Facebook Ads Cost Calculator
Pick your industry. See what a lead actually costs on Facebook, a budget that fits it, and what that budget should return.
Updated September 2, 2026
Budget calculator
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Based on your industry's click costs
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Break-even cost per lead: —
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What Facebook Ads cost by industry
Lead-campaign benchmarks for 21 small-business industries, from LocaliQ & WordStream's published Facebook data. Sorted by cost per lead, cheapest first.
| Industry | Cost per click (USD)○ | Cost per lead (USD)○ | Conversion rate○ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Restaurants & catering | $0.74 | $3.16 | 23.42% |
| Real estate | $1.57 | $16.61 | 9.45% |
| Events & venues | $1.08 | $18.17 | 5.94% |
| Law firms & legal | $4.10 | $18.17 | 22.56% |
| Automotive | $1.92† | $27.66† | 6.94% |
| Non-profit | $1.92† | $27.66† | 6.94% |
| B2B SaaS | $1.92† | $27.66† | 6.94% |
| B2B fintech | $1.92† | $27.66† | 6.94% |
| Education & tutoring | $1.65 | $28.22 | 5.85% |
| Home care & senior care | $2.08 | $30.57 | 6.80% |
| Architecture | $1.80 | $37.34 | 4.82% |
| Engineering services | $1.80 | $37.34 | 4.82% |
| Landscaping & lawn care | $2.23 | $41.26 | 5.40% |
| Roofing | $2.23 | $41.26 | 5.40% |
| HVAC | $2.23 | $41.26 | 5.40% |
| Plumbing | $2.23 | $41.26 | 5.40% |
| Healthcare clinics | $2.23 | $47.47 | 4.70% |
| Chiropractic | $2.23 | $47.47 | 4.70% |
| Med spa & aesthetics | $3.06 | $51.42 | 5.95% |
| Fitness & gyms | $2.64 | $52.98 | 4.98% |
| Dental | $9.78 | $76.71 | 12.75% |
Running search as well? See what Google Ads cost by industry — same 21 industries, same job values, and clicks that cost three to five times more.
Sources and footnotes
- ○ LocaliQ & WordStream, Facebook advertising benchmarks — the lead-generation campaign tables from their published Facebook benchmarks, across 1,000+ US campaigns. This is a published benchmark, not a Bytown measurement. Google exposes Keyword Planner, so our Google Ads calculator prices clicks from our own pull; Meta publishes no equivalent, so there is no first-party number to report here and we say so rather than implying one.
- Edition — LocaliQ's Facebook benchmarks were last published October 24, 2025. Their 2026 refresh covers search only, so this is the most recent Facebook edition that exists. Treat these as roughly a year old and directional.
- † — LocaliQ publishes no lead-campaign row for these industries, so they carry the all-industry average instead of a category figure. They are marked everywhere they appear, and the calculator says so when you pick one.
- △ Canada — LocaliQ measures US campaigns, and Meta's own financial reporting treats "US & Canada" as a single geographic segment, which is why no Canadian Facebook table exists at this granularity anywhere. Until September 2026 we published no Canadian column at all, on the grounds that scaling US figures by a search-ads ratio would be a guess wearing the clothes of data. That objection stands — our Keyword Planner pull puts Canadian search at 0.49 of US, and borrowing it here would have understated Canada by about 30%. What changed is that a Meta-measured ratio turned up: Superads publishes per-country medians off $3B of Facebook spend across thousands of accounts, September 2025 to September 2026, pricing both sides of the border with the same instrument — 0.76 on cost per click, 0.78 on cost per lead. We apply their midpoint, 0.77, as a single market-level factor to every row; Meta sells audiences rather than keywords, and there is no industry-level Canadian data to justify varying it. At 0.77 the discount nearly cancels the exchange rate, so a Canadian pays about the same number of loonies an American pays in dollars — the opposite of search.
- ○ Conversion rate — cost per click divided by cost per lead: the conversion rate an advertiser paying those two measured costs actually experiences, so every row's arithmetic checks out. LocaliQ also publishes a conversion rate per category, averaged separately; because an average of ratios is not the ratio of averages, theirs does not divide the other two — this page shipped legal at $4.10 a click, 10.53% and an $18.17 lead until September 2026, and $4.10 ÷ 10.53% is $38.94. Facebook lead forms arrive pre-filled from the user's profile, which is why restaurants (23.42%) and legal (22.56%) convert far above anything on search. The rate is identical in both countries because Canada scales both costs by one factor.
- ‡ Traffic campaigns — LocaliQ's second published table, for campaigns optimised for link clicks rather than leads. It is categorised differently from the lead table: it carries automotive, business services and finance rows the lead table lacks, and no dentists row, so dental and non-profit show no traffic figure rather than borrowing a neighbour's. Both B2B rows take Business Services, not Finance & Insurance, for the reason our Google calculator remapped B2B fintech: that category is consumer insurance by weight.
- Two categories genuinely share a cost per lead in the source: events and legal both read $18.17. That is what LocaliQ published, not a transcription slip.
- Compare converts Canadian figures to USD at 1.3896 so both columns are in the same currency.
How the math works
Costs come from published benchmarks
Every US click and lead figure on this page is LocaliQ & WordStream's, measured across 1,000+ US lead-generation campaigns and published rather than sold. We map each of our 21 industries onto their closest category and show which one, so you can check the substitution yourself. The Traffic view is their second published table, for campaigns optimised for link clicks instead of leads — on Meta the campaign objective is the biggest single lever on what a click costs. Canada scales the US figures by one measured market factor and says so. Nothing here is modelled or smoothed.
Budgets are click math
Starter buys about 5 clicks a day at your industry's cost per click; Recommended buys about 12. Monthly maximum is daily budget × 30.4, the same rule the platforms use for billing. The $5/day floor is a practical minimum, not Meta's.
The learning phase is Meta's real floor
Meta's delivery system needs roughly 50 optimisation events a week per ad set before it leaves the learning phase and stabilises. At most of these industries' cost per lead that is a far larger budget than a small business will run, which does not make Facebook unusable — it means expect noisier results and slower learning below the line. The calculator prints your industry's number.
Revenue is your inputs, multiplied
Leads = monthly budget ÷ cost per lead. Revenue = leads × your close rate × your job value. Profit subtracts the ad spend. The table's conversion rate is those two costs divided, not a separately averaged figure, so the three columns agree with each other. Nothing here predicts your account; it sanity-checks any budget a platform or an agency proposes.
Lead quality
A Facebook lead is usually colder than a search lead — they were scrolling, not looking. Expect to close a lower share of them, and set the close-rate control honestly.
The honest test
Two to three months at a steady budget. Changing the ad set restarts the learning phase, so frequent edits buy you noise instead of an answer.
When to scale
Once measured cost per lead sits below break-even, raise budget 20–30% at a time. Larger jumps re-enter the learning phase.
What this doesn't include
Creative production, management fees, landing pages, and seasonality. Facebook costs also move with your creative far more than search costs move with your ad copy — a strong hook can halve the numbers on this page and a weak one can double them. Treat these as the middle of a wide distribution, not a price tag.
Compare the channels: what Google Ads cost by industry · what ChatGPT Ads actually cost · why creative is the new targeting
See the creative that is actually running: 11 real dental ads from the Meta Ad Library, with how long each has been live — or browse the full ad examples library, where every industry page carries these same click and lead costs beside its creative.
Facebook Ads cost questions, answered
How much do Facebook ads cost?
You pay per click or per thousand impressions, and what matters for a small business is what a lead ends up costing. In LocaliQ's published US lead-campaign data, cost per lead runs from $3.16 (restaurants and food) to $76.71 (dental), averaging $27.66 across all industries. Clicks on those same campaigns run $0.74 to $9.78, averaging $1.92.
What is a good cost per lead on Facebook?
Anything comfortably below break-even, which is your job value × close rate. At a $900 job and a 25% close rate, break-even is $225 per lead — so dental's $76.71 benchmark leaves real margin. The benchmark is a reference point, not a target: a good cost per lead is always relative to what a customer is worth to you.
How much should I spend on Facebook ads?
Enough to buy a decision. Budget for at least 5 clicks a day to start and about 12 a day once you are serious, then hold it steady for two to three months. Multiply your industry's cost per click by 5 and by 12 — that is the Starter and Recommended range this calculator shows.
Can I run Facebook ads on $5 a day?
More usefully than on Google, in most industries. At restaurants' $0.74 a click, $5/day buys about 205 clicks a month. In dental, where clicks run $9.78, the same budget buys about 16 clicks a month and roughly one lead — enough to prove the plumbing works, not enough to judge the channel.
Why is Facebook's cost per lead lower than Google's?
Because the intent is lower too. Facebook interrupts someone who was not looking for you, so the click is cheap and the lead is colder; search catches someone already typing your service into a box. LocaliQ puts Facebook's all-industry cost per lead at $27.66 against $70.11 on search. Compare them on closed customers, not on cost per lead.
How much do Facebook ads cost per month?
Your daily budget × 30.4, the same monthly maximum the ad platforms bill against. At $49/day, which is five clicks a day in dental, that is a $1,490 monthly maximum; at $117/day it is $3,557. There is no monthly fee to Meta and no minimum spend.
What is the Facebook learning phase, and how much budget does it need?
Meta's delivery system needs roughly 50 optimisation events per ad set per week before performance stabilises. In dental, at $76.71 a lead, that is about $548 a day — well above what most small businesses will run. Below that line Facebook still works; it just learns more slowly and swings harder week to week, so judge it over months rather than days.
Do these Facebook ad costs cover Canada?
The measured figures are US. LocaliQ prices US campaigns, and Meta reports "US & Canada" as one segment, so no Canadian Facebook benchmark exists at this granularity. The Canadian column scales the US figures by 0.77, the Canada/US gap Superads measures across $3B of Facebook spend on both sides of the border, and is marked an estimate. It is deliberately not the 0.49 gap our Google Ads calculator measures in search: Facebook's is much narrower, and at 0.77 the discount nearly cancels the exchange rate, so a Canadian pays roughly the same number of loonies an American pays in dollars.
How current is this Facebook benchmark data?
LocaliQ last published its Facebook benchmarks on October 24, 2025, and its 2026 refresh covers search only — so this is the most recent Facebook edition in existence, and it is about a year old. Costs drift, so treat these as directional. Our Google figures are far fresher because we pull those ourselves.