Copy for Originals · Price study
Agencies that publish a Google Ads management price start at a median of $500 a month: that is the middle starting fee of 19 agencies pricing in US dollars, which run from $199 to $3,500. These are businesses that print a price on their own site, not the whole market. The large agencies we looked up print no fee we could read, so these figures sit lower than what large accounts pay. Of the 28 agencies and freelancers in the analysis, 20 charge a fixed monthly fee, 7 print a percentage of ad spend (5% to 20%) and 11 charge a setup fee.
How this was made. Every price, date and quotation from an agency, survey or Google page was checked word for word against the saved text of that page on October 31, 2026. The counts, medians and middle half are our own arithmetic from the data file, and the search counts in the method are from our own record of the searches.
A median of $500 a month to start, among agencies that publish their price: that is the middle of 19 starting fees in US dollars, with the middle half between $375 and $949.50 and the full range $199 to $3,500. The highest monthly fee any of them prints is $6,000 (Stryde). These are prices read on the agencies’ own sites on October 31, 2026, not a survey of what every agency charges.
| Measure | Figure | Base |
|---|---|---|
| Median starting fee, US dollars | $500 a month | 19 agencies |
| Range of starting fees, US dollars | $199 to $3,500 | 19 agencies |
| Middle half of starting fees, US dollars | $375 to $949.50 | 19 agencies |
| Highest monthly fee printed | $6,000 (Stryde); £7,500 (Visionary Marketing); A$9,800 (CodingClave) | 28 |
| Charge a fixed monthly fee | 20 of 28 | 28 |
| Percentage of ad spend, where one is printed | 5% to 20% | 7 agencies |
| Charge a setup fee | 11 of 28 (2 say none, 15 don’t say) | 28 |
| State a contract or notice term | 16 of 28 | 28 |
| State a minimum or recommended ad spend | 6 of 28 | 28 |
The starting fee is the lowest monthly fee a page prints for ongoing management. Introductory prices are noted but not counted: Advantage Attorney Marketing’s free tier under $1,500 of ad spend, Footbridge Media’s $149 first month and Bootstrap Creative’s 90-day pilot at $950. Where a percentage has a minimum, the starting fee is the minimum. Where a base fee comes with a percentage on top, the starting fee is the base, so the real fee is higher: Bruce Clay charges $2,000 plus 12% to 18% of spend, Third Marble Marketing $499 plus 5%.
The fee pays for management; the clicks are paid to Google on top. Digital Hall of Fame, a New Zealand agency, puts its smallest engagement this way: “So the total minimum engagement is $1,800/mo ($1,500 to Google + $300 management).”
Prices in other currencies are kept apart and never converted. Only US dollars have enough agencies for a median. How the 40 businesses were found and why 12 are left out of these figures is under How were these prices collected?, and every row is in the data file (CSV).
Most agencies that publish a price charge a fixed monthly fee: 20 of the 28 in this analysis. Three charge flat fees in tiers and switch to a percentage of ad spend above a spend level, two charge a base fee plus a percentage, two a percentage with a minimum fee, and one prints a flat fee or a percentage without saying which applies.
| Fee model | How it works | Agencies | Who, and the starting fee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fixed monthly fee | One price a month, often in tiers that rise with ad spend | 20 | 13 in US dollars, from $199 (G3 Group) to $3,500 (Stryde), median $500; 7 in pounds, Canadian, New Zealand or Australian dollars or euros |
| Flat tiers, then a percentage | A flat fee up to a spend level, a percentage of spend above it | 3 | JumpFly ($900; 10% of spend from $30,000), Grow Law ($1,450; 15% above $10k), ThinkProfits (C$399; a percentage above $10,000 of spend, rate not stated) |
| Base fee plus a percentage | A fixed base every month, plus a share of spend | 2 | Bruce Clay ($2,000 plus 12% to 18%), Third Marble Marketing ($499 plus 5%) |
| Percentage with a minimum fee | A share of spend, never less than a set amount | 2 | PPC Buyers (12%, at least $400 under $3,500 of spend), Digital Hall of Fame (20%; NZ$300 at its $1,500 minimum spend) |
| Flat or percentage, unclear | Both printed, no rule for which applies | 1 | Skill Mammoth ($600 a month or 12% of spend) |
Among the 28, hourly billing appears once: One PPC Agency, in the UK, also sells Google Ads help at “£90 per hour + VAT, with no long-term contract.” None of the 40 pages in the data offers a fee tied to results.
In WordStream’s 2023 survey of 300 agencies, as MediaPost reported it, flat fees and flat fees plus a percentage were equally common for paid services, at 33% each (surveys below).
In US dollars, published starting fees run from $199 a month (G3 Group) to $3,500 (Stryde), with a median of $500 across 19 agencies and the middle half from $375 to $949.50. Nine more price in other currencies and are listed separately, not converted: £360 to £2,000 in pounds, C$397 and C$399, NZ$150 and NZ$300, €250 and A$990.
| Agency | Starting fee a month | What the figure is | Page date |
|---|---|---|---|
| G3 Group | $199 | Starter plan, for click budgets up to $1,000 a month | Undated |
| Footbridge Media | $249 | After a $149 first month, both marked with an asterisk; for contractors | Undated |
| Mainstreethost | $249 | Search Ads package, “when billed annually” | Undated |
| Olive Street Design | $299 | “Our prices start at $299/month.” (a web design agency) | Undated |
| PaperStreet | $350 | “We typically budget $350 per month flat rate” (law firm web agency) | Undated |
| PPC Buyers | $400 | Minimum fee under $3,500 of spend; 12% of spend above it | Undated |
| Third Marble Marketing | $499 | Base fee plus 5% of the click budget; its home page says from $549 | Undated |
| Advantage Attorney Marketing | $500 | For $1,500 to $5,000 of ad spend; no fee below $1,500 (law firms) | Undated |
| LYFE Marketing | $500 | Good plan; Best plan $1,400 | Undated |
| Main Street ROI | $500 | For dentists, “start at $500 per month”, rising with campaign size | Undated |
| Skill Mammoth | $600 | “$600 a month or 12 percent of spend” (professional service firms) | October 31, 2026 |
| CodeWCG | $750 | $750 to $1,500 for most small to mid-size service businesses | Undated |
| GrossiWeb | $750 | Lowest of three spend brackets ($750, $1,500, $2,500) | September 9, 2026 (prices last verified) |
| JumpFly | $900 | Budgets up to $5,000 a month | Undated |
| Redefine Web | $999 | Lowest of four retainer tiers ($999 to “from $4,500”) | Undated |
| Bootstrap Creative | $1,250 | Google only, from $5,000 of spend (a $950 pilot below that); B2B manufacturers | October 26, 2026 |
| Grow Law | $1,450 | Up to $10k of monthly ad spend (law firms) | Undated |
| Bruce Clay | $2,000 | Base fee; 12% to 18% of spend comes on top | Undated |
| Stryde | $3,500 | Low end of $3,500 to $6,000, by campaign types, products and creative (ecommerce) | Undated |
| Agency | Starting fee a month | What the figure is | Page date |
|---|---|---|---|
| One PPC Agency (UK) | £360 | Local Business plan, plus VAT; top plan £720 | Undated |
| Visionary Marketing (UK) | £1,200 | Tightly scoped Search; “most ambitious accounts sit at £2,500-£7,500/month” | April 2026 |
| JudeLuxe (UK) | £2,000 | “£2k/month minimum fee” (ecommerce) | Undated |
| Knowurwhy (Canada) | C$397 | Introductory rate for “a limited number of founding-client positions” | Undated |
| ThinkProfits (Canada) | C$399 | Lowest of four tiers; the page prints “$” and a Vancouver address | Undated |
| Net Branding (New Zealand) | NZ$150 | Package 1, excluding GST; top package NZ$750 | Undated |
| Digital Hall of Fame (New Zealand) | NZ$300 | 20% of its $1,500 minimum ad spend | Undated |
| Joeri Dauwe (Belgium, a freelancer on Contra) | €250 | Monthly management, after a €749 setup fee | Undated |
| CodingClave (sells in Australia) | A$990 | Floor of an A$990 to A$9,800 monthly band | October 6, 2026 |
The US-dollar rows are 13 fixed fees and 6 with a percentage of spend in the mix. Eight of the 19 prices are for one kind of client: law firms (PaperStreet, Advantage Attorney Marketing, Grow Law), professional service firms (Skill Mammoth), dentists (Main Street ROI), contractors (Footbridge Media), B2B manufacturers (Bootstrap Creative) and, at the top of the range, ecommerce brands (Stryde).
The only other median of published fees we found, Whito’s UK study, reports a median of £470 a month from 24 published fees by 9 UK providers. It does not name the providers, so it cannot be rechecked or combined with the three UK rows here.
Where agencies publish tiers, the fee steps up with monthly ad spend, and some switch to a percentage at the top. JumpFly’s flat fee runs from $900 a month for a budget up to $5,000 to $3,000 for $20,000 to $30,000, then 10% of spend up to $150,000; Bootstrap Creative’s Google-only fee runs from a $950 pilot under $5,000 of spend to $3,000 at $25,000 and up.
| Monthly ad budget | Management fee |
|---|---|
| Up to $5,000 | $900 a month |
| $5,000 to $7,500 | $1,300 a month |
| $7,500 to $10,000 | $1,600 a month |
| $10,000 to $15,000 | $2,100 a month |
| $15,000 to $20,000 | $2,600 a month |
| $20,000 to $30,000 | $3,000 a month |
| $30,000 to $150,000 | 10% of spend |
| Above $150,000 | Call for quote |
JumpFly also lists a “One-Time New Client Fee $1,495*”, marked with an asterisk.
| Monthly ad spend | Google only | Google plus Bing or LinkedIn |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | $950 a month (90-day pilot) | $1,250 |
| $5,000 | $1,250 | $1,750 |
| $10,000 | $1,750 | $2,250 |
| $15,000 | $2,250 | $3,000 |
| $20,000 | $2,500 | $3,500 |
| $25,000 and up | $3,000 | $4,000 |
Bootstrap Creative’s summary line gives a different range, $1,250 to $3,500 a month; the table above is the one used in the data.
Other agencies that publish their tiers:
The seven agencies in the analysis that print a percentage charge 5% to 20% of ad spend, and each pairs it with a flat amount: a minimum fee, a base fee, or flat tiers below a spend level. JumpFly’s 10% starts at $30,000 a month of spend; Bruce Clay’s 12% to 18% comes on top of a $2,000 base fee.
| Agency | Percentage of ad spend | The flat part |
|---|---|---|
| Third Marble Marketing | 5% | $499 base; its own chart shows “$549 ($499 + 5%)” on a $1,000 a month click budget |
| JumpFly | 10% | Applies from $30,000 to $150,000 of spend; flat fees below |
| PPC Buyers | 12% | “a minimum flat fee of $400 per month if spend is less than $3,500” |
| Skill Mammoth | 12% | Or $600 a month; the page doesn’t say which applies when |
| Bruce Clay | 12% to 18% | Plus a $2,000 base monthly fee; the rate is “between 18% and a low of 12% of spend depending upon spend” |
| Grow Law | 15% | Above $10k of spend; $1,450 flat below it |
| Digital Hall of Fame (New Zealand) | 20% | “minimum ad spend of $1,500 per month”, which puts the minimum management fee at $300 |
Four more pages in the data print a percentage but are left out of the analysis: Straight North (“$1,000 or 15% of your monthly media budget, whichever is greater”), WebFX (15% or 12% in its larger plans), Fusion Arc Hosting (20% of spend, with a minimum fee of $40) and Kolonell (15 to 20%, priced in CFA francs). The first three print “$” without showing their country; Kolonell’s currency is outside the rule.
For contrast, OuterBox, an agency, says in a pricing guide with no stated method that percentage-of-spend models “commonly land around 10% to 20% of monthly media spend, often with a minimum management fee.”
Eleven of the 28 agencies and freelancers charge a setup fee (one of them, PaperStreet, says there “may” be one), 2 say they charge none and 15 don’t say. The six setup fees printed in US dollars with an amount run from $250 to $1,495, and two of them are waived on conditions: GrossiWeb’s $500 on a six-month term and LYFE Marketing’s $300 if you call.
| Agency | Setup fee | Condition or note |
|---|---|---|
| Olive Street Design | $250 | “One-time onboarding fee”, shown with the Starter plan |
| LYFE Marketing | $300 | “Call us to waive” |
| Third Marble Marketing | $399 | In its own comparison chart |
| PPC Buyers | From $400 | “based on the size of account and scope of work” |
| GrossiWeb | $500 | Waived on a six-month term |
| JumpFly | $1,495 | “One-Time New Client Fee”, marked with an asterisk |
| PaperStreet | Amount not stated | “There may also be a small one-time setup fee” |
| Knowurwhy (Canada) | C$397 | Introductory founding-client rate |
| ThinkProfits (Canada) | C$1,000 to C$2,000 | Rises with the tier |
| Net Branding (New Zealand) | NZ$375 to NZ$1,200 | Rises with the package |
| Joeri Dauwe (Belgium) | €749 | Freelancer listing on Contra |
| G3 Group | None | “Zero setup fees (limited time offer)” |
| Advantage Attorney Marketing | None | “No contracts. No setup fees.” |
Straight North, outside the analysis, says “New campaign builds require a one-time fee” without an amount. Two prices that look like setup fees are introductory monthly prices instead: Footbridge Media’s $149 first month and Bootstrap Creative’s 90-day pilot at $950.
Sixteen of the 28 state a contract or notice term. Nine say no long-term contract or month to month, three set a notice period of 7 working days to a month, three ask for an initial three months, and one prices its starting plan on annual billing. Six state a minimum or recommended ad spend.
| Term | Agencies | In their words |
|---|---|---|
| No long-term contract, or month to month | 9 | Bootstrap Creative, G3 Group, ThinkProfits, Visionary Marketing, Footbridge Media, PaperStreet, Advantage Attorney Marketing, JumpFly, Third Marble Marketing. Footbridge Media: “we refuse to use contracts.” Visionary Marketing: “No 12-month lock-ins, month-to-month.” |
| A notice period | 3 | One PPC Agency: “All packages run on a rolling 30-day agreement with 7 working days’ notice.” Main Street ROI: “only a 30-day written cancellation notice.” Net Branding: “one calendar month notice period.” |
| An initial three months | 3 | JudeLuxe: “a three-month initial engagement and 30 days' notice afterwards.” GrossiWeb: “Month to month after an initial three months.” Knowurwhy: “Three-month initial commitment, then month-to-month.” |
| Annual billing | 1 | Mainstreethost: “starting at $249/mo when billed annually” |
| Agency | What the page says |
|---|---|
| Digital Hall of Fame (New Zealand) | “minimum ad spend of $1,500 per month” |
| GrossiWeb | “Ad spend is whatever you set with Google, with a $1,500 monthly minimum for our management.” |
| Third Marble Marketing | A $600 minimum monthly click budget, in its own comparison chart |
| Main Street ROI | No minimum, but a recommended combined budget (its fee plus Google ad spend) of at least $1,000 a month |
| Knowurwhy (Canada) | A recommended ad budget of C$1,000 a month, not a requirement |
| Joeri Dauwe (Belgium) | “Recommended advertising budget: from €500 per month” |
Visionary Marketing, in the UK, says it refers accounts under £1,500 a month of total budget to freelancers; the data doesn’t count that as a minimum.
In the agencies’ own words, the monthly fee covers keyword and search-term work, bidding, ad copy, conversion tracking and a monthly report; some add a dedicated manager, landing page testing or direct access to the person doing the work. These are descriptions on sales pages; nothing in this study shows what clients actually receive.
| Agency | In its own words |
|---|---|
| Bootstrap Creative | “All fees include ad copy, graphics, ongoing optimization, monthly reporting, and direct access to me.” |
| GrossiWeb | “A complete package covers research, account structure, ad copy and extensions, conversion tracking, ongoing bid and negative keyword management, landing page testing and a report in cost per lead.” |
| ThinkProfits | “Every tier includes campaign strategy, bid optimization, conversion tracking, A/B testing and monthly reporting” |
| Stryde | “It covers strategy, campaign setup, ongoing optimization, feed management, creative testing, reporting, and communication.” |
| Knowurwhy | “Regular monitoring, search-term reviews, budget adjustments, and advertisement testing.” |
| One PPC Agency, £360 plan | “Google Search and local campaigns for local businesses, with call tracking, reporting and a monthly review.” |
| Olive Street Design | Unlimited keyword changes, monthly goals and conversion management, monthly negative keyword management, monthly search term review, “2x/Month Bid Management” and a monthly performance review |
| G3 Group, $199 plan | Professional setup, keyword research, ad content development, conversion tracking setup, audience and geo targeting, a dedicated manager and a performance dashboard |
| Mainstreethost, Search Ads | A dedicated PPC specialist, account setup, competitor analysis, keyword research, campaign setup, ad copywriting, bid management, conversion tracking, monthly reporting, and “You (Client) Own the Account” |
| Bruce Clay | The $2,000 base fee “includes our advanced software tools” |
What costs extra varies. In WordStream’s 2023 agency survey, as MediaPost reported it, 52% of agencies named landing-page creation as an add-on they charge for, 41% image ad and display creative, and 28% custom reporting dashboards. In this data, Bootstrap Creative’s table prices Google plus Bing or LinkedIn above Google alone, and LYFE Marketing lists Bing at $150 a month extra.
Few published surveys of management fees name a sample and a date. The largest found is WordStream’s 2023 survey of 300 agencies in the US and Canada, known here only through MediaPost’s report: 33% of agencies priced paid services as a flat fee and another 33% as a flat fee plus a percentage of spend. The rest are vendors’ own surveys or small counts, each listed with its sample and date.
| Source | Who made it | Sample | Date | What it says |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WordStream, State of the Digital Marketing Agency (read second-hand in MediaPost) | WordStream, which supports LocalIQ (vendor) | 300 agencies, US and Canada | MediaPost article, October 6, 2023 | 33% price paid services as a flat fee, 33% as a flat fee plus a percentage of spend; for PPC, 16% charge a percentage of spend, 15% billable hours, 3% other. WordStream’s own report was not read. |
| WebFX, ecommerce PPC pricing page | WebFX, an agency (vendor survey) | 250 businesses | Survey date not stated; page updated May 23, 2025 | “businesses usually spend $501 – $5,000 per month on professional PPC management (67% of businesses)” |
| Whito, UK marketing prices study | Whito, which says it is not an agency | 24 published fees from 9 UK providers | Page updated October 27, 2026 | Median £470 a month, most fees banded by ad spend; the providers are not named |
| Searchbloom, law firm agency comparison | An agency that ranks itself among the ten | Ten law firm Google Ads agencies’ sites | October 14, 2026 | 3 of the ten publish a management fee, 2 an ad spend floor or range, 6 their contract term |
| CodingClave, table of Australian providers’ published terms | An agency selling Google Ads management in Australia | Seven providers | October 6, 2026 | “Six of these seven agencies keep their own fee off the page.” |
| REACHRIGHT, Ad Grant price check | An agency that manages Google Ad Grants | Ad Grant agencies’ own sites, checked September 2026 | October 2, 2026 | Published Ad Grant plans run “from about $400 to $1,750 a month”; a different service, since Google’s grant pays for the clicks |
Vendor guides that state no method give ranges like these: Vendasta, a software vendor, says flat monthly fees “often land around $500–$2,000, with some providers as low as $200 and as high as $4,000”; OuterBox, an agency, puts hourly PPC consulting at “$75 to $250+ per hour” for many senior consultants and agencies. Neither says where the figures come from.
Third Marble Marketing publishes a “Google Ads Management Price Comparison” chart. It is a seller’s comparison: the chart “compares Monthly Management Prices based on a $1000 / month click budget,” agencies with higher minimums “are calculated as if they allowed a $1000 / month click budget,” and Third Marble says it removed the other companies’ names “after someone else’s lawyers contacted us.” Lower on the same page, an older list shows Third Marble itself at “$200 set-up, $259 / month”, against $549 in the chart.
Put every quote on the same footing: the fee at your own monthly ad spend, any setup fee, the minimum term and notice period, who owns the account and what the fee covers, all in writing. Google’s rules already require an agency that charges a separate management fee to tell new customers in writing before the first purchase and to show the fee on every invoice.
Google’s third-party policy puts the disclosure rule this way: “If you charge a management fee (separate from the cost of Google Ads or AdWords Express), you must clearly inform customers.”
Hiring for a law firm? Four law firm agencies are in this data (PaperStreet, Advantage Attorney Marketing, Grow Law and Skill Mammoth). The law firm Google Ads agency scorecard turns the questions above into checks a firm can run in its own account, and Google Ads for law firms covers what clicks and leads cost and how much to spend. Hiring for a fertility clinic? Ask how the agency would work without remarketing lists, Customer Match and lookalikes, which Google’s Health category rules out for infertility treatment; our guide to Google Ads for fertility clinics sets out the limits.
By reading the price pages of 40 agencies and freelancers that publish a Google Ads or PPC management price on their own site, found through web searches and read once, on October 31, 2026. It is not a random sample: it is the businesses that print a price and that the searches surfaced, so it leans toward small and mid-size shops that sell on price or transparency.
exclusion_reason column). R1: the page states a fee the business itself charges. R2: the service is management of paid Google Ads (Ad Grants management, where Google’s grant pays for the clicks, is out). R3: the currency is US, Canadian, New Zealand or Australian dollars, pounds or euros. R4: the currency is known: the page names it, or the price is in “$” and the business’s country is shown by an address, a local phone number or a statement on the page or its own contact page; a toll-free number, an “LLC” or a “$” from a business in a non-dollar country doesn’t count. R5: a starting fee can be read (blank where the page contradicts itself).starting_monthly_fee in the included rows. Currencies are never converted.The data file (CSV) holds all 40 rows, the 12 excluded ones too, each with its URL, the figures read from the page, the date and the reason for any exclusion. It is free to reuse under CC BY 4.0. To get the headline numbers, keep the rows where included is “yes”, group them by currency and take the median of starting_monthly_fee; the fee model counts come from model_group, the setup, contract and ad spend counts from setup_fee, contract and min_ad_spend.
| Column | What it holds |
|---|---|
agency | The business’s name as it appears on its page |
country | Where the business is, from the evidence in country_evidence (“unclear” when no page shows it) |
url | The page the price was read from |
model | The fee model in detail (for example tiered_flat, pct_min, hybrid) |
model_group | The five groups used on this page: flat, flat_then_pct, base_plus_pct, pct_with_min, flat_or_pct_unclear |
pct_of_spend_low, pct_of_spend_high | The percentage of ad spend printed, lowest and highest |
flat_monthly_low, flat_monthly_high | The lowest and highest flat monthly fee printed |
min_monthly_fee | A minimum or base monthly fee, where the page states one |
starting_monthly_fee | The starting fee used for the medians |
starting_fee_basis | Which price on the page the starting fee is, in words |
setup_fee | The setup fee as printed, “none” where the page says there is none, blank where it says nothing |
min_ad_spend | A minimum or recommended ad spend |
contract | A contract or notice term |
includes | What the fee covers, shortened from the page’s own words |
currency, currency_basis | The currency code, and whether the page names it (stated) or it is read from the business’s country (country) |
country_evidence | The address, phone number or statement that shows the country |
own_fee, service | Whether the page states a fee of the business’s own, and whether the service is paid Google Ads management (rules R1 and R2) |
source_date | The page’s own date, or “undated, checked 2026-10-31” |
notes | Other plans, conditions and contradictions on the page |
included, exclusion_reason | Whether the row is in the figures on this page, and the first rule it fails if not |
Every page was read on October 31, 2026. Dates below are the pages’ own.