How Much Do Facebook Ads Cost? (+9 Ways to Stretch Your Budget)

It’s no secret that Facebook continues to be a lucrative platform for brands to reach, engage, and convert customers. Just how lucrative? Well, for starters, it’s one of the cheapest social media advertising channels and has been proven to deliver the highest ROI for advertisers out of all social ad platforms.

But to officially answer that question, we’re going to dive into how much Facebook ads cost based on the latest data available, as well as how to keep your costs as low as possible.

Contents

• How much Facebook ads cost
  • Cost per click by industry
  • Cost per lead by industry
• Factors that influence Facebook advertising costs
• How to lower Facebook ad costs
• What makes Facebook ads worth the price?

How much do Facebook Ads cost?

We’ll be diving into different reports to get specific answers, but here’s the overview.

The average Meta Ads CPC is about $1.92 for leads campaigns and $0.70 for traffic campaigns, and the average cost per lead is about $27.66.

Of course, each of the studies above used different data sets. Keep in mind, too, that when we’ve asked AI this same question and very different results came up from each tool tested. Basically, costs vary by industry and campaign objective, which we’ll get to later.

🏃 Want to take this Facebook ads cost data to go? Download our free Facebook ads benchmark report so you can refer to the latest Facebook trends and insights anytime!

Facebook ads cost per click by industry

The latest industry benchmarks we could find on Facebook ad costs were our own, collected in 2025.

Our data showed an average cost per click (CPC) on Facebook Ads of $0.70 for traffic campaigns across all industries. Shopping, Collectibles, and Gifts was the cheapest industry in Facebook ads at $0.34, and Finance and Insurance was the most expensive industry at $1.22.

For the leads campaign objective, the average CPC was $1.92 across all industries. Restaurants and Food had the lowest Facebook Lead Ad average CPC at $0.74, while Dentists and Dental Services had the highest at $9.78.

Facebook ads cost per lead by industry

According to our benchmark data, the average cost per lead in Facebook ads across all industries is $27.66, ranging from $3.16 for Restaurants and Food to $76.71 for Dentists and Dental Services.

Factors that influence the cost of Facebook ads

Just like Instagram ads costs, Facebook ad costs are influenced by a number of variables.

1. Campaign objectives

Facebook campaign objectives are a prominent factor in pricing since they relate to the value of the desired goal and where in the funnel your users are.

For example, Awareness or Engagement campaigns will cost less than lower-funnel campaigns like Sales that drive purchases. It’s easier to get someone to engage with an ad than it is to entice them to click through, open up their wallet, and complete a purchase.

2. Audience size

Facebook ads targeting larger and broader audiences will generally cost less than for smaller audiences.

You will typically see lower costs in prospecting, upper-funnel, cold-audience campaigns compared to retargeting, lower-funnel, warmer-audience campaigns, because the audiences of the latter tend to be more specific, smaller in size, and therefore more competitive.

3. Daily budget

If your daily budget is on the lower end, it may take longer for Facebook’s algorithm to exit the learning phase. For this reason, costs for new ad sets are often higher upfront while the system understands how your audience behaves with your ads and how to optimize them for the highest engagement. If your ads are well-engaged with, Facebook and Instagram will reward you with lower costs over time.

4. Bidding strategy

Similarly, the way you instruct Facebook to spend your ad budget affects how much your ads cost. Facebook bidding strategies include:

• Highest volume (formerly lowest cost)
• Highest value
• Cost per result (formerly cost cap)
• ROAS goal (formerly minimum ROAS)
• Bid cap

5. Click-through rate

Click-through rate (CTR) can also play a role in your Facebook ad costs. If CTR is low, especially in a website traffic campaign, you may then see higher costs as Facebook understands that there may be some disconnect between your target audience and the messaging in your ads.

A healthy Facebook CTR is about 1-3%. More often than not, the higher your CTR climbs, the lower your CPCs will be.

6. Industry

As you saw in our benchmarks above, Facebook costs vary by industry, which also includes varying click-through rates. Your market and industry will play a big role in what to expect in terms of your Meta Ads costs. For instance, the chart below indicates pretty big differences between CTRs across various industries, which could indicate how more or less competitive your vertical may be.

7. Seasonality

Historically speaking, in the latter part of Q3 and Q4, costs tend to temporarily increase as the advertising landscape changes for the holiday ecommerce season. Competition ramps up as brands increase their budgets and gain more impression share, thus increasing costs for all advertising brands.

Keep seasonality in mind as you budget for the year. If you aren’t in ecommerce or running promotions during the end of the year, you may want to strategize on whether to keep a presence or to scale back.

How to lower Facebook ad costs

There are a number of ways to lower your Facebook ad costs, but here are some of our favorite strategies.

1. Create a full-funnel strategy

To use your budget wisely and set yourself up to scale your Facebook ads, choose funnel-appropriate campaign objectives. In general, Awareness and Consideration campaigns are suited for the top of the funnel; Consideration and Conversion campaigns align with the middle of the funnel, and Conversion campaigns are best for bottom-funnel conversions.

In short, begin with upper-funnel campaigns to reach more people in your target audience at a lower cost, and then move your way toward conversion campaigns that optimize for your purchase-driving conversion events.

You can learn how to create a full-funnel Facebook advertising strategy here.

Note that some brands can certainly run a Sales campaign targeting upper-funnel audiences with lower-priced products or something that may make for a good impulse buy.

People can and do make purchases upon first interaction with a brand on Facebook, however, most will need more touch points from a brand so you can gain their trust, showcase your benefits, and entice them to convert.

💡 Want more Facebook ads tips like these? Download our free guide to the top seven fundamental Facebook advertising tips every advertiser should know.

2. Broaden your audience

As mentioned above, audience size impacts how much Facebook ads cost. So while you want to keep your targeting narrow, you should strive to make those targeted audiences as large as possible. This has become trickier as a result of privacy measures, but we’ve got some recommended Facebook ad strategies to help you out with that.

3. Check audience overlap

Facebook’s audience overlap tool can be instrumental in saving money. Let’s say you have one ad targeting an audience of people interested in startups and another ad for people interested in entrepreneurship. You have different Facebook ad copy and creative to appeal to these different audiences. However, the overlap tool shows you that half of the startup audience overlaps with the entrepreneurship audience. Knowing this, you can use exclusions so those ads don’t overlap. Otherwise, you’d lose money bidding against yourself.

4. Use bid caps

This is the manual bidding strategy in Facebook ads, where you can set a maximum bid instead of allowing Facebook to dynamically bid based on your goals. But this should be used with caution. It’s for advertisers who have a solid understanding of the conversion rate and profit margin and require regular maintenance. If you set your bid cap too low, Facebook might have a hard time spending all of your budget.

5. Use the Pixel AND the Facebook Conversions API

The goal of both of these pieces of technology is for you to track your ad performance. With visibility into what’s working and what’s not, you can allocate budget accordingly. You can also gain insights about the people viewing your ads, which you can use to further optimize your campaigns and maximize your budget.

The Facebook Pixel is still a thing, but it is losing its power since it’s cookie-based and cookies are crumbling. The Facebook Conversions API does not rely on cookies, but it doesn’t pick up the same exact information as the pixel. So, using the two together will ensure you capture the most accurate data. You can learn how to use the Facebook Conversions API here.

For more Facebook ads conversion tracking help, check out this list of reasons why your Facebook ads may not be converting properly and how you can fix them!

6. Run Facebook A/B testing

You can also help lower your costs at the ad level by A/B testing variables in your ads—one at a time—to better understand what is and is not working well. Test out the text, headline, images and/or videos, landing pages, and more.

Facebook is not the set-it-and-forget type of platform, so it is best to continuously test and aim for better results. Running tests at the ad level can help improve your engagement rates and CTR and stretch your budget further. Check out our Facebook ad examples to get ideas and inspiration.

7. Try Meta Advantage+

Over the last couple of years, Facebook ads has rolled out Advantage+ settings that allow Facebook’s machine learning to automate campaign audience and placement targeting, ad creative, and more. These settings, which you choose to opt into, are easy to use and can be a timesaver for advertisers looking to scale more quickly. However, just know that there will be a trade-off of manual control with Meta Advantage Plus, so be sure to keep a close eye on your campaign behavior and any AI-powered assets to maintain consistent performance.

What makes Facebook Ads worth the price?

Advertising on social media in general has its benefits, but let’s finish off with some of the money-saving advantages Facebook has over other platforms like Pinterest, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

Facebook is still the most popular social media platform

With over 3 billion active users worldwide, Facebook currently ranks as the largest and most popular social media platform in the world. This is compared to other front-runners like YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

…and the most widely used

Facebook has the most even distribution of users compared to other popular social media platforms like Instagram and LinkedIn—which means you can target a larger range of age groups with your ads.

Precise targeting means higher ROI

Precise targeting means reduced Facebook ad costs. If you want to target someone in a 15-mile radius of a particular address or zip code, you can do that. If you want to reach parents with children 3-5 years old who love ice cream, you can do that, too. And we haven’t even touched lookalike and custom audiences.

Source

Though we have faced some targeting limitations as a result of Apple iOS updates, Facebook still remains one of the best PPC channels for targeted advertising. This does require changes, however, so be sure to visit our guide to Facebook ad targeting.

You have flexibility with budgeting

Facebook offers two types of budgeting to accommodate different advertising strategies. Lifetime budgets, which are good if you run ads on a schedule and/or a fixed budget and end date; and daily budgets, which are good for maximizing ongoing campaigns and pacing and planning around a fluctuating budget. You can also use the Audience Overlap Tool to save money.

It’s affordable

Facebook ads are among the most cost-effective ad types for any business, whether it spends $10 a day or thousands. With testing, retargeting, and reporting capabilities, you have the tools to make the most of every dollar you spend.

For context, the average cost per click in Google Ads is higher than Facebook’s at $5.26. So, while you still want to hit all marketing channels, including search advertising, Facebook ads can help fill any gaps in your strategy at a lower and more stable cost.

Stay on top of your Facebook ad costs this year

Ready to start or improve your Facebook advertising? We’ve got some resources for you!

• Read (or watch) our full tutorial to learn how to advertise on Facebook.
• Use our Free Facebook Ads Performance Grader to instantly find areas where you’re wasting spend.
• Lean on these free Facebook ads courses to help you optimize your campaigns.
• Get more cost information in our posts >> How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost? and How Much Does Google Ads Cost?