How Much Does It Typically Cost to Run Local Ads on a Major Search Engine?

You’ve probably heard some version of:

“Google Ads is too expensive for local businesses.”

The reality is more nuanced. Running local ads on major search engines like Google and Bing can cost anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars per month, depending on your industry, competition, and goals.

Let’s break down what goes into that number and how to keep it under control.

The Three Main Cost Drivers

1. Your industry and keywords

Not all clicks are created equal.

• Legal, dental, HVAC, and finance keywords can be very expensive because one customer is worth a lot
• Restaurants, salons, and simple local services tend to be cheaper per click, but need more volume

Average CPCs in 2025 range roughly from a couple of dollars in low-competition niches to well over $20 in hyper-competitive ones.

2. Your geography

City-center clicks in big metros cost more than small-town searches. A plumber in Manhattan will pay more than a plumber in a smaller suburb for similar queries.

3. Your goals and tolerance for testing

• If you just want visibility and calls, you can start with lower budgets
• If you’re aiming for aggressive lead or sales targets, you’ll need more daily spend to generate enough conversions

Typical Budget Ranges for Local Ads

While there’s no one-size-fits-all number, most data points land in these ranges:

• Many small businesses spend $500–$2,000 per month on search ads
• Some go up to $5,000+ per month in competitive markets or high-ticket verticals
• That often translates to $20–$100 per day, adjusted over time as results come in

If your budget is well below that, you can still run tests, just accept that learning will take longer.

How to Roughly Estimate Your Own Costs

Here’s a simple way to avoid guessing.

1. Find your target cost per lead or sale.
   What can you afford to pay for a booked job, patient, or customer?
2. Estimate expected conversion rate from click to lead.
   For local service businesses, 5–20% is common for well-optimized landing pages.
3. Back into daily budget.

Example:

• You’re comfortable paying $40 per lead
• Your landing page converts 10% of clicks
• That means you can afford ~$4 per click ($4 × 10 = $40)
• If you want 10 leads per month, you’ll need 100 clicks → about $400 in ad spend → roughly $13–15/day

It won’t be perfect, but it’s a much better starting point than “let’s just try $5 and see.”

Don’t Forget Platform Mechanics

On Google Ads, you can choose:

• Daily budgets – an average amount you’re willing to spend per day
• Shared budgets – one budget across multiple campaigns
• Bid strategies – from manual CPC to automated “Maximize conversions” or “Target CPA”

Similar to Facebook, Google may spend a bit above or below your daily budget on any given day, but it aims to average out over the month.

This flexibility helps performance but makes tight budget control more important.

Control Costs With Better Payment Structure

Most guides stop at keywords and bids. But if you’re a technical or finance-minded reader, you know the payment layer matters too.

If you run multiple local campaigns, different branches, regions, or clients on a single physical card, you’re asking for pain:

• Harder to see which campaign burned which dollars
• Risk of campaigns going offline because a single card hit its limit
• Increased exposure if card details ever leak

A cleaner pattern is to use virtual cards for google ads:

• Spin up a dedicated card per location, brand, or campaign group
• Set hard limits so one experiment can’t accidentally spend your entire budget
• Rotate cards or pause them instantly if something looks off, without touching your main banking setup

That way, your “how much does it cost?” question is answered not just in the UI, but in your actual financial systems.

Where to Spend First as a Local Advertiser

If your budget is limited and you want the highest leverage:

1. Start with brand and high-intent service keywords.

• “[brand name]”
• “[service] near me”
• “[city] [service]”

2. Build a simple, fast landing page.

• Clear headline and proof you’re local
• Click-to-call on mobile
• Trust signals (reviews, photos, certifications)

3. Use call tracking and conversion tracking.

• Import phone calls and form submissions as conversions
• Optimize around what actually brings revenue, not just clicks

Once this core is profitable, you can expand into broader keywords, Display, or Performance Max always with the same discipline: estimate, test, measure, and only then scale.

In short: local search ads don’t have a fixed price tag. But with reasonable expectations, a simple model, and modern tools to control both spend and risk, you can turn “search is too expensive” into “search is one of our most predictable growth levers.”