How much do Facebook ads cost?

What do Facebook ads cost in Australia?

There is no rate card, but there are benchmarks. Across Australian accounts, the median click cost about $0.95 in the year to July 2026, reaching 1,000 people cost roughly $10 to $15, and the median lead ran about $50. Your numbers depend on your area, your ad and your offer.

• A click on your ad

  $0.49

  $0.95

  $1.53

  The high month costs about three times the low one.

• Reaching 1,000 people

  $9.63

  $14.38

  $21.73

  Called CPM: the raw cost of attention, before anyone clicks.

• A lead (a name and number)

  $25

  $50.80

  $102

  An all-industries median, which is why the trade campaign below matters more.

That median blends every industry, from sectors that pull leads for a few dollars to ones paying well over $100 a lead, and none of the published tables carries a line for trades. That is exactly why the real trade campaign further down this page matters more than any market average.

Benchmarks from Superads' published Australian Facebook ads dataset (year to mid-2026), retrieved July 2026. Full source list at the end of this page.

How does Facebook decide what you pay?

Facebook ads run on an auction. Every time someone opens their feed, advertisers compete for that moment of attention, and the price of your click or lead is whatever it took to win it. You control the total by setting a daily budget; the auction controls what each result costs.

One naming note: these ads run through Meta, which owns Instagram too, so one campaign can show in both feeds. Same auction, same budget, and the industry now says Meta ads. This page says Facebook because that's what everyone searches.

• Who you point it at. You pay for everyone the ad reaches, so "everyone within 100 km" spends most of its budget on people who can never book you. The tighter the audience matches the people who actually hire your trade, the less goes to strangers.
• What you ask them to do. A view is cheap, a click costs more, a lead costs more again. The benchmarks above are the same auction at three depths. Judge your ads on the deepest number, the lead, because that's the one that buys work.
• How good the ad is. Results divide the spend. If one ad pulls ten enquiries where another pulls one from the same money, your cost per lead just dropped by ninety percent. Real job photos and a plain offer are usually the difference.

What does a Facebook lead cost?

Across Australian accounts, the median lead cost about $50 in the year to mid-2026, swinging between roughly $25 and $102 by month. No neutral benchmark splits that out by trade, though, so an all-industries median only gets you so far. The closest real number we can give you is a client's own campaign, below.

$14.16 a lead Mr Loo, a South East Queensland plumber: 303 enquiries from $4,291 of Meta ad spend, $14.16 each. Those ads drove $120k of extra work in three months, landing on a website rebuilt to convert. Read the case study

Benchmarks tell you what a lead costs; only your own books tell you what one is worth. Work out your average job value and how many leads become jobs, and you have the number that matters: the most you can pay for a lead and still come out well in front. That number is a world apart for a gutter clean and a full bathroom renovation.

How much should you spend to start?

Less than you'd think to test, more than Meta's minimums to learn anything. Meta will technically run ads from about US$1 to $5 a day, but for a real test we'd put $30 to $50 a day behind each ad set, which is roughly $900 to $1,500 over a month.

What makes Facebook ad costs blow out?

Rarely the auction itself. Costs blow out when the spend is pointed at the wrong people, the ad gives them no reason to stop, or the click lands somewhere that can't take an enquiry. All three are fixable, and all three are more common than an expensive market.

1. Targeting wider than the area you service.

   "Everyone within 100 km" reads as reach and spends like waste: you're paying to show the ad to people you'd never quote. Set the area to where you actually work and let the budget concentrate.

2. An ad nobody stops on.

   Feeds move fast. A stock photo with a logo slides straight past; a real job, a real crew or a real before-and-after gets the thumb to pause. If the ad can't stop a scroll, the auction still charges you for the views.

3. The click has nowhere useful to land.

   Sending paid clicks to your Facebook page or a slow homepage is a common leak. You pay for the click either way; the landing spot decides whether it becomes an enquiry. A page built for the offer, with a form and a phone number, is half the campaign.

4. Nobody is watching the numbers.

   Costs move all year: reaching 1,000 people ran about 50% dearer in November 2025 than the year's median. A set-and-forget budget spends the same through the dear weeks, and nobody notices the leads thinning out until the bill arrives.

Facebook ads or Google Ads?

They do different jobs. Google Ads catch people already searching for your trade, so intent is high and the lead is warm. Facebook ads put an offer in front of people who weren't looking, which suits work people put off or don't know to search for. Plenty of trade businesses run one, not both.

• Facebook fits offer-led work you can show in a photo. The toilet-install campaign above put a specific job in front of people who weren't searching for it, at $14.16 a lead from Meta ad spend.
• Google fits searched-for work. Blocked drains, burst pipes, a dead hot water system: someone typing those words wants a tradie today, and Facebook can't match that intent. Start with our Google Ads for trade businesses page if that's your work.
• If the budget only covers one channel, match it to how your jobs start. Searches go to Google, offers go to Facebook. The longer trade-offs are in SEO vs Google Ads and the full advertising for tradies guide.

Does KINGTRADIE run Facebook ads?

Yes. The Mr Loo campaign on this page is ours: Meta ads paired with a new website and local SEO, because the three feed each other. The ad finds the person, the website wins their trust, and your Google listing catches the ones who search your name after seeing the ad.

No prices on this page because there's no honest one-size number. It's a fixed quote after a call, once we know your trade, your area and what a job is worth to you.

• The ad account, the page and every lead stay yours, in your name
• No lock-in contracts
• Plain reporting: leads and what they cost, never vanity charts