The short answer: you pay Google for the ads and, separately, someone to run them. AgencyAnalytics, which makes reporting software for agencies, writes that many agencies charge 10–20% of monthly ad spend, or a flat fee starting around $500 for smaller budgets. On Clutch, where clients review the agencies they hired, most PPC projects cost $10,000–$49,999 in total, over a typical engagement of 14 months. In the EU, a Croatian price guide puts monthly management at €100–€250. Our Google Ads management starts at €400 a month, as a fixed fee rather than a percentage.
Two costs: ad spend and management
Ad spend is what Google charges for clicks on your ads. You set it as an average daily budget for each campaign, and Google bills it to the payment method on your account: in Google's words, after your ads run, Google Ads automatically charges your payment method. On a single day a campaign can spend up to twice its average daily budget, but in a month it will not be charged more than 30.4 times that budget. A budget of €10 a day therefore means at most about €304 a month.
Management is the work around the spend: research, campaign structure, conversion tracking, ads, weekly changes and reports. Keep the two apart in every offer.
How agencies charge for Google Ads
| Model | How it works | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flat monthly fee | A fixed amount for an agreed scope | Predictable, and the fee does not rise when you spend more | Needs a written scope; a very low flat fee buys little time on your account |
| Percentage of ad spend | Usually 10–20% of monthly spend, sometimes with a minimum fee | Scales with the size of the account; easy to calculate | The agency earns more when you spend more, whether or not results improve |
| Flat fee plus percentage | A base fee, plus a percentage of spend above a threshold | Covers the fixed work on small budgets | The percentage part carries the same drawback |
| Hourly | Hours worked, mostly for audits and one-off fixes | You pay only for work done | Hard to budget for ongoing management |
| Setup fee | A one-off charge for building the account, tracking and first campaigns | Pays for the heavy first weeks | Paid before you know whether the channel works for you |
| Performance-based | A fee per lead or sale | Low upfront cost | Needs a precise definition of a lead, and the agency often keeps the account |
Percentage range and setup effort: AgencyAnalytics (July 2025), one provider's view, which estimates 15–25 hours of agency work to launch a new multi-campaign account. Performance-based pricing and account ownership: Search Engine Journal (April 2025).
The Search Engine Journal columnist names the percentage model's tension directly: if an agency earns more because you spend more, it has less reason to spend your budget efficiently. A flat fee removes that, provided the work behind it is written down.
What Google Ads management costs
| Source | Model | Published price |
|---|---|---|
| AgencyAnalytics, vendor guide (2025) | Percentage or flat fee | 10–20% of spend; flat fees from about $500 a month for smaller budgets, $250–$1,500 a month on average |
| Search Engine Journal, columnist (2025) | Flat or hybrid | $2,500–$10,000 a month flat, or $500–$2,500 a month plus 5–15% of spend |
| Clutch, client reviews (2026) | PPC agencies overall | Most projects $10,000–$49,999; most agencies $100–$149 an hour |
| Croatian price guide (2026) | Flat monthly fee | €100–€250 a month, €180 on average; setup and first campaign €180–€430 |
| Agencies in Zagreb and Belgrade | Flat or hybrid | From €150 a month, or 10% of a budget above €1,500; €199–€540 a month, some tiers plus 10% of spend |
US dollars as published. Clutch (updated September 2026) also reports an average monthly cost of about $7,165, pulled up by large accounts. None of these fees include the ad budget.
How much ad budget do you need?
Google leaves the budget to you, advising a bid and budget you are comfortable with. Whether a budget is realistic is arithmetic: what a click costs in your market, how many visitors become enquiries, and how many enquiries you need to judge the results. For scale, WordStream by LocaliQ's benchmarks across 20 industries (Google and Microsoft Ads, April 2025 to March 2026) show an average cost per click of $5.42, a conversion rate of 8.18% and a cost per lead of $66.69.
As an illustration: if a click costs €2 and one visitor in 20 sends an enquiry, each enquiry costs €40, and 25 enquiries a month need about €1,000 of spend. At €6 a click, the same goal needs €3,000. Run that sum with your own figures, and ask any agency to show theirs. We propose a budget only after reviewing your market and account, and normally start with three months: a test first, then scaling what works.
What management should include
- Conversion tracking for forms, calls and orders, checked before campaigns go live.
- Keyword research and negative keywords, so the budget does not go on searches that never buy.
- Ads for each group of searches, leading to pages that answer them.
- A weekly review of search terms, bids and ads.
- A monthly report on enquiries, sales and cost per enquiry, not only clicks, plus a call where changes are explained.
- Your own access to the account, at any time.
Red flags in a Google Ads offer
- The account is in the agency's name. Google requires a separate account for each advertiser, and agencies manage them through their own manager account, so the agency has no need to own yours.
- A long lock-in. A few months to test is reasonable; a year with no way out is not.
- No access to the data. You should see spend, clicks and conversions in Google Ads yourself, not only in a report.
- Guaranteed results or positions. Nobody controls the ad auction, and Google's third-party policy tells agencies to avoid false, misleading or unrealistic claims.
- Unclear money flows. If the ad budget passes through the agency's invoices, ask to see Google's cost figures for your account.
How to compare Google Ads offers
- Is the fee fixed or a percentage, and what work does it cover each month?
- Is there a setup fee, and what does it pay for?
- Who pays Google, and in whose name is the account if you leave?
- How long is the minimum term, and what is the notice period?
- Which conversions count as success, and against what target cost?
- What does the monthly report contain, and how often will you talk?
- Is VAT included in the fee?
What our Google Ads management costs
Our Google Ads management starts at €400 a month. It is a fixed monthly fee, not a percentage of your ad spend, so we never earn more because you spend more; it grows only with scope, such as the number of campaigns, markets or languages, and is agreed in writing. Account setup, conversion tracking and the first campaign are included in the first month, so there is no setup fee. You pay the ad budget directly to Google from your own account, registered to your business wherever possible, and we work through manager access. We normally start with three months, testing first and then scaling, with a weekly review of searches, bids and ads, a monthly report and a 30-minute review call. The price is final and nothing is added on top. See Google Ads management or all prices.
Why fixed: the work on an account does not double when the budget does, and our advice on budget should not depend on what we earn. When the data says to spend less, or to put the effort into SEO instead, we can say so. For visibility that keeps working after the budget stops, see our guide to SEO costs.
Our price
Google Ads management · from €400
Sources
- AgencyAnalytics: PPC Agency Pricing (July 2025; a reporting software provider for agencies)
- Search Engine Journal: Ask A PPC: How Much Should PPC Management Cost? (April 2025)
- Clutch: PPC Pricing Guide (updated September 2026)
- Search Engine Journal: Google Ads benchmarks from WordStream by LocaliQ (updated June 2026)
- Google Ads Help: About payment settings
- Google Ads Help: About average daily budgets
- Google Ads Help: Link accounts to a manager account
- Google Advertising Policies: About Google third-party policies
- Google: Bidding in Google Ads
- Google advertising prices 2026, trebam.hr (Croatia)
- Google Ads price list, hm-promotion.com (Zagreb)
- Price list, digitalmatrix.hr (Zagreb)
- Google Ads packages, digitizer.rs (Belgrade)
Written by
Adi Zeljković — Founder, Luminor Solutions
Part of the Luminor team — working across strategy, design, engineering and growth on the projects we write about.