One of the first questions every business owner asks us is "how much do I need to spend on Google Ads?" And honestly, I get it. You want a number. You want someone to say "spend $2,000 a month and you'll get X leads." But the real answer depends on your industry, your location, and what your competitors are doing.
What I can give you is real data. Not theoretical ranges from a textbook, but actual cost-per-click numbers we see in Australian accounts every day. Let's break it down.
What does a click actually cost in Australia?
Cost per click in Australia varies wildly depending on your industry. Here's what we typically see across the service industries we work with.
For trades like electricians, plumbers, and landscapers, you're looking at $5 to $15 per click. Emergency service keywords sit at the higher end, while general maintenance terms are cheaper. When we run ads for clients like G-TEC Electrical, the average CPC lands around $8-$12 for their core service keywords in their area.
Legal services are a different story entirely. Family law, personal injury, and criminal defence keywords range from $15 to $40 per click. Some high-competition keywords in Sydney and Melbourne push past $50. If you're a solo practitioner trying to compete with large firms on broad legal terms, you'll burn through budget fast without careful targeting.
Medical and health services sit somewhere in the middle, typically $8 to $25 per click. Dentists, physios, and allied health practitioners can usually find reasonable CPCs, though cosmetic and elective procedure keywords tend to be pricier.
How do you calculate a minimum viable budget?
Here's a simple formula that actually works. Start with your industry's average CPC. Multiply that by the number of clicks you need to generate one lead. For most service businesses, that conversion rate sits between 5% and 15%, meaning you need roughly 7 to 20 clicks per lead.
Let's say you're a plumber with a $10 average CPC and a 10% conversion rate. That's 10 clicks per lead, or $100 per lead. If you want at least one lead per day, you need a daily budget of $100, which is about $3,000 per month.
Now, can you start with less? Yes, but with a caveat. If your daily budget is too low, your ads won't show consistently throughout the day. Google will run out of budget by lunchtime and you'll miss afternoon and evening searchers. I generally recommend a minimum daily budget of $30-$50 for most service businesses. Below that, you're not giving the platform enough room to find the right people.
What's the relationship between budget and leads?
This is where people often get tripped up. Doubling your budget doesn't always double your leads. There's a point of diminishing returns in every market.
Spending money on ads but not sure what's working? We'll review your account and tell you straight.
Get a free reviewIn a smaller regional area, there might only be 50 searches a day for your core services. Once your budget is large enough to capture most of those, spending more won't magically create more demand. You'd need to expand into broader keywords or new service areas, which often comes with higher CPCs and lower conversion rates.
In metro areas like Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane, there's usually enough search volume to scale. But competition is fiercer, so CPCs tend to be higher. It's a trade-off.
When we scaled up the Google Ads budget for Request Group, we didn't just throw more money at the same keywords. We expanded into related service terms, tested new ad angles, and built dedicated landing pages for each campaign. That's how they achieved a 500% increase in leads. Smart scaling, not just bigger budgets.
When should you increase your budget?
Only scale when you have the data to support it. If your current campaigns are converting well and you're consistently hitting your daily budget cap before the end of the day, that's a clear signal to increase spend. You're leaving leads on the table.
Check your Impression Share metric in Google Ads. If it's below 70% due to budget constraints, you're missing out on searches you could be winning. Increasing budget in that scenario is almost always worthwhile.
On the flip side, if your cost per lead is already too high and you're not hitting your budget cap, spending more won't help. You need to fix your account efficiency first. Better ad copy, tighter keyword targeting, stronger landing pages. Get your cost per lead to a sustainable number, then scale.
What does a realistic monthly budget look like?
For most Australian small businesses running Google Ads seriously, here's what we typically recommend as a starting point. Trades and home services should budget $1,500 to $3,000 per month in ad spend. Professional services like accountants and consultants, $2,000 to $4,000. Legal services, $3,000 to $6,000 minimum if you want meaningful volume. Medical and health, $2,000 to $5,000.
These are ad spend figures, not including management fees. And they're starting points, not ceilings. The right budget is ultimately the one that generates leads at a cost that makes you profitable.
Out of curiosity, do you know your customer lifetime value? If a new customer is worth $5,000 to your business over time, spending $150 to acquire them is a no-brainer. If a new customer is worth $200, you need your cost per lead to be much, much lower. The budget conversation always comes back to your unit economics.
At the end of the day, Google Ads is an investment, and like any investment, the returns depend on how wisely you deploy the capital. Start with a budget you're comfortable testing with for at least 90 days, set up proper conversion tracking so you can see what's working, and adjust from there based on real data rather than guesswork.
