Free calculator
Most people set a Google Ads budget by picking a round number they can live with. This calculator works backwards from the leads you want each month to the clicks you need, the monthly budget those clicks cost, and the daily budget to enter in Google Ads. The break-even question comes next, because 50 leads at $2,500 is only a good month if a lead is worth more than $50 to you.
Your numbers
What they mean
Your monthly budget is $2,500.00. A free Google Ads review shows what would move it.
The clicks figure is the honest one. Fifty leads at a 5% conversion rate means 1,000 people have to click, and the budget is just those clicks multiplied by what each one costs in your market.
Daily budget is the monthly figure divided by 30.4, because Google bills against the average number of days in a month. Google can spend up to double the daily figure on a busy day, and it claws that back on a quiet one.
If the monthly budget comes out higher than you can spend, change the conversion rate before you cut the lead target. Moving a page from 5% to 8% takes the same 50 leads from $2,500 down to $1,563, and that is landing page work rather than a bigger budget.
When my wife started her travel business, the budget was £1,500 a month, and it stayed profitable throughout. A small budget that converts beats a large one that leaks. My PPC budget guide covers how to split the figure across campaigns, and what Google Ads really cost gives CPC benchmarks by industry if you have no history yet.
Enough to buy the clicks your lead target needs. Work backwards from leads through conversion rate and cost per click, and you get a budget with a reason behind it. A first campaign usually needs at least $1,000 a month to gather enough data to improve on.
Google Ads multiplies your daily budget by 30.4, the average number of days in a month, to set the monthly cap. Dividing by the same figure gives the daily number to type into the campaign settings.
Start at 3% to 5% for a search campaign pointing at a decent landing page. Replace it with your own figure after the first 100 clicks, because the real number moves the budget more than any other input on this page.
Yes, up to twice the daily budget on a single day. It will never spend more than the daily budget times 30.4 in a calendar month, so the monthly figure here is the one to hold Google to.