This page explains how I scope and price Google Ads management for UK businesses: what each level of service covers, what the monthly fee pays for, what it leaves out, and how much to set aside for the ads themselves. For a closer look at the work I do in the account each week, see my page on monthly Google Ads management.
I do not publish a price list. Instead, each quote is written after a free audit or first call, in GBP, and agreed in writing before work starts. Fees are in pounds and exclude your ad spend, which you pay to Google directly. The rest of this page explains what decides the fee.
Three levels of Google Ads management
The levels differ in how much of Google Ads you use, not in how carefully the account is looked after. Every level gets the same core work, described further down. The larger ones add campaign types that take longer to build, need more data to judge and need closer checking. The exact scope of your account is set in the written quote.
Search
For a business that wants enquiries from people searching for its services in a defined area: a heating engineer covering south London, an accountancy practice in Leeds, a supplier selling a short product range to other businesses. The package covers Google search campaigns only, with call and form tracking, regular search term work and ad testing. In my view it is the right starting point for most service businesses, because search is the easiest part of Google Ads to control and to measure.
Search and Performance Max
For a business whose search campaigns already bring enquiries and which wants to reach further. On top of search, this level adds Performance Max campaigns, remarketing to past visitors, and separate budgets for several service lines or locations. Performance Max spends across search, YouTube, Gmail, Display and Maps from one campaign, so it needs closer watching to stop it claiming credit for sales that would have come anyway.
Full account
For online shops and larger accounts. This adds Shopping campaigns run from a product feed in Google Merchant Center, feed disapproval fixes, product-level reporting, and YouTube or Demand Gen campaigns where they suit the business. Ecommerce accounts take the most time, because the feed has to stay accurate as prices, stock and products change.
| Search | Search and Performance Max | Full account | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Suits | Service businesses starting out or rebuilding | Businesses with search working, ready to widen reach | Online shops and multi-channel accounts |
| Campaign types | Search | Search, Performance Max, remarketing | Search, Performance Max, Shopping, YouTube, Demand Gen |
| Product feed | Not needed | Only if Performance Max uses one | Managed and kept free of disapprovals |
| Plain-English report and call | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Fee | Quoted in writing | Quoted in writing | Quoted in writing |
What every level includes
- A tracking check before anything else. I confirm that calls, forms and sales are each recorded once and only once, because bidding and reporting are only as good as that data. My guide on testing whether conversion tracking works shows what I look for.
- Regular search term work. I read the search terms report, exclude searches that will never buy and add the phrases customers actually use.
- Bids and budgets set by what a customer is worth, not by Google’s suggestions in the interface.
- Ad testing. New headlines and descriptions written and tested against the current ones, with a record of what won.
- A report in plain English, at an interval agreed before work starts, followed by a call: what was spent, what it brought in, what I changed and what happens next.
- An account that stays yours. It sits in your business’s name with your own billing, and I work in it as a user you can remove.
What the fee does not cover
- Ad spend, which Google charges to your card or invoice and which never passes through me.
- Building new landing pages. If the page the ads point to is the weak link, that is a separate job: see landing pages built for paid traffic.
- Website development beyond adding and testing tracking tags.
- Video production for YouTube ads, and paid third-party tools such as call tracking, which you subscribe to directly.
- Advertising on other platforms, such as Facebook and Instagram, which is quoted separately.
How much to budget for the ads themselves
The fee pays for the work; the ad budget decides how much evidence that work has to go on. Google’s automated bidding learns from conversions, and so do I. An account that records a handful of enquiries a month gives neither of us much to learn from, however well it is run.
I do not publish a minimum ad budget, because a sensible figure depends on what a click costs in your market and how many of those clicks turn into enquiries. You can work out a starting figure yourself:
- Look up the likely cost of a click for your own keywords in Keyword Planner, with the location set to where you trade. Its top-of-page bid range is a rough guide, not a price.
- Estimate how many visitors from paid search become enquiries, using your own analytics or enquiry history. If you have no history, assume fewer than you hope.
- Divide the cost per click by that conversion rate to get a rough cost per enquiry, then multiply by the number of enquiries you want each month.
- Check that the cost per enquiry still leaves a profit once you know how many enquiries become customers. The ROAS and ROI calculator includes the management fee, so it shows the return needed to cover both.
To show the sum with made-up numbers: clicks at £2.50 and one enquiry from every 25 clicks gives a cost of £62.50 per enquiry, so 20 enquiries a month needs about £1,250 of ad spend. Those figures are invented for the arithmetic and are not UK averages. For published figures by sector, with their sources, see my UK cost per click and cost per lead benchmarks.
My own judgement, not a rule: if the management fee would be a large share of your total monthly cost, ongoing management is poor value. In that case I would rather build the account once and hand it over with my Google Ads checklist, and talk again when the budget grows.
What decides the fee
Two businesses at the same level can need quite different amounts of work. I quote after looking at what is actually there, and these are the things that move the figure:
- Where the account starts. A new build takes set-up time; an inherited account with duplicate conversions or years of loose keywords needs a repair period before ordinary management can begin.
- How many service lines and locations need their own campaigns, budgets and ad copy.
- The size and state of the product feed, for Shopping and Performance Max.
- Regulated sectors. Financial services, healthcare and some other categories carry extra Google policy checks, and UK rules such as the FCA’s financial promotion requirements or the CAP Code mean more care over every ad.
- Reporting needs, such as extra people on the monthly call or reports split by branch.
How the fee is worked out, and what it covers, is set out in the written quote before any work starts, so you can budget for it and know what changes if your ad spend goes up or down.
One-off work instead of ongoing management
Not every business needs ongoing management. If you want to run the account yourself, I can do a one-off Google Ads setup, covering the account, tracking and first campaigns, and hand it over with notes. If you already run an account and want an outside view, a paid audit gives you a ranked list of fixes, and consulting sessions suit an in-house marketer who wants a second opinion now and then. Each of these is quoted on its own, in GBP, after a first call.
How to get an exact quote
- Send me your website address, whether you already have a Google Ads account and roughly what you spend or plan to spend each month.
- If there is an account, give me read-only access so I can see the campaigns, the spend and the tracking. Nothing changes while I look.
- We talk through what you sell, where you sell it, and what an enquiry or sale is worth to you.
- You get a written quote setting out the scope, the fee, anything one-off, what is and is not included, and the terms, including any notice period.
The quickest way to start is to get in touch with your website and current spend, and I will tell you which level of work fits, or whether you need ongoing management at all.