How much do Facebook ads cost? Two answers, and you need both. There’s what Meta charges you for the ads themselves, which you control completely, and there’s what it costs to have someone run them properly. This guide covers both, with the budgets we actually recommend to local businesses.
How Facebook ad pricing works
Facebook ads are sold by auction, not by price list. You tell Meta your budget (say £7 a day), and it spends that budget showing your ad to the people most likely to do what you’ve asked for, whether that’s clicking, messaging or filling in a form. You’re charged from your budget as the ad is shown and clicked.
That means nobody can tell you a fixed “price of a Facebook ad”, and you should be suspicious of anyone who does. What an ad costs you depends on your area, your audience, your industry and how good the ad itself is. A striking photo with a clear offer costs less per result than a dull one, because Meta rewards ads people respond to.
What you can control is the budget. You set a daily or lifetime cap, and Meta will never spend past it. There’s no contract with Meta and you can pause any time.
The real question: what’s the minimum that works?
Technically, Meta will run ads on a couple of pounds a day. Practically, that’s usually money down the drain. Here’s the honest reason: Facebook’s system learns who to show your ad to from results, and a tiny budget generates results too slowly for it to learn much. You end up paying for guesswork.
From the campaigns we manage, the realistic floor for a local business is about £5 a day, so £150 a month, aimed at one goal in one local area. Below that, expect slow learning and patchy weeks. £10 a day gets you cleaner data and quicker answers.
Budgets by goal
The right spend depends on what you’re asking the ads to do. Rough guide:
| Goal | Realistic monthly spend | What to expect |
|---|---|---|
| Local awareness (get known in your town) | £150 to £250 | Thousands of local people seeing your name and offer |
| Enquiries and leads (messages, forms, calls) | £250 to £500 | Steady lead flow once the ad and offer are proven |
| Online sales (shop or bookings) | £300 upwards | Needs retargeting and testing; judge over 2 to 3 months |
| Testing a new offer | £100 to £150 over 2 weeks | A yes/no answer on whether the offer lands |
Treat the first month as tuition. Some of the budget buys results, some of it buys the knowledge of which image, message and audience work for you. That knowledge makes every following month cheaper.
One more honesty check: if your Facebook page has been quietly underperforming for years, ads amplify whatever’s there. Fix the basics first, and our guide on why your Facebook page isn’t bringing in customers covers exactly that.
Management fees: the second cost
Running ads properly is a weekly job: watching results, killing weak ads, testing new ones, adjusting audiences. You can do it yourself for free (in money, not in evenings). If you’d rather hand it over, MarketingDone4U manages paid social ads from £69 a month for a single campaign, £129 a month for up to three ad sets with audience testing and basic retargeting, and £249 a month for the full works including creative direction. You can see what each plan costs in one place.
Ad spend is always separate from the management fee. The fee pays for the work; your ad budget goes directly to Meta and stays yours to set. Any provider who blurs those two numbers together is hiding something, usually a thin ad budget.
So a sensible all-in starting point for a local business is around £220 to £280 a month: £150 or so to Meta, £69 to have it managed. Compare that with what one new customer is worth to you across a year, and you’ll know quickly whether it’s worth testing.
Is Facebook the right place for your budget?
Facebook and Instagram ads (one system covers both) are at their best when your product is visual, local or impulse-friendly, and when you need to create demand rather than catch it. If people are already searching for your service by name, Google often earns the first budget instead. Our Google Ads vs Facebook Ads comparison settles that choice properly, and our Google Ads cost guide shows the other side’s numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Can I run Facebook ads for £1 a day?
You can, Meta allows very small daily budgets. But at that level the system gets so few results that it never learns who responds, so performance stays random. £1 a day is fine for boosting a post to locals occasionally. For actual lead generation, treat £5 a day as the working minimum.
How much should a small business spend on Facebook ads per month?
For a local UK business, £150 to £300 a month in ad spend is a realistic working range: enough for Meta’s system to learn and for you to judge results fairly. Spend at the lower end for awareness in one town, more if you want steady enquiries or online sales.
Do Facebook ads cost more than Google Ads?
Per click, Facebook is usually cheaper. Per customer, it depends on your business. Google catches people already searching, so fewer clicks are wasted. Facebook interrupts people who weren’t looking, so clicks are cheaper but convert less often. Judge both on cost per enquiry, never on click price alone.
What’s included in a Facebook ads management fee?
With MarketingDone4U: campaign setup, audience building, ad copy, monthly optimisation and reporting, from £69 a month depending on plan. Client-supplied creative on Starter; testing and retargeting on higher tiers. The fee never includes ad spend, which you pay directly to Meta and control yourself.
How long before Facebook ads start working?
Expect the first two to four weeks to be a learning period, for Meta’s system and for you. Early results tell you which image and message land, then performance usually settles. Judge an awareness campaign after a month, and a sales campaign over two to three months, not on week one.
Want this done for you? See our paid media services, or compare every service and price in one place.
