with high visual engagement, making it ideal for B2C brands and awareness campaigns (especially retail). Its targeting capabilities are strong, letting you reach users based on demographics, interests, and behaviors.
- Google Ads: Google is unmatched for intent-driven advertising since users actively search for products or services through the Google search engine. It’s highly effective for capturing retail sales, driving leads or driving conversions with direct-response campaigns, though it can be costly due to keyword competition.
- LinkedIn Ads: LinkedIn is best for B2B marketing because you target by job titles, company, and industry. It’s often more expensive per click than Facebook but can be more effective for reaching certain job title professionals or decision-makers in specific industries.