How much do Google Ads cost for an online store?

How the auction sets your cost per click

Every time someone searches, Google runs an auction among advertisers whose ads are eligible to show. Your position depends on Ad Rank, which combines:

• Your bid: the most you're willing to pay for a click.
• Ad quality: how relevant your ad and landing page are, and the expected click-through rate.
• Context: the search itself, the device, location and time.

You typically pay less than your maximum bid: roughly what's needed to hold your position. Better-quality ads can win better positions at lower costs.

CPC = Ad cost ÷ Clicks

How much Google Ads cost: average CPC benchmarks

LocaliQ and WordStream publish search advertising benchmarks from thousands of their customers' campaigns across Google Ads and Microsoft Ads. Their 2026 report (published June 2026) gives these averages:

Source: LocaliQ, Search Advertising Benchmarks, June 2026.

Treat these as rough guides:

• They cover search campaigns for LocaliQ's own customers, many of them service businesses generating leads, not just online stores.
• Shopping and Performance Max costs can differ from text search ads.
• Your own CPC depends on your keywords, competition and ad quality. After a few weeks, your own data is a better guide.

Budgeting from break-even ROAS

Instead of starting from what others pay, start from what you can afford.

Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ Gross margin Break-even cost per order = AOV × Gross margin Break-even CPC = Break-even cost per order × Conversion rate

Worked example: what can I afford per click?Example numbers

Input	Value
Average order value	$75
Gross margin	50%
Conversion rate (clicks that buy)	2.5%

1. Break-even ROAS = 1 ÷ 0.50 = 2.0
2. Break-even cost per order = $75 × 50% = $37.50
3. Break-even CPC = $37.50 × 2.5% = $0.94

To keep 10% of ad-driven revenue as profit, the target ROAS is 1 ÷ (0.50 − 0.10) = 2.5, so the cost per order can be at most $75 ÷ 2.5 = $30, and the CPC at most $30 × 2.5% = $0.75.

At $0.75 a click, this store can't afford many of the average CPCs in the table above unless it raises conversion rate, order value or margin. That's the real cost of Google Ads: what your economics can bear.

Ad Profit Leak ScoreHow much of your Google Ads spend is actually profitable, banded 0–100.Open calculator

Setting a starting budget

Daily budget ≈ Target clicks per day × Expected CPC

For example, 50 clicks a day at an expected $0.75 is about $37.50 a day, or roughly $1,140 a month. Run it for a few weeks, then:

• Keep and scale campaigns beating your target ROAS.
• Fix or cut campaigns below break-even.

Customer Acquisition Cost Payback CalculatorHow many orders it takes to pay back what you spent acquiring a customer.Open calculator

If customers buy again, a first order below break-even can still pay off. The calculator above shows how many orders it takes to earn back the acquisition cost.

Want this tracked automatically, every day?See which Google Ads campaigns actually make money, measured on real profit (POAS), not just revenue.Try Selvra OS

How to lower what you pay

• Improve ad and landing page relevance to raise ad quality.
• Add negative keywords so you don't pay for irrelevant searches. See Google Ads match types.
• Improve your product feed for Shopping ads. See the Merchant Center guide.
• Raise conversion rate and AOV, which raise the CPC you can afford.

For the formulas behind clicks and costs, see CTR, CPC and CPM formulas. For automated bidding, see Target CPA and smart bidding.