FreedomHow Much Does Google Ads Cost in 2026? Click Prices by Industry in the US and Canada
What a Google Ads click costs in 2026 in 30 US and Canadian industries, from Google's own Keyword Planner, and how to set a budget from your margin.
Itamar DrorUpdated 15 min read
Click prices 2026
United States and Canada
People type "how much does google ppc cost" into Google about 1,300 times a month in the US and 170 in Canada, and in the US another 390 a month ask for the cost per click. The answer depends on your industry, so we measured 30 of them in both countries.
Find your situation first
An online store
Product searches sit near the bottom of our table: clothing runs from US$0.47 to US$3.03 a click in the US. Your limit is the margin on one order. Shopping ads, the listings with a picture and a price, run on your product data instead of keywords, so they are outside this table.
A service business that needs calls and forms
Personal injury lawyers, insurance, heating and cooling, plumbing and roofing all sit in the top 10 in both countries. One job has to pay for many clicks, so start from what a customer is worth.
A small budget
Put all of it on the few searches closest to a purchase. Fifty searches with a handful of clicks each will not show you what works.
How much does a Google Ads click cost in the US?
We asked Keyword Planner, the free planning tool inside every Google Ads account, about 120 commercial searches, four per industry. For each it gives a top of page bid range. By Google's definition the low end is roughly the 20th percentile and the high end roughly the 80th percentile of what advertisers paid to show at the top of the first page, over the last 30 days. Each industry is averaged by how often its searches are typed.
The Google documentation we read for these bids does not state their currency. Our account is billed in Israeli shekels, so we read them as shekels and converted them at the Bank of Israel representative rate for October 14, 2026: 3.075 shekels per US dollar and 2.1624 per Canadian dollar. The dollar figures are approximate.
- Personal injury lawyers460.16 USD
- Insurance159.11 USD
- Heating and air conditioning (HVAC)88.72 USD
- Plumbing84.91 USD
- Roofing63.65 USD
- IT services58.91 USD
- Business software (SaaS)55.28 USD
- Electricians54.14 USD
- Moving companies45.05 USD
- Home remodeling39 USD
High end of the range, about the 80th percentile, averaged across each industry's searches by monthly volume.
Google Ads Keyword Planner, United States, English, pulled October 15, 2026. Converted from ILS at 3.075 ILS per USD (Bank of Israel, October 14, 2026).
Personal injury and insurance sit far above the rest; the single search "truck accident lawyer" reaches US$1,007.87 at the high end. Heating and cooling (US$88.72) and plumbing (US$84.91) come next. Online stores fill the bottom, down to US$3.03 for clothing.
And how much does it cost in Canada?
Canada is a smaller market: the same 120 searches are typed 11.7 times more often in the US, so there are fewer clicks to buy at any price.
- Personal injury lawyers103.58 CAD
- Business software (SaaS)61.5 CAD
- Insurance55.13 CAD
- IT services53.45 CAD
- Heating and air conditioning (HVAC)51.49 CAD
- Plumbing41.35 CAD
- Dentists32.83 CAD
- Roofing26.41 CAD
- Mortgages25.5 CAD
- Moving companies24.24 CAD
High end of the range, about the 80th percentile, averaged across each industry's searches by monthly volume.
Google Ads Keyword Planner, Canada, English, pulled October 15, 2026. Converted from ILS at 2.1624 ILS per CAD (Bank of Israel, October 14, 2026).
In one currency, the high end is lower in Canada in 29 of the 30 industries. The exception is dentists: CA$32.83, which converts to more than the US figure of US$21.77. Personal injury still leads at CA$103.58.
What decides the price of your click
Google sells each click in an auction. In the words of its help center: "Each time an ad is eligible to appear for a search, it goes through the ad auction."
- 1A search is typedEvery eligible ad enters an auction for that one search.
- 2Google scores each adThe score is called Ad Rank. It combines your bid, the quality of your ad and landing page, Google's minimum thresholds, how competitive the auction is, the context of the search and the expected impact of your ad assets.
- 3Positions are handed outThe auction decides whether your ad shows, and where.
- 4You pay just enoughYour actual cost per click (actual CPC, what you are charged) is what it takes to clear the thresholds and beat the ad below yours. Google says this is often less than your maximum bid, sometimes much less.
Quality Score is a grade from 1 to 10 per keyword, built from expected click through rate, ad relevance and landing page experience. Google calls it a diagnostic tool and says it "is not an input in the ad auction." The quality of your ad at the moment of the search does count, and Google says "Higher quality ads can often lead to lower CPCs."
Keyword Planner's competition index, from 0 to 100, measures how many of the available ad slots are filled. A crowded search can still be cheap, and a quiet one expensive: "personal injury lawyer" scores 12 in the US with some of the highest bids in our table, while "treadmill" scores 100 with a high end of US$5.61. The price follows what bidders will pay for a customer.
Full table: 30 industries in the US and Canada
Low and high are the top of page range per click, averaged by search volume, in each country's own dollars. Searches are each industry's four searches combined, per month.
| Industry | United States, US$ per click (low to high) | Canada, CA$ per click (low to high) | US searches a month | Canada searches a month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Personal injury lawyers | 76.49 to 460.16 | 16.96 to 103.58 | 307,600 | 14,090 |
| Insurance | 54.88 to 159.11 | 14.16 to 55.13 | 853,500 | 53,400 |
| Heating and air conditioning (HVAC) | 15.17 to 88.72 | 7.77 to 51.49 | 665,200 | 49,300 |
| Plumbing | 13.41 to 84.91 | 5.15 to 41.35 | 956,500 | 59,590 |
| Roofing | 11.87 to 63.65 | 4.78 to 26.41 | 276,700 | 15,000 |
| IT services | 18.32 to 58.91 | 11.48 to 53.45 | 36,760 | 2,590 |
| Business software (SaaS) | 9.36 to 55.28 | 9.64 to 61.50 | 447,200 | 15,800 |
| Electricians | 5.87 to 54.14 | 3.43 to 18.81 | 404,800 | 30,310 |
| Moving companies | 12.07 to 45.05 | 6.17 to 24.24 | 247,500 | 23,460 |
| Home remodeling | 6.57 to 39.00 | 3.33 to 16.77 | 386,100 | 15,200 |
| Pest control | 7.43 to 38.45 | 3.35 to 16.87 | 331,500 | 17,680 |
| Mortgages | 9.69 to 36.44 | 5.53 to 25.50 | 452,000 | 23,400 |
| Divorce and family lawyers | 4.62 to 35.49 | 4.13 to 23.55 | 490,000 | 29,890 |
| Therapy and counseling | 7.34 to 27.55 | 3.90 to 14.17 | 549,000 | 39,100 |
| Med spas and cosmetic treatments | 2.60 to 26.44 | 1.56 to 5.41 | 456,500 | 52,900 |
| Solar | 2.73 to 22.84 | 1.75 to 8.56 | 201,500 | 11,820 |
| Dentists | 4.58 to 21.77 | 5.79 to 32.83 | 2,363,000 | 307,600 |
| Real estate agents | 4.16 to 20.26 | 2.35 to 13.04 | 299,300 | 17,850 |
| Accounting and tax | 4.22 to 19.95 | 3.11 to 15.11 | 353,500 | 23,970 |
| House cleaning | 3.95 to 16.07 | 2.40 to 9.93 | 162,000 | 11,000 |
| Chiropractic and physical therapy | 2.84 to 15.93 | 2.16 to 9.68 | 685,100 | 61,500 |
| Landscaping and lawn care | 3.37 to 15.44 | 2.37 to 10.63 | 191,000 | 12,620 |
| Senior home care | 3.30 to 15.27 | 1.79 to 9.01 | 476,000 | 8,720 |
| Locksmiths | 2.86 to 15.12 | 3.14 to 17.94 | 712,520 | 43,790 |
| Online store: furniture | 1.89 to 11.52 | 0.85 to 6.63 | 700,000 | 120,500 |
| Vets and pet care | 2.06 to 8.91 | 1.28 to 5.36 | 852,100 | 52,800 |
| Auto repair | 2.10 to 8.50 | 1.45 to 5.97 | 1,138,000 | 123,900 |
| Online store: beauty and skincare | 0.90 to 6.44 | 0.66 to 2.89 | 214,000 | 30,500 |
| Online store: fitness equipment | 0.57 to 4.73 | 0.23 to 2.71 | 575,500 | 78,000 |
| Online store: clothing and shoes | 0.47 to 3.03 | 0.29 to 1.76 | 504,500 | 40,800 |
For 9 searches in the US and 10 in Canada Google returned no volume and no bid, among them "car accident lawyer" and "emergency dentist", so those industries rest on fewer searches.
How much should you budget for Google Ads?
Start from your margin. The click price tells you what Google charges; your margin tells you what you can afford.
- 1Find what one customer is worthTake the gross profit on a first order or job. That is the most you can pay for a customer and break even, so it caps your target CPA (cost per acquisition, what you aim to pay per customer).
- 2Turn it into a click priceMultiply it by the share of clicks that become customers. With no history, use your site's current rate.
- 3Size the testBuy enough clicks to expect about 20 orders or leads, our own working rule. With fewer, one good or bad week can flip the verdict.
- 4Set the daily budgetDivide the test budget by the days it should run. For most campaigns Google may spend up to twice the daily average on one day, and no more than 30.4 times it in a month.
- Average order value
- US$80.00
- Gross margin
- 40%
- Gross profit per order (80 × 40%)
- US$32.00
- Visitors who buy (conversion rate)
- 2%
- Break even click price (32.00 × 2%)
- US$0.64
- Clicks in the test
- 1,000
- Orders expected (1,000 × 2%)
- 20
- Test budget at the break even price (1,000 × 0.64)
- US$640.00
- Test budget at the clothing high end (US$3.03 a click)
- US$3,030.00
- Cost per order at the high end (3,030.00 ÷ 20)
- US$151.50
At US$0.64 a click or less, the first order pays for its clicks. At the clothing high end each order costs US$151.50 against US$32.00 of profit, so the campaign pays only if customers buy again.
Illustration only, not client data. Click prices from our October 15, 2026 pull.
- Average job value
- CA$600.00
- Gross margin
- 50%
- Most you can pay for one customer (600 × 50%)
- CA$300.00
- Leads that become customers
- 50%
- Most you can pay for one lead (300 × 50%)
- CA$150.00
- Clicks that call or fill the form
- 10%
- Break even click price (150 × 10%)
- CA$15.00
- Clicks in the test
- 200
- Leads expected (200 × 10%)
- 20
- Customers expected (20 × 50%)
- 10
- Test budget (200 × 15.00)
- CA$3,000.00
CA$15.00 sits inside the Canadian plumbing range of CA$5.15 to CA$41.35. This business can afford the lower part of it and loses money at the top, so the test goes to the searches and hours most likely to book a job.
Illustration only, not client data. Click prices from our October 15, 2026 pull.
Why the click price is the wrong number to judge
A cheap click that never becomes a customer is the most expensive click you can buy. Judge the cost per customer: everything spent, divided by the customers it brought.
- Keyword A: price per click
- US$2.00
- Keyword A: clicks that become customers
- 1%
- Keyword A: cost per customer (2.00 ÷ 1%)
- US$200.00
- Keyword B: price per click
- US$8.00
- Keyword B: clicks that become customers
- 8%
- Keyword B: cost per customer (8.00 ÷ 8%)
- US$100.00
The click that costs four times more brings customers at half the price.
Illustration only, not client data.
For an online store the same logic runs through ROAS (return on ad spend: revenue from ads divided by what the ads cost), read against your margin. A healthy looking ROAS can still lose money on a product with a thin margin.
How to calculate ROAS, and what counts as a good one, is explained in What Is ROAS? How to Calculate It and What a Good ROAS Is.
Media cost and management fee are two different bills
Media cost is what Google charges for clicks, billed by Google. A management fee is what you pay an agency or freelancer to run the account. When someone quotes one number for Google Ads, ask which of the two it is. We do not quote a market average fee here: we have found no dated, verifiable source for one.
Before you sign with anyone, us included
- The fee and the media budget are written as two separate lines.
- The Google Ads account is in your name, and you can log in to it.
- Google bills your own card, so you see every dollar of media spend.
- Reports show cost per lead or per customer from your own records, next to Google's numbers.
- You can leave and keep the account with all of its history.
If you already run Google Ads and want to know whether your clicks are priced right, see what we check in our Free PPC Audit for Google and Meta.
How much does Google Ads cost per month?
There is no set price: you choose an average daily budget and pay per click. For most campaigns Google may spend up to twice that average on one day, but no more than 30.4 times it in a month, so a US$50 daily budget can spend US$100 on a single day and at most US$1,520 in a month.
What is the average cost per click on Google Ads in 2026?
It depends on the industry. In our October 2026 pull the high end ran from US$3.03 for clothing stores to US$460.16 for personal injury lawyers in the US, and from CA$1.76 to CA$103.58 in Canada. One average across all of them would describe none of them.
Why is Google Ads so expensive for lawyers?
Personal injury lawyers have the highest range in both countries: US$76.49 to US$460.16 in the US and CA$16.96 to CA$103.58 in Canada. The auction sets the price, and every firm bidding on the same few searches raises what it takes to rank. Family law costs far less, US$35.49 at the high end in the US.
Is Google Ads cheaper in Canada than in the US?
For most industries, yes. In one currency the high end is lower in Canada in 29 of the 30 industries we measured; dentists were the exception. Canada also has far fewer searches, so there are fewer clicks to buy.
How much should a small business spend on Google Ads to start?
Enough for a fair test on the few searches closest to a sale. What a customer is worth, times your conversion rate, gives the click price you can afford; multiply it by the clicks needed for about 20 leads or orders. If the total is more than you can risk, narrow the searches or the area before you shrink the test.
Sources
- Google Ads Keyword Planner, historical metrics for 120 English searches in 30 industries, United States and Canada, pulled through the FreedomPPC account on October 15, 2026 (field definitions: Google Ads API reference, KeywordPlanHistoricalMetrics) (checked 2026-10-15)
- Google Ads Keyword Planner, monthly searches for "how much does google ppc cost" and "google ads cost per click", US and Canada, pulled through the FreedomPPC account on September 21, 2026 (checked 2026-09-21)
- Bank of Israel representative exchange rates for October 14, 2026: 3.075 ILS per US dollar, 2.1624 ILS per Canadian dollar (checked 2026-10-15)
- Google Ads Help: About Keyword Planner forecasts (top of page bid ranges, 20th and 80th percentile, last 30 days) (checked 2026-10-15)
- Google Ads Help: Auction (checked 2026-10-15)
- Google Ads Help: About Ad Rank (checked 2026-10-15)
- Google Ads Help: Actual cost per click (CPC): definition (checked 2026-10-15)
- Google Ads Help: About Quality Score for Search campaigns (checked 2026-10-15)
- Google Ads Help: About average daily budgets (checked 2026-10-15)
- Google Ads Help: About Shopping ads (checked 2026-10-15)
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