You ask about the price and get "from four hundred dollars". That tells you almost nothing, because two entirely different jobs are sold under the same figure.
The cost of Google Ads management follows the fee model and what the fee actually includes. I will go through the three models you will meet on the market, say who each one suits and where it works against you. And at the end, from what budget senior management is worth paying for at all.
Three models and what each does to your budget
A percentage of ad spend. The most widespread model. The specialist takes a share of what you invest, typically somewhere between five and fifteen percent. For a store spending $10k a month, that is $500 to $1,500 for management.
It carries a built-in conflict of interest worth naming. The fee grows with spend, not with your profit. When spending less and better would serve you, that goes against the income of the person deciding. It need not imply bad faith; it is enough that a proposal to cut the budget is simply never made.
The model makes sense on accounts where work really does scale with volume. More budget there means more campaigns, more markets and more hours.
A flat fee. A fixed monthly amount for an agreed scope of work.
It is cleaner, because the fee does not depend on how much you spend. The specialist can then say that half the campaigns should go without cutting their own income. It is also easier to hold to account: you know in advance what you are paying for.
The drawback is that a flat fee needs recalculating from time to time. An account that grew from five campaigns to fifty over a year takes a different amount of time.
An hourly rate. The most transparent and, in practice, the least used.
It suits one-off work: an audit, an account build, a migration, consulting. It fits ongoing management poorly, because it makes you weigh whether a call is worth the money. That is exactly the kind of friction that gets problems addressed late.
What actually sets the price
Budget is a poor measure, even though it is the most common basis for billing. An account spending $50k a month across ten campaigns takes less time than one spending a tenth of that across five hundred campaigns in six markets.
What genuinely makes the work:
- Number and structure of campaigns. Fifty granular campaigns are watched differently from five.
- Size of the catalog. A feed with ten thousand products needs regular upkeep; one with a hundred items does not.
- Number of markets and languages. Each market has its own feed, its own currency and its own competition.
- State of the measurement. An account with broken conversions means weeks of work before optimizing anything makes sense.
- How many channels are in scope. Google Ads alone is different work from Google Ads, Sklik and Microsoft Ads together.
That is why my pricing follows the size of the account and the scope of work rather than the budget. A one-time deep-dive audit starts at $400 and ongoing management at $400 a month. I prepare the precise quote after the first call, once I can see what is actually in the account.
From what budget it makes sense
This is the question most suppliers avoid, because every engagement suits them.
My line is $10k a month in ad spend. Below it, the monthly fee costs more than the monthly work can return. You hear that on the first call, not three months in.
It does not mean a smaller store should skip Google Ads. It means a one-time setup and audit will serve it better than ongoing management. You pay once to have the account set up correctly, and then you watch it.
There is a second line at the other end that nobody mentions. Once the budget reaches several hundred thousand dollars a month, one person is no longer enough and you need a team or automation. That is the point where the cost of management turns into a question of how many hours a script can replace.
What belongs in the fee
Campaigns are a smaller part of the work than they appear. Store performance breaks in three other places, and all three belong in the scope.
Product feed and Merchant Center. In Shopping the feed decides the outcome more than the campaign settings, because it is the only thing the algorithm reads about your product. What can be done with it without touching the store is in my piece on the supplemental feed.
Measurement. GA4, Google Tag Manager and cookie consent. When this is off, campaigns get tuned against numbers that do not match reality. How easily measurement breaks without anyone receiving an error is in my piece on Consent Mode.
A report you can open whenever you like. Not a monthly PDF of charts, but a live view that is always up.
When a supplier runs only campaigns and the feed and tracking stay with you, you are paying for optimization on top of data they do not stand behind. That is the most expensive option of all, because a bad decision only surfaces months later.
What to ask before you sign
Four questions that separate senior work from a sales pitch:
- Who will actually work on the account? With an agency, ask for the name and seniority of the specific person, not the size of the team.
- What exactly will you do in the first month? "We will audit and optimize" is an evasion. You want to hear the order of work.
- How will we know it is working? The metric has to be agreed in advance and has to fit your business, not the ROAS in the interface.
- What is the notice period? A long commitment is insurance against dissatisfaction, not against uncertainty.
On that last one: I do not ask for a fixed-term contract. You can terminate at any time, because a long notice period would only be insurance against bad work.
What a good answer should contain, and how to spot a weak proposal, I cover in the article on how to choose a PPC specialist.
Before you start choosing, it pays to have the account reviewed independently. The difference between a real analysis and a sales meeting is in my piece on paid versus free audits.
Summary
- The fee depends on the model and on what it includes. "From four hundred dollars" on its own says nothing.
- A percentage of spend carries a built-in conflict of interest: the fee grows with spend, not with your profit. A flat fee does not.
- Budget is a poor measure of price. The work is made by the number of campaigns, the catalog, the markets and the state of the measurement.
- With me, an audit starts at $400 one-time and management at $400 a month, both depending on account size. I prepare the quote after the first call.
- Senior management makes sense from $10k a month in ad spend. Below that, a one-time setup serves better.
- The fee should cover the feed, the measurement and the report, not just campaigns. Optimizing on top of someone else's data is the most expensive option.
- A long notice period is a warning sign, not a standard.
What Google Ads management covers with me and how the first month goes is on its own page. The pricing frame and six questions to ask any supplier are on my about page.
